Isabelle's Story: From Teacher to Successful House Flipper

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 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 DePiri.

Hey, how's it going today? I'm excited to share this conversation with you that I had with one of our flip sisters in Austin. Her name is Isabelle and she recently retired from teaching and jumped into this world of flipping houses. This is her story of her first flip and how she made 26 grand in just three months, which is just amazing. She's going to share with us what her fears were going into it, what the issues were that she had to resolve and the challenges of this specific flip. They all have challenges. Let's just get into it. Let's hear Isabelle's story, let's go. Let us know who you are, where you are, what you're up to in the world, what you used to do, what you do now that sort of thing.

My name is Isabelle. I live in the Austin area in Texas, just north of Austin. I am a newly retired teacher. Taught all my life middle school, high school and I just retired last night and started this program last April. Actually, that's what I do now. I'm looking for houses.

Okay, so how long were you a teacher? 33 years, wow, were you always in the Austin area.

No, yeah, pretty much actually, except for the first three years. I was at UT as a graded student and then in the Round Rock and then, yeah, always in this area. That's so cool, yeah, so this is the first school year where I don't have to worry about a school calendar ever. I'm not entirely lucky. I've always been either a student or a teacher, always, ever.

What was that transition like? Was it easy or was it like how do I fill my time?

It was easy in the summer because it's the summer, right. But then about mid-September, about the end of September, when school would be in Ann, maybe for four or six weeks, that's like, oh wait a minute. But then by then we were in our first house, so we got busy. So it was good yeah nice.

And is your husband retired also?

He's still not retired, pretty much Nice.

Nice, y'all are just in your sunset years here doing your thing, yeah.

So yesterday something came up like hey, you want to go down there, let's just go. And then we went, love it.

And we'll go home today sometime, whenever that freedom is beautiful, nice, yeah, okay. So you were a teacher, you were in the Austin area, and what made you interested in flipping houses? So?

that's something we've always wanted to be All right, some kind of real estate of some sort. At some point we actually did one flipped a house about five, six years ago, which was a very big learning experience. And so once I decided that I was kind of getting ready to retire it's like I need something to fill my time and then I was kind of looking around and I totally stumbled on your program, just totally by chance. So I guess I was looking too many real estate stuff and then your ad came up, what they do you know, and then yeah, and I just it was just like something we've always been interested in and kind of kicked ourselves for about doing 20 years ago you know stuff, now we're doing it.

Yeah, now's the next best time, right? Yes, okay, so you joined and tell me about your first, the first flip you did with us. How did you find it? So we found it in the MLS.

Okay, so the timeline is kind of interesting. So we found it, so I got in the program in April and then I decided to retire, and so then I put everything on pause until I could get through the whole end of the year, school, all that mess, and then I got back into it.

Wait, can I interrupt? So you didn't know you were retiring yet?

No, I had not decided I was retiring at that point.

Oh wow, Interesting Okay.

Cool. Okay, that's a whole other story in itself. Yeah, that would be a whole other conversation, okay, but yeah, so I joined the program. Then, not long after that, I said I was retiring in the year school and put everything on hold a lot of things to do actually when you retire, especially when you decide that in April. And I liked to do things like just I'm like, okay, I'm doing it now, that's it. So we started, I started looking in Jean, I really got into the bodgers and stuff and started looking and around the first part of July decided, okay, I need to look at houses. So we went, looked at several and came across this house and that's like you know, I like this house. It was full of things where you could not see the floor, you could not see a lot of the walls, it was not like junk, I mean, it was not like animals and stuff like that, it was just a lot of stuff. And so we went and looked at it. And then we went and looked at it again. Then we went and looked at it again with a contractor, went and looked at it again with a different contractor and finally got nervous. I was like, okay, I got him with an offer and I made an offer and I was pretty much right away I said no, we're not going for that, like okay, fine, and then kept looking. So that was. So we looked at the house first of July, made an offer in the July and the guys said no, I said fine, and so then we started, you know, looking around for more houses, whatever. And then about in of August my agent calls back and said hey, you know that house. They call back, said is your buyer still interested? Sure, I am. So, yeah, yeah. So we made the offer again and for actually so the original offer was 300 in July and they came back in August and said would you revive both for three tan? I'm like okay, we'll one for three tan. And then got an inspector in there and then, as you know, by the end the market was kind of doing its thing and so the ARV I felt had changed. So when we first looked at it, you know last May, probably put a sale to 500. By the time in July we decided, you know, like closer to 480, and then by the end of August, like 460, like it's going down right. And so the inspector came in. There was a few things, nothing major. But that gave me an opportunity to say, hey, I can't do three tan, and so I said the ARV. You know, I had a long conversation with my realtor and the agent I was working with and back and forth, back and forth, I said so I lowered my offer, and then we went back and forth and then we finally agreed on 295. Then that's what I bought it for Nice.

