A Teacher & Non-Profit Worker Make Life-Changing $130,000 First Flip Profit

Unknown Speaker  0:01  
You're listening to the flip houses like a girl podcast where we educate, empower and celebrate everyday women who are facing their fears, juggling family and business, embracing their awesomeness and wholeheartedly chasing their dream of flipping houses. Each episode delivers the honest to goodness tools, tips and strategies you can implement today to get closer to your first or next successful house flip. Here's your spiky haired breakfast taco loving host house flipping Coach Debbie DeBerry.

Debbie DeBerry  0:39  
Hey there. Thanks for hanging out with me today. I'm excited to share this interview with you have two students here in the Austin area who recently completed and sold their first flip for a massive profit. Definitely record setting for sure. And they're really good people. And they did a really quality renovation on this property. They didn't leave things on dine, they went above and beyond, they created a safe, beautiful space for a new family to enjoy. And this by far was not an easy project. Okay. So many things came up, including a raccoon family more like a raccoon infestation. Alright, so basically raccoons squatted in the house, okay. And that's just one thing they had to deal with. They dealt with so many hurdles they had so many problems come up, and they just kept solving them. And that's all you can do. And a lot of people get so hung up in Well, what if I choose the wrong answer? What if I choose the wrong solution, then guess what you just choose? Again, you're not committed to that solution. If you choose one route, and that doesn't work, change routes, right? Change solutions. It's not all set in stone, it is fluid. It's one of the things I love about this business. Alright, without further ado, let's jump into this conversation with Emily and Jean. A little bit about you, obviously where you guys are, but maybe a little bit of your background. Sure. Well, I'm

Unknown Speaker  2:32  
Emily, this is my wife, Jean. And we live in Austin, Texas. And we have been part of this flipping program for the past year. I'm originally from Western New York, but moved out to Texas to join AmeriCorps after college and plan to only be here for one year in Austin ended up just kind of staying here forever. I've been here ever since I work in the nonprofit sector, I still work for basically the AmeriCorps kind of network. So community service and nonprofit work is really important to me. And that was something that, you know, really drew me to this program too, was like, it wasn't just exploiting people to make money. It was about community building as well. So you know, that's a little bit about me, we live in Austin with our five dogs in South Austin.

Unknown Speaker  3:21  
Enjoying me, I'm gonna make mine much quicker and shorter, but I'm just finished teaching. I've taught 26 years. I'm super excited about that. So retire and on to the next chapter.

Debbie DeBerry  3:37  
Have you been in Austin the whole the whole time? Or where are you from?

Unknown Speaker  3:40  
From New Mexico. And I spent eight years teaching in New Mexico. And then I went to New Orleans. And then I came over to Austin, taught 16 years

Debbie DeBerry  3:52  
nonprofit background, teaching background, and you'll decide let's flip the house. Well, how did that come about

Unknown Speaker  4:00  
that desire? We've just always been interested in like home renovations, like our relationship basically started actually helping a friend renovate her house. So I actually met Jean tearing up flooring at our friend's house and it was like love it sight. I love it. And yeah, I think we were both like, just, you know, like being with somebody who wanted to do things be hands on. I'm definitely more like bookish one and jeans much more handy than than me but we both like I have a desire to do that. And we've had my house as a rental for like the past 10 years and have kind of slowly been flipping it a little bit here a little bit there kind of making improvements as we go. And so I feel like we've learned some along the way. We knew enough to be dangerous. We didn't really know what flipping entails, but we wanted to take it to the next level. And we've been hearing about you for so many years from our mutual friend Kelly. And you know, and she kept saying, you know, oh my friend Debbie flips houses and We'd always say, Man, we really need to take her out for coffee and figure out what she does. And then finally, one day, Kelly said, Well, she has a program. And she said, Why haven't you told us about this? And as soon as she told us, you had a program, you know, we found you online, we started reading about it. And we thought, this is exactly what we want to do. And the timing was perfect, because both of us, you know, with Gene retiring, we've been planning towards that retirement for the past, like seven years, as soon as, like, had taken a trip to Costa Rica and realized, wow, we really want the flexibility to be able to go anywhere and travel and, and have kind of different lifestyle. You know, it seemed like this great way to earn some supplemental income in preparation for jeans, retirements, and, you know, potentially, for me to leave, you know, nine to five work eventually myself too. So it just really appealed to us. And we just jumped right in and joined your program.

