Hopefully this isn't too bad a taste, but every so often a deal crosses your desk that looks almost too good. This was one of them. Off-market house here in Austin. A wholesaler had it locked up. New roof, newer HVAC, and the "rehab" was really just a trash-out and some paint. Clean it up, list it, done. Here's how it penciled: - Purchase: $328,000 - Rehab budget: ~$40,000 - Resale / ARV: $450,000 - Projected profit: $35,802 - Margin: 8%, about 26% annualized For a trash-out and some cosmetics, that is a strong number. Deals that easy make me suspicious, so we started digging. Everything checked out. Roof, mechanicals, comps, title. Then the seller's disclosure notice landed, and the whole thing turned on a single line. Someone had been killed in the house. A recent, violent death, in the same home we were about to fix up and sell to a family. I have walked hundreds of distressed properties. Fire, foundation failures, hoarder houses, homes taken down to the studs. In all those years I had never run into this one. It is the rare kind of damage a contractor can't quote. We passed. Some things you don't put your name on, and reselling a house with that history to an unsuspecting buyer is one of them. That $35,802 looked great right up until it didn't. The wildest deal-killers I have ever seen never showed up in the numbers. They showed up in the story of the house. So read the disclosure notice line by line before you fall in love with a deal, because the worst surprises are the ones no budget has a line for. 👉 What is the strangest thing that ever killed one of your deals? I don't think mine can be topped, but I'd love to be proven wrong. See Police Report Here

The 70% rule said I could pay $202,500 for this Leander flip. Once I ran the real underwriting, the all-in acquisition came to $211,781 after a $20,000 wholesaler assignment fee, lender points, processing fees, title, and insurance. Rehab then ran almost 20% over budget, and holding costs stacked on top across a two and a half month hold. The deal still projects around $60,000 profit, and I only knew that because I ran every line before I signed. ▶️ Watch the full 13-minute walkthrough. I screen-share the actual underwriting, line by line, including the parts that made me wince. What line item has burned you worst? Rehab overruns, lender junk fees, or a hold that ran long?

A wholesaler sent over 710 Quail Run at $190K on a first-come, first-serve basis. On paper it looked juicy — the deal analyzer pulled comps averaging ~$387K ARV, which screams margin. But this is exactly where most people get burned: they trust the tool's number, skip the verification, and buy a headache. So I walked it and ran the real numbers. Watch me break down the whole thing in the video below. The short version: the ARV was inflated by comps from a totally different pocket of the neighborhood (four outliers on the other side of a green space priced $391K–$456K). The true comparable range was $282K–$305K, so I underwrote a realistic $310K ARV. Then the property itself told the real story — urine smell at the front door, torn-up deck, bad siding, and a roof that needs replacing. That's a $65K–$75K rehab, not a cosmetic refresh. Here's how it actually pencils: - Purchase price: $190K (looks great in a vacuum) - Realistic ARV: $310K, not the tool's $387K (comps were from a different pocket of the neighborhood) - Rehab: ~$70K, plus a 10% contingency → ~$77K real budget - Hidden costs that quietly kill deals: ~$23K in closing, title/escrow, lender points, insurance, holding costs - Total acquisition (all-in): ~$200,795 - Projected profit: ~$8,326 on a 2.7% margin over ~4 months A 2.7% margin means one surprise — a rehab overrun, a slow sale, a rate hiccup — wipes the whole thing out. That's not a deal, that's a part-time job with downside risk. The lesson: the spread between what you buy for and what you sell for is only as real as the numbers in the middle. Verify the ARV, verify the rehab, and never forget the costs nobody quotes you. If it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no — and this one was a hell no. 👇 Full breakdown in the video.

We put a Pflugerville flip under contract last month. We had to put $1960 down as earnest money and at a glance it looked like a deal worth doing. Buy at $200K and resell around $315K. Once we walked the property, we started underwriting it for real. And here's what I want you to see: a bad deal rarely shows up bad on day one. It gets worse the deeper you dig. We built the real rehab scope. $59,102. Margin got tighter. We priced the money. Senior loan at 9%, gap funding at 12%, about $6,200 in interest carry. Tighter again. We added the costs everybody forgets. Origination, title, insurance, taxes, utilities, sell-side. All-in landed at $300,130. Ran the exit at a $315K resale. Here's where it left us: - Projected profit: $14,870 - Margin: 4.7% - Contingency in the budget: $5,373 Sit with that a second. To make $14,870, we'd borrow around $290K, carry it three to four months, run a full rehab, and sell into a market that owes us nothing. The whole thing rides on $5,373 of cushion. One bad roof, one slow buyer, one surprise, and the profit is gone. Two surprises and we're paying to do the deal. Every number we checked said the same thing, louder each time. This one didn't pencil. So we terminated. We let $1,960 in earnest money go and we walked. That $1,960 was the cheapest money we spent all quarter. A bad flip on this one would've cost us five figures and a whole season of our lives. If it's not a HELL YES, it's a hell no. And a 4.7% margin was a hell no the deeper we looked. The pencil doesn't lie. If you wanna see our underwriting, peep the deal package attached. 👉 What's the smallest margin you'll take on a three-to-four-month flip before you walk? Drop your number below, and be honest about whether the deal on your desk right now clears it.

Welcome to Flip by the Numbers. Glad you're here. Before you post anything, I want to tell you what this place is about. ✏️ WHAT THIS IS This is a community for flippers and wholesalers who want the truth about a deal before they own it. We underwrite deals together, out in the open. We build rehab budgets that hold up when the contractor actually shows up. We count every cost, including the ones that never make the highlight reel. If you wholesale, you belong here too. You're the first person to underwrite a flip, and pricing an assignment starts with running your buyer's numbers. 🚫 WHAT THIS IS NOT I'll be straight with you. There's no hype in here, and you don't need to be crushing it to post. There's no pitch waiting at the end of a free training. If you post a win that skipped the math, expect questions, because a win without numbers is just a story. And if you pitch a member in the DMs, I'll remove you the first time it happens. 📋 THE GROUND RULES 1. Build each other up. Be tough on the numbers and kind to the person. Someone posting their first underwrite is doing something most people never work up the nerve to do. Help them get better. 2. Be genuinely helpful. Answer the way you'd want someone to answer you if your earnest money were on the line. If your answer is "it depends," say what it depends on. 3. Show your math. Opinions are welcome. Opinions with numbers are what change decisions. 4. Walk-aways are wins. If you passed on a bad deal this week, post it in Wins & Walk-Aways. Walking away from a bad number takes more discipline than closing ever will. Around here, if it's not a HELL YES, it's a hell no. 👇 TWO THINGS TO DO RIGHT NOW 1. Drop an intro in the comments. Your market, your strategy, and how many deals you've done. Zero is a great answer. This place was built for people starting at zero. 2. Watch for Monday's Deal Check. Real deal, real numbers, and a poll. Take a swing at it. Wrong answers are how everyone here got good. Glad you're in. Let's find out what pencils.