And okay. So when you bought it, you were thinking ARV 460.

When we bought it in, yeah, for the August, yeah, when we actually went through it was 460.

Yeah, okay, so you got it for 295. Okay, so what were you thinking the repairs were gonna be?

So my first bid was right at 50, give or take couple of hundredths. But then that didn't include, you know, like the ceiling fans, all the hardware, you know the toilets, all that stuff. And I was like, wait, what You're not taking care of that part I have to. So then I added all that up. You know like okay, 60, 60 is what we put in the spreadsheet. I put 460 for the ARV, I put 60 for the rehab, so that was my number, and then 295 for buying.

Okay, Okay. So when did you close on it? September, September 14th, Okay. And how did you finance it? Hard money, Okay. Did you finance the purchase and the renovations?

Yes, cool. So they did 85% of my total cost buying and rehab. Now, the rehab that I put in with the HTML, I only put 54 in their numbers, Okay, and the rest of it I knew was gonna come out of my pocket, Got it okay, so you, just you guys floated the balance.

Yes, okay. Okay, so this is so fun. Okay, so you get into it. And were there any big surprises?

There were not any big surprises. Oh, I forgot to say in our contract we put our stipulation was the house had to be empty. Yeah, because, so you know, it was an older gentleman I actually I don't know how old he was, but Widow Widower and there was a lot of stuff left and he got it all unloaded. He didn't do it, but somebody, he got somebody else to do it. But there was like dust, like little. You just take all stuff. I mean we found a window. There was bookshelves in front of it. There was an extra window in the living room. Yeah, I was like, oh well, there's a lot more light here. There was a couple of windows that were frosted that we didn't notice at the beginning. We had kind of noticed one, but there was a second one. There really wasn't really there was a, the one we sent the inspector. It was on a Friday. We sent in the inspector during our option hearing and he got there the water was off and so he couldn't do the inspection, so he went back. We had a new inspection that Tuesday after the time, the water on, and the reason the water was off is there was a little bit of a leak under the kitchen sink. Oh, we'll just turn off the water, they won't notice. Yeah right, well, gotta have an inspection with water. So we ended up extending the option period about 24 hours and, oh, a whole other story with the inspection. So got the inspection probably done on Tuesday morning. Tuesday night we get the report and then like, just no, nothing really major at all, no big surprises at all. And but the air of the head changed and I'm like we can't pay 310,. We have a couple of extra things to do. We gotta, you know, bring them thing down. So on Wednesday, so our option periods ends at five o'clock on Wednesday. No, wednesday, after we go through it thing, we have a big conversation with the wheelchair, whatever. We put in an offer for 270. Crickets all day long, and I had this is my lesson. Number one is so we talked back and forth, right, and she's like well, okay, 270 is your offer. Well, they're not going to go for that, we don't know, right. But I like by this time I'm really invested in this house. We make the offer at 270, right, crickets all day, and the, the people that are out there. So and I'm like, well, we're going to grow. The number one is our, our, our, our, our, our house. Five o'clock is our bed line, right, so like four o'clock or it. Like on the phone, and my husband, tars, is out of town on doing something, you know, I'm like it's like I've got to make a decision when I do. I want this house, I want this house. So right, I'd like for 15. I should have stayed to my 285, but we said, okay, 295. Okay, so we're done to 415 crickets. So at 445, like, okay, pull the plug, we're done pulling out. And that's where I should not have even countered my own offer, right, Anyway, that's, you know, don't do that. So at 445, like, pull the plug. So we pulled the plug, right, she sends me the stuff. I sign off on it, like we're backing out, and then that's it done. And then so this is 445, right, that's probably clock is our deadline. And then 730, I get a phone call. She's like, guess what? I just bust out laughing. They had never signed on their end. I don't know how that works, but like we'll go if you want to do it.

