REI Wealth Monthly Issue 6 | Page 20

5 SIMPLE TIPS FOR GETTING STARTED FLIPPING HOUSES DANNY JOHNSON money, something we are all afraid of for good reason. This is why I really hate all of these fancy techniques people come up with to teach others. I don't think these people ever even use these techniques because most of them are very dangerous and only sound good on paper. In real life, things rarely work out exactly as planned and many of these 'techniques' require everything to work out perfectly. 5. You Don't Need a Lot of Money to Get Started Contrary to popular belief, you don't need a lot of money to flip houses. There are several ways to start flipping without much money. As I mentioned before, buying directly from homeowners allows you to buy houses with small amounts of earnest money. This means you can put houses under contract for as little as $1 (for earnest money - I typically give $25 for earnest money). You can close on the house, in which case you need to have funds to buy it. Conventional loans might be out of the question for you, so you can use a hard money lender. These are lenders that lend money for investment properties for the short term. They are call 'hard' money lenders because they typically charge higher interest rates and loan fees. Just include those costs in your buying formula (buy for cheaper) and you can make it work. Or, you could decide not to close on the house (e.g. decide not to fix it up and sell it to make a large profit), and instead wholesale it. decide to You don't have to close if you can find a buyer that is willing to buy the contract from you. This is called assigning the contract. Your investor buyer will pay you for selling the contract to them. People routinely make thousands and even tens of thousands simply by assigning contracts.