Debbie DeBerry  5:53  
I love that. That's how y'all met. That's so random. I love it. I love it. Obviously, you guys just finished your first flip and sold it. Let's go through the process of you know, everybody wants to hear the numbers. Everybody wants to know all the details. So let's go through the process of how did you find the deal? Let's let's start there. How did you find this one?

Unknown Speaker  6:14  
That's pretty boring. Because we found it on the MLS. We found it on Redfin. And I had seen it at one point and like favorited it and then gene brought it back to my attention and said, you know, maybe we should go see this one. We had bid on six houses up until that point all on the MLS and not gotten any of them. And and this one just looked cute. It had curb appeal. It actually didn't look that bad on the outside. It's really when you got into it really was the pictures did not do it justice to how horrible it really was. And so it had gone under contract, actually. So it had gone off the market and and it fell through. So it came back on. And as soon as it did, we got into tour we, you know, pretty much jumped right on it and made an offer quickly. So we bought it through Redfin just on the MLS.

Debbie DeBerry  7:06  
That's amazing. Okay, had it been on the market for a while? Or no?

Unknown Speaker  7:11  
Well, it had been for like a month, but it was it had gotten, you know, snatched up by another investor. And then I guess they declined or something fell through. I think the septic system is what threw them off. Is my guess. Yeah, knowing like, surprises they didn't like how much new septic system costs, right. And then, you know, here come along the new investors who are more willing to take a risk, right? You wouldn't, you know, we were willing to just make $25,000 if that was, you know, all we could make, we weren't gonna be happy with that. Yeah.

Debbie DeBerry  7:43  
Yeah, exactly. There's so much learning in the doing like you have, you just have to go do it's part of it. And if you make a great profit, awesome, little bit, you know, most people like the whole point, the whole goal of the first one is to just do it in a way that makes you want to do it again, whatever that looks like to you. And most of the time, it's, you know, we don't like lose our pants on this. I'm gonna feel pretty good about, you know, trying it again.

Unknown Speaker  8:09  
Yeah, I remember filling out, you know, the, our spreadsheet of numbers and pitching it to our hard money lender and saying, You're really not going to make that much on this deal. You know, are you sure you want to do this? And I said, Yes. Yeah, we want to do it. 20,000 fine. We're good with that. You know, we don't need to be too greedy.

Unknown Speaker  8:27  
I think we just wanted one that we could just start learning more, right? There's like, okay, as long as we can make a little bit of money, right. We'll be okay with our first one. Yep. To see for you. And so, our expectations were pretty low. Are you kidding? what we what our profit would be? Yeah,

Debbie DeBerry  8:46  
given what it was Yes. They were low. Right. Um, okay. So you found it on the MLS amazing. made an offer got accepted. That's crazy. But what was the purchase price?

Unknown Speaker  9:00  
This is the even crazier part. We got it for 15,000 less than it was offered for. Yeah, it was offered at 235 we we put in an offer for 220. And we got it at 220. But, you know, pretty much no contingencies and all of that cash offer through our hard money lender, so and it was owned by a real estate agent who was also basically a wholesaler so he was basically wholesaling his own property. It had been owned by a family that the father had lived there alone, I guess in his old age and had finally passed away in a nursing home and the house had been vacant for quite some time. And the family I think, just didn't probably know what to do with it. So this real estate agent had snatched it up and basically wholesaled it to us and I think made quite a bit of money on it himself as well. bought it for 220 initially,

Debbie DeBerry  9:53  
what was your renovation budget?

Unknown Speaker  9:56  
Well, in the original spreadsheet, you know, we put in a budget Have 101,000 Okay, that was the target 101.

Debbie DeBerry  10:04  
That's a pretty hardy budget.

Unknown Speaker  10:07  
It is a very hardy budget. We are very good. We realized that sticking to a budget.

Unknown Speaker  10:17  
But also there were a lot of surprises. But I guess we just didn't realize how much we were getting into and how long it would take. So, in the end, the renovations ended up being around 155. Okay, so a lot more than the original 54,000 more for financing.

Debbie DeBerry  10:37  
Did you finance the renovations as well as the purchase?

Unknown Speaker  10:41  
We did. We used a we did have some money, though, from our home equity line of credit on our house. That basically helped us put down the downpayment and funded some of you know, pre created some of the cash flow for like renovations and paying contractors. But the loan was from a hard money lender. And then we ended up because we went over budget, we really had to finance it from personal savings and from like personal credit cards to cover that $54,000 and overage. I've never put so many things on the credit card in my life. It was a little scary.

