Make Money with Flippers, Fixers, and Renovations (Make Money in Real Estate) [Paperback]

Making Money with Flippers, Fixers and, Renovations covers a good number of strategies to profit from investing in residential real estate. There are a myriad of approaches, but this book "focuses" on buying properties to resell. Gary Eldred touches on buying to hold and land lording, but this is not the book to learn those methods. Flipping has gotten a lot of attention over the last few years and has become somewhat controversial in the recent market turmoil. Here, the process is demystified and you learn that a bubble market isn't needed to profit from flipping.

Fixers are homes that need minor repairs and updating. These homes can be bought at a discount, cleaned up, and sold for a profit. Most retail buyers will not consider them because of their of imagination and desire to buy a "perfect" home. This spells opportunity for you. Buy a fixer at a discount, clean it up, and sell it retail. Use imagination in making it end user ready, and market it creatively and comprehensibly to capture your profit.

Renovations are for those homes that need rehabbed. This takes more due diligence and contracting knowledge, but can be done by without hands-on rehab experience. It also can provide the most profit because the discount to market pricing can be far deeper than the cost of the renovations. Eldred has a fondness for converting a single family home into a duplex or even 3-4 units. That is true value add, but also a true project in many cases.

Two stand out strategies are well covered; marketing and negotiating. Eldred clearly has a much experience in both and gives examples of what works well and what doesn't. These are both sections I will read again in the future.

While this book was published in 2008, it doesn't deal much with current market conditions, which have changed dramatically. I'd like to hear more about today's opportunity to purchase at more than 30-40% off market value (some markets) and how traditional financing options have diminished greatly. That said, Eldred does a good job of describing numerous and creative alternative financing options that are valid today. Another weakness is not leveraging the Internet. Much work (market research, finding deals, networking, marketing) throughout the process can be accomplished online, but is scarcely touched upon.

One theme that rings true throughout is that "market strategy trumps market value." Research, create a plan, execute, and sharpen the plan and execution, will beat merely paying bottom dollar. Not that value isn't in the equation, it's just that you create and capture more of the value with your strategy. Speaking of which, reading Making Money with Flippers, Fixers and, Renovations was a good value for my time invested.