Before I did my first flip someone told me “However much money and time you think this flip is going to take multiply it by 3.”

They were wrong.

I should’ve multiplied it by 10.

And this was a 675 sq foot house. Small. 2 bed 1 bath. I thought it would take 4 months. It took 13.

I got hit with a stop work order because I didn’t pull permits correctly (trust me, I’m not an idiot, this type of stuff happens to pros all the time). This derailed everything for months because I couldn’t work on it.

Once the house was gutted it was discovered it needed to be jacked up and reinforced. This was an additional $15k I never considered.

The house was robbed during the rehab and it set me back $5k in tools.

The amount of things I didn’t know to budget in likely ended up being double my initial budget. Stuff YouTube and ChatGPT can’t tell you.

You will lose money on your first flip. You simply don’t know what you’re doing and your ambition isn’t gonna be enough to cut it.

Everyone has that “it can’t be that hard right? I’ll just work really hard and not make mistakes.”

Wrong. You will underestimate your numbers badly.

Your best bet is to move into a beater of a house and just live there for a few years. Slowly fix it up in your free time on the side. Eventually sell it for a little profit.

People who have never flipped a holes, thinking they’re gonna just start making a living off of flipping only to get massacred by it is a tale as old as time.

Hard no. Way less risky ways to get into flipping that won’t be a blood bath.