Unknown Speaker  11:12  
Uh huh. No, that's we're gonna get lots of, you know, airline miles. So that's good.

Debbie DeBerry  11:20  
Okay, so and all right. And then initially, what was your renovation timeline?

Unknown Speaker  11:27  
We thought, you know, about four months from start to finish with contracting and all of that. So we thought, you know, three months to renovate one month to sell and close. We knew things were selling fast in Austin. So we weren't really that worried about that part. We thought that would go fast. So we thought four months, it really turned into a full six month project. But that includes thing

Debbie DeBerry  11:50  
that's not bad at all. For some reason. I was thinking it was longer. I think, like just the last 16 months have been so weird, but 14 months, 18 months, I don't even know where we are in this year. It's been such a weird, like Time Warp where it's it all feels really fast. And then it also feels really slow. Time.

Unknown Speaker  12:08  
Yeah, agreed. No, it was only six months. And our hard money loan was only six months. So I mean, we used up every I think we had one mid seven days left maybe got scared off.

Debbie DeBerry  12:20  
realize I had a six month loan. That's scary. That's scary. I remember some contractor issues. Yes. So you didn't finish with the same contractor you started with? Is that right? Or did they he ended up pulling through?

Unknown Speaker  12:35  
No, no, we did have we basically dealt with some contractor fraud and theft, essentially, a contractor operating in bad faith, who really first of all underbid the project, I think, you know, we really had a good rapport with him. We liked him personally, we had him bid some things on our own personal home before we wanted to give them business. Unfortunately, he I'm not exactly sure really what the issue was, I don't know if he intended to stamas I don't know if he just underbid and then kind of got himself in a corner and knew he couldn't really come come through with the amount. He also just had a lot of issues, I think with his crew and not paying them on time. So they were unreliable. And then he had a family member die of COVID. So he was just like Mia for a while. So you know, it just became one thing after another. And he put us back about six weeks of us just waiting for him to show up on site and do stuff with just like no commute very little to no communication. And unfortunately, we made you know, the rookie mistake of paying him a down payment upfront. You know, theoretically, he were supposed to be ordering materials with that money, right? No materials were ever ordered. He did finish one thing, which was he did have a couple guys do demo. So we did demo with him. And that was it. But he still owes us money. And unfortunately, you know, there might still be a small claims court case in our future. But we just haven't really been able to focus on that we needed to just move on and get things done and find another contractor.

Debbie DeBerry  14:03  
You So you said there were about six weeks where you guys were kind of like you did some demo, but it was a little bit idle. That's such a scary feeling. Yeah. nothing happening. Nothing. Please. Do something. Do anything, do anything?

Unknown Speaker  14:23  
Yeah, yeah, that was one of my favorite parts when somebody showed up and actually started doing some and I was like, Whoa, okay.

Debbie DeBerry  14:31  
You found a replacement. And that went okay.

Unknown Speaker  14:36  
Generally, yeah, I mean, I think there are things that could go better I don't know if we'll use that contractor again. But you know, they got this second contractor, they got us through the end. We ended up finding him basically on Facebook, kind of posting you know, our scope of work and saying here's our timeline, you know, come give who wants to give us bids? Got a zillion responses. Basically set aside an entire Your weekend to just interview contractors. So literally, we fired first contractor on a Friday. And we started interviewing the next contractors on the Saturday. Awesome. And we started like next Tuesday, basically like with somebody else. So we moved pretty fast at that point, we were ready to get going. And we probably interviewed like 10 contractors that weekend and just showed them the house and went back to back to back with our questions and got a lot of, you know, good leads.

Debbie DeBerry  15:28  
How did you choose this one? What made him stand out?

Unknown Speaker  15:31  
He seemed hungry for the work, you know, were you somebody who kind of keeps coming back and checking in with you. And they really, he was willing to be negotiable. His first bid had come in way too high. And I think he knew it. So he checked back in with me. And I said, Yeah, we have another bid. That's, you know, like, so much lower for labor. Can you match that and he couldn't, he came pretty close to matching it. But because he was, you know, hungry for the work. And he actually ended up having to, he graduated from high school. Jean teaches that years ago. So we were like, oh, students, you know, we want to support his business, we really want to support him. And he lived locally, which we really liked. I think if there's one thing I've learned about contractors, find somebody local, find somebody who lives nearby where it's going to be convenient for them to stop by. It's not far for them. If they forget something to go get stuff. They know the area they know the shops to go to they know where the local Home Depot is.

Debbie DeBerry  16:24  
Yeah, definitely. Okay, so we talked about the budget and the well, what were some of the surprises, the septic ended up being a surprise.

Unknown Speaker  16:37  
Well, I mean, the septic was, we knew we had a septic right, but there's way different prices and levels of septic tanks, right. So it ended up I think costing it's like 25 grand, or no money. Yeah, it's funny. And it was and, and then the septic, you know, they you wait two months for you to them to approve your plan and then to get your permit, right. And then they show up one day and put the thing in, and it's nowhere where it was supposed to be on the planet in your life. Right. But it wasn't it supposed to be where you are. And they're like, Well, no, this is better. Well, I mean, they put it like, where we didn't want it even a lot. I mean, where the death was supposed to go. Oh, are

Debbie DeBerry  17:21  
you serious? I

Unknown Speaker  17:22  
didn't know this. Yeah. So we you know, and they convinced me, you know, I'm trusted expert that this is the best place for it. And bla bla bla bla bla. And so I I let it not. I let it be because it's a lot to move. Right? It's like a huge right. And, but I wish we would have like, made them move that according to plan. Okay. And then the plan. I was like, how can they take two months? The septic, the woman that was with the company, but the septic tank? She's um, she says, Oh, don't worry, I'll tell I'll talk to him. And you're like, how can you just talk to him when I waited two months for them to approve this? Yeah, it was horrible. But we got through that too. Well, I

Unknown Speaker  18:12  
think the other surprise it was epic, was it I did not realize how many types of septic systems there are. We knew it needed to septic but we didn't know it needed an aerobic septic system that is required by the county for this particular neighborhood and area because it's near the soil, like the water level or something. Yeah, you have to be like extra careful about pollution and contamination and things like that. So aerobic septic systems that cost twice as much about as a regular septic system. And they're very complicated. I think you saw the photos I had posted of tubing that goes through I mean, it's like a whole irrigation system. And it's just really complex. There's motors and you need a separate power outlet and there's a lot more that goes into an aerobic septic so that was the big tank surprise. No, no, that's so that was what was there. It's your own wastewater treatment system. You have your own wastewater treatment system. Oh my god. So that was a surprise. I think the other surprise as I mentioned demo was done by the first contractor. And it was really great when we showed up and saw oh my gosh, somebody is here working and but they were tearing out all the sheetrock which we had originally said you know take out sheetrock as needed. They tore it all out for the sheetrock now, once they tore that out we saw the insulation and how bad the insulation insulation was moldy, wet had raccoon so basically demo went from like normal demo to like mega demo, and that also affected our budget I'm sure it's like having to replace all sheetrock and insulation and basically take it down.

Debbie DeBerry  19:53  
That's me right planning to pick it out. No, that's not that is not a good surprise. But we were happy they're doing demo

Unknown Speaker  20:02  
just not that kind of demo. And I even put big red X's on the walls. I wanted them to demo and this is why communication with your contractor really, really matters. Right?

Debbie DeBerry  20:13  
Right over communicate even though it sounds like you're repeating yourself, do it.

Unknown Speaker  20:19  
There were more surprises too. I mean, the winter storm in February here in Texas was it that delayed us another two weeks just because for one week, nobody was working. I think we got our window delivery the day the storm was basically starting. And they didn't even want to deliver the windows. We had to beg them to deliver the windows. The house was wide open. There were no walls at the time. Luckily, we did have a new roof but basically our sheathing on barely barely we had opened up all the framing so we had a wide open house during that ice storm. And and then contractors were so busy after that, you know, it's hard to get some to show backup quickly. plumbers were busy for me. Yeah, it was an ordeal. Yeah,

Debbie DeBerry  21:04  
yeah. Thankfully, you didn't have like major plumbing issues after that. Or did you have

Unknown Speaker  21:09  
we had just had the plumber there. Right before that. But he was adding new plumbing and stuff. So I'm just like, poof, it survived. Freeze. Yeah,

Debbie DeBerry  21:18  
cuz there was no water in it. Luckily, no water in the pipes. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Oh, what any other surprises?

Unknown Speaker  21:32  
Just the cost of materials. You know, everything's been getting more and more expensive lumber, etc.

Debbie DeBerry  21:37  
Yeah, it's going down now. But yeah, it was it was more expensive, especially when you didn't plan on doing as much is you ended up having to do. Alright, so that's, I'm glad there any more surprises? I'm not sure what more there could have been.

Unknown Speaker  21:53  
The raccoons. We didn't talk about the repko. Wait, what? Well, I think once we were started getting bids, we had the HVC contractor come in, and you know, look at the hdc. And they quickly realized this is a raccoon house. That's why it's in such bad condition because it had been vacant for so many years that all the ducks were completely torn up by raccoon claw. Basically left so it wasn't just putting in like a compressor for the air conditioner. I mean, it was the entire system plus the ductwork and, you know, sealing up everything so that records could never get back in there. I mean, there were holes the size of you know, my torso were raccoons had been getting in. And just the smell of you know, years of raccoon family living in there. So yeah, yeah, we pretty much did face a lot of surprises.

Debbie DeBerry  22:48  
Oh my gosh, you guys. It looks so cute on the outside. And but that's what happens when you leave a house bacon, like salt, like it just like it literally just like starts falling apart like in raccoons move in and it becomes a raccoon raccoon squat. And now the raccoons own the house. Alright, so at this point, are you like, holy crap, like we're gonna lose our pants on this? Or what are you thinking? Or are you watching? How's it like, tell me what you're thinking? As all of these things keep coming up. Yeah, panic and

Unknown Speaker  23:28  
more panic, right? It was a lot of panic. And, and then hope when you're seeing the market go up as well, you know, you're like, okay, because because our original comps in that neighborhood, what we thought we could sell it for, for the beginning. we're nowhere near what we sold it for. So, it, it just had, that was our hope, you know what I mean? It was like,

Unknown Speaker  23:52  
at one point, I mean, we looked at each other. And I think Jean said, you know, should we just sell this house? And then rid of it? Like, is it time to just cut our losses basically.

Unknown Speaker  24:04  
And then, I mean, yeah, that was and then the plan B It was like, well, maybe we're gonna have to buy it. You know, I mean,

Debbie DeBerry  24:13  
I've had that as a plan B. Yeah. Like, I can totally feel what y'all were feeling. Seeing a great things are, things are going as slow or as fast as they're going, right? We can't do anything else to impact the speed. We're doing everything we can, um, more surprises keep coming up. And you almost reach the point of sell it. Like let's just get rid of it. What made you stick with it? Was it looking at the comps and seeing the comps? Or was it just y'all being like, no, we're doing this what made you get like stick with it?

Unknown Speaker  24:57  
I think it was we got to finish the process. Direct, you know what I mean? Like, you know, we got to finish this out and see what happens. The comps were helpful. I mean, as it went, but in the early stages when I had my first doubts, that's when I was, that's when I had my most doubts before things started, you know, who you're like, when nobody showing up? And yeah,

Unknown Speaker  25:21  
yeah. And like all that piling on at the beginning, and you don't really like your comps or the comps you already looked at. So it's like, at the beginning, you don't have anymore, right. Okay, it was finding the contractor, you know, like, once, once things started happening, and you could see it happening, and you could see the siding going on. And these nice changes happening. We both I think felt really relieved and really excited. And it was just so fulfilling. I remember to see the siding and the roof. I said, I will never I've never seen a more beautiful roof in my life. beautiful thing that I've ever purchased my roof. There was like everything that got put on. I was like, This is my favorite thing ever. Because it just got us momentum. I think again, find that contract.

Debbie DeBerry  26:08  
Yeah, yeah. Um, wow. Okay. All right. So initially, when you were running numbers, what was your initial ARV? 400,000. Okay, so you bought it for forgiving? 222 20? Yeah. 101 ish is what you're thinking prepares. 400. All right, cool. And then everything starts inching up. Maybe footing up is a better analogy. Your your renovation budget starts going up. And you're like, Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh. All right. you've dealt with all of these contractor issues you've dealt with. Not just surprises, but expensive surprises. The septic system was ended up being what 20 or so. It makes me that feeling in my stomach. It's the same I get when I have to like replace the drain lines. Underneath the foundation. I just left it because nobody sees that stuff. Right? It's like, I spent 20 grand on something we're all going to see. You can do a lot with 20,000. It hurts. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Okay, so lots of surprises. Lots of hurdles. And then you go to put it on the market, which was what month? I guess it was May Yeah. Okay. So you listed it in May. And what did you come on the market at? Well,

Unknown Speaker  27:49  
we have a hard time deciding. We decided with, you know, consulting with you and looking at local comps to try to stay under the 450 range. Because, you know, in search engines, people search in increments of 50,000. So we came on the market at 449. Okay. But we knew that that would just barely get us like past breakeven, basically at that point. So we were a little nervous to go on the market. That low even though it was higher than the original ARV. We're like really nervous. that that would be what it would sell for would be the asking price.

Debbie DeBerry  28:25  
Yeah. So first weekend, did you get an offer the first weekend?

Unknown Speaker  28:32  
We did we got an offer for the asking price the first weekend for 49.

Debbie DeBerry  28:36  
Okay. And then did you accept it? No,

Unknown Speaker  28:41  
we did not. We decided to set a deadline we waited till you're kind of another offer to come in. And then as soon as you had multiple offers, we worked with our listing spark agent to negotiate and put a deadline on so I think we gave people three or four days to you know, bid on the property. And also the first offer they wanted a pool that wasn't going to work. So that one ended up kind of falling through anyway. Gosh. But um, yeah, within the first week we had 12 offers about half of which were over $500,000 Okay, so what were you thinking? We were really she was really happy. Yeah,

Debbie DeBerry  29:31  
yeah. Okay, so did you I feel like you went under contract with one and then ended up with another Is that right?

Unknown Speaker  29:42  
Yeah, there was there was another surprise in store for us with the buyer situation. No, we so we did go under contract with a buyer that wasn't the highest offer but had more cash so it made us a little bit more comfortable in terms of the appraisal process. Yep, so we went with them. Unfortunately, that buyer did not work out. They were very, very picky. They found issues with everything. They had a realtor who was really incendiary about things kind of blew things up. And basically, the final straw was that they insulted us. And they said that there was some there was this minor issue that we had already fixed with the plumbing. We had given them the report from the plumber, we use their plumber to fix it. And they still basically came back and said, Now we're questioning the quality of your work. And at that point, after all the blood, sweat and tears we had poured into this property and treated it like our own and done us all the things we would have used in our own house. And to have be told that we basically just said, Sorry, like, they were gonna make a lower offer, they had canceled their original offer, come back with a lower offer. We said no things. Oh, and we went with our original gut, which was to go with the highest offer. Really great. It's

Unknown Speaker  30:57  
a nice letter those people wish. I mean, I wanted to go with them from the beginning. And then it was just, we didn't. But it was a risk because they had less cash.

Debbie DeBerry  31:09  
Right? Right. You just don't know. You just don't know. Okay, so you come back on the market? Or did you come back on the market? Or did you just go to another buyer?

Unknown Speaker  31:18  
We just went straight back to the highest bidder and said, Are you still interested? And they said, Absolutely. We want the house. It was their dream house. It was a couple that was buying our first home together even though they were a little older, more professional, folks going to have a baby and like kind of starting this new chapter in their lives. And they really wanted to be there. And they that they in their agent were great to work with like they they had some you know, things they wanted fixed. But they were all reasonable and very doable. And we were happy to do them. We even threw in a little housewarming gift of a homemade cedar bench that Jane had made that they loved and wanted to keep

Debbie DeBerry  31:57  
what they wanted to buy. And we gave it to them. Yeah. Awesome. That's awesome. I love it was a lovely process. In the end. We love that. How long were you off the market? Or under contract with the other buyer before that when terminated the first buyer last about a week to that. Okay. Oh, gosh. And then to like, cross your fingers and hope that the other people buyers are still available? Right? Oh, y'all are stressing me out with this entire view. I know. In my seat. Alright, so you went on for 49? What did you end up selling for?

Unknown Speaker  32:39  
Well, the grand total, the final offer was $560,000. So 110 over asking, which we were very, very happy with. Because we knew the 449 was not going to get us where we wanted to be right.

Debbie DeBerry  32:55  
That's amazing. It's such a beautiful house y'all created who did the designs like who chose the finishes? We both them? Yeah, y'all don't enjoy that part. Mm hmm. What a ride I mean, to go from the beginning of six weeks of not much happening and feeling like man, let's just cut our losses and bounce to selling for considerably over asking and a profit of what was your final profit

Unknown Speaker  33:34  
was a little over $130,000. So pretty transformational amount for us.

Debbie DeBerry  33:41  
For anybody, anybody? I mean, just wow. I mean, that just wow. Wow, good way to start. Yeah, amazing. And yeah, I just I love it because there was so much adversity, like there was so much that came up and like to have that as the finale. Like just it's awesome. Congratulations to It's amazing. It's amazing. It The house is so cute. Like it is. It's so cute. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful space. It was hard to let it go to be honest. I grew to love it. Actually. We don't have farmhouses here. Right. So to see like this really cool farm house like it's such a unique property. The middle of

Unknown Speaker  34:33  
Yoda city of hay is technically a city of a population like 1228 became good friends with the city of Hayden she, she bonded with because there's only one person who works there in the whole city government and she runs you know, the permits, she had to call the plumbing inspector for us. She knows everyone and everything. And it was incredible. It

Unknown Speaker  34:58  
was a great community has been was my favorite part I think about the whole entire flip was meeting the community. And like the next door neighbor, you know, it was the most amazing gardener, this elderly lady from Korea, that and she would, it would bring me cookies over and give me you know, cucumber, whatever. I love that you speak one bit of English and I didn't speak one bitter Korean with

Unknown Speaker  35:26  
each other.

Unknown Speaker  35:28  
There was a nine year old across the street who would come over and he called himself the supervisor, he would come over to check on the crew and make sure everyone was working while we weren't there. We did not invite them, but he showed up frequently. And then whenever he his family would be over on the weekends, they would all come over and walk through the house and look at things, apparently. Oh, wow,

Unknown Speaker  35:50  
I got some great community. You know, like I really, it was awesome. out there was peaceful. What was your favorite part?

Debbie DeBerry  35:59  
Emily? There's a lot of things. I know it's, it's hard to pinpoint it. I think what was most satisfying to me is you know, I

Unknown Speaker  36:08  
work a remote job. Over a computer, I'm on zoom all day, it's hard to see things happen. And it was so exciting to see tangible progress and tangible things that I had had a hand in creating come to fruition. Yep. And I am totally addicted. Like I love the action. I love getting things done. I think I also really like the problem solving. Like it just felt very empowering to realize no matter what obstacle you come up against there is the solution may not be perfect, but you will find a solution. And I realized, like, I just gained so much confidence through that process. That's awesome. Realizing I could troubleshoot any of this. And luckily, that's I don't really know, construction. And I'm not handy, but I can figure it out. Exactly.

Debbie DeBerry  36:53  
Honestly, that is the thing. That is the one thing, if if I could instill in every single person who wanted to do whatever it is they wanted to go do is that self trust. Like that's, that's it, but if you don't have that self trust of a be okay. Like, yeah, I'll be okay. Even though I have to go through some really hard things. And it's not always fun. And it's not always easy. But I'll be okay. Like, it's hard. That's that's like the number one thing, right there is that self trust? So I love hearing that, like surviving this, we can do anything. Like we really can do any, right?

Unknown Speaker  37:33  
Because we both did it when we had full time jobs too. demanding job, right?

Debbie DeBerry  37:39  
So okay, when it comes to things that maybe like, limiting beliefs that you had, or things that maybe you thought about yourself, like, Is there something or are there things that changed in you? Like initially thought, No, I'm, I'm not good at this, or, you know, I'm not good at whatever it is, like my one of mine was I'm not good at design. Well, I'm actually really good at it. But I just didn't know I didn't have any I didn't have I didn't do any of that before. So that was definitely one of mine. Did you have any, like limiting beliefs going into this that were kind of shattered or at least shifted in some way? Yeah, you

Unknown Speaker  38:29  
know, hearing you say that it makes me realize, actually, what I think I learned is, I always think, Well, I'm not good at math. I'm really good at math.

Unknown Speaker  38:36  
I killed it on the math. Like, I

Unknown Speaker  38:38  
feel like I had backup plans. And I we made mistakes, for sure. We made lots of mistakes, we should have had more buffer all of that all of that is true. We went over budget, but we kept an eye on it the whole time and adjusted the math and, and, you know, we looked at the math and feel really empowered by that. That's huge.

Unknown Speaker  38:59  
That's what I didn't look at the numbers. I didn't look at the bank. I didn't look at the statements like I couldn't write I was to the point it was like I would just trusted that she would. And sometimes I didn't trust he was telling me the truth. I think jeans was financial, you know, like yeah,

Unknown Speaker  39:18  
I think a lot of financial doubt that there's no way we could make this amount of money. We don't deserve this amount like we're our work doesn't isn't we're not going to be rewarded with this amount of money that it seems too good to be true.

Unknown Speaker  39:32  
Yeah, that was that's a huge one. Because we had just with everything planned to retire and we were kind of financially stable. We had everything kind of in motion. And then it was just like, Whoa, all those things. We went back and dead with our dog. Like

Debbie DeBerry  39:49  
that was huge. For sure. Yeah, that one's

Unknown Speaker  39:53  
now like we have a little backup, right. So we have to do our next one. We don't have to, like go into debt. Right? All right.

Debbie DeBerry  40:01  
Yeah, that's scary. That's scary. But that's that's a big one for sure. I don't deserve that kind of windfall. We've like won the lottery, basically. I mean, let's be honest if you had a lottery ticket, but yeah, those are two really big ones for sure. Is there anything else that you guys want to share? I'm trying to be mindful of time. I'm didn't realize I was that chatty. Anything else y'all want to share before we wrap up the call? Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker  40:33  
mean, I think there's a lot of things we would do differently, that we hope to do differently. Next time. I think we learned to pay for expertise when you need it, you know, like cutting corners on things like plumbing and electricity. That came back to bite us, you know, in inspection where we had to get things fixed. You know, our key contractor, we didn't really have that expertise and thought he did, perhaps got it. So I think not being too cheap on those things you really need the help with. You know, I think that rushing all the mistakes we made were either made out of financial fear or rushing, I realized like, and I fell into that trap again and again, you know, feeling like we just needed to get it done. Sometimes, like problem solve too quickly. And sometimes you need to step back and not rush things.

Debbie DeBerry  41:20  
That hits home. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  41:23  
Financial fear, those are the two big ones for me. And then I think just like worrying less and enjoying it more like we did not do a great job of self care during this process. Yeah, we're both working full time. All weekends were spent basically on the flip all evenings. We need to eat sleep, exercise, cook. Yeah, take care of like daily needs. I need to like never eat Taco Bell again. Taco Bell are like, the only vegetarian thing I could eat in the area. I feel like I need to cook for myself again. And let me relax. Yeah, no, and and hopefully, we will be doing more with Jean retiring. And my big news is that, because of this amazing program and windfall, I have decided to leave nine to five work and flip another house with Jean as well. So my last day of like w two employment is October 1, that's amazing.

Debbie DeBerry  42:21  
I feel like I wonder, you know, couples always process things differently. Jeanne, does that scare you at all that she's kinda does? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  42:34  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure. a teacher's retirement is not going to support two people, right? Not you're in this country. So that's Plan B, right? Going to Mexico or,

Unknown Speaker  42:50  
hey, I've done the math, and I feel really good about it. You know, I've done the plan. I mean, I love it. Our plan is to flip one or two houses a year, basically, and keep it simple. And enjoy it. Yep. That's what I want to do.

Debbie DeBerry  43:03  
I am all about the keep it simple. Keep it simple. Keep it lean. Yeah. And that's hard. And I love that you say it so confidently. Because what you Well, what I hear is do more, do more, do more. Right? Not do less not do not even do enough. That makes you happy? Do more? because surely it'll make you happier. Right? When sometimes No, I value time, freedom. Oh, my right, just like the space, you know, space to breathe. So I love that you say it so confidently, like, a year. That's awesome. And thank you for sharing your story. It's, it was just it's so fun to be a part of it. And just watch your journey along the way. Yeah, y'all are just y'all are awesome. Thanks for sharing your story. Thanks for being here.

Unknown Speaker  43:59  
Thanks for this amazing program and shout out to all the amazing women in it because we really couldn't have done it without the support and the cheering from the sidelines and the troubleshooting online and our local network, you know that we really become friends. And we've met up and we cheer each other on. So thank you. I mean, just thank you, because you really did put us on this path to financial independence. And it's something we've been working towards for a long time. And this has finally given us the freedom that we that we've been craving and the freedom that we we deserve. So thank you.

Debbie DeBerry  44:28  
Yes, you're welcome. That's awesome. I'm happy. That's awesome. Thank you. And I'll see you all in the group. Yeah. You guys didn't feel amazing. I loved connecting with you all and hearing your story and thank you again for sharing it with us, Emily and Jean, all of the adversity, the hurdles and the challenges. At one point, Jean was ready to just sell it and and move on. But they stuck with it because they wanted to finish they had to finish. Just so inspiring. If you dear listener wants to learn how to confidently flip your first or next house following proven step by step processes, repeatable in any kind of market, anywhere across the US with incredible support of our flip sisters, family and community, you have the opportunity to do that now go to first flip dunrite.com to get more information. All right, it's back to school for the kids. That means back to you for you, right moms or caregivers or guardians. We get a little bit more me time starting this month. So invest in yourself and chase this dream you have this curiosity you have whatever it is chase it. Alright, until next time, go out there. Leave people in places better than you find them and make it a great day. Bye, y'all.