I just bust out laughing the joys of the Texas option period. It's so stressful. You know what, though? Here's the thing that deadline used to be 1159 pm and us realtors were the ones having to deal with right, so they changed it to five. Thankfully, like that was like that was our evenings, trying to get things done. No, no, no, no, no, have a clock. You got them down to 295. After all of that, geez, we need.

So then we had a three week week. We gave them a three week window and it was not for them. It was for me, because it was my first one and I needed that breathing room of getting all the stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there's a fine line between too much time, where you can talk yourself out of it and freak yourself out, and too fast, where you're feeling totally chaotic. There's a nice little balance in there where it's like okay, that feels good, I feel like I feel prepared, I feel I've got things lined up Like. This feels like I don't know about prepared, but Quotes.

Right, yes, yes.

Okay, so no major surprises. No, no, you didn't have foundation issues, you didn't have any plumbing issues. You don't really have anything major.

It was mostly cosmetic, it was purely cosmetic, like the big thing we did is it had those 90s kitchen counter, a huge kitchen, but it had that counter that came around with that extra like up there bar thing, so we cut that off and when we did that and they put that porch countertop on there, that kitchen looked twice as big. It was huge. Yeah, that made a huge difference.

Oh, I love that Nice I'm trying to think of, if I remember the pictures, the kitchen, before I'll have to go back in the group.

The pictures before are just some that I took, and there were I mean, there's a couple that were on the MLS, but yeah, it was kind of dark too, so it was only that one, those two neon lights not neon but whatever and it was only one of the tubes that were working, so it was really dark. So we took that down and we put in let's see three recess lights above the bar. In the end, I don't know, I think we put seven lights in there total, yeah, because I had eight and the last one into the master bathroom. So, yeah, yeah, nice, so they made it really bright.

Yeah, yeah and okay. How was it working with the contractor you worked with?

It was good. So he was. I found him through my realtor, because so the two other ones that came in to be in one was labor only, which he didn't form on me about that, and then like I don't know what to do, so like I can't do that on this one, so he was out. And then the second one was he never replied and so he never sent me his bid. He wanted to do all these extra things and move this door to over here. Like no, no, no, no, no, no no, we're not doing it so I went with the one. He was fine. So come to find out later, like when we're almost done, he'd actually never worked with an investor before. He had flipped houses himself, but he'd never worked with an investor before and and he's more of a commercial rather than house but it worked because he had done some for his himself. So he's like, well, I know, chloe, right, so like help me, said, well, I normally use this quartz and these tiles and like cool, that's what we're doing, done.

Yeah, how long did you think? How much time did you a lot for the renovation piece?

So we had thought, you know, four to six weeks, and it took exactly six weeks and it should have taken five.

Yeah, was it the detail stuff at the end?

that took a while, that last week it was like oh my gosh, just come out bring two guys and just get it done. Always, always. And I I mean I still had a substantial amount to pay him and I was not paying him, but he was like just come out.

Finish, finish it. Do the. They don't like the details. They love the big stuff, but that details of finishing touches are just like oh.

I know.

Yeah, and they're the most important right. It's like yeah, Okay, so six weeks, so then you go on the market in like.

November. It was right before Thanksgiving. So I also I also, on my end, totally misunderstood how much time the the stature needed to come and take pictures and stuff. So I was waiting until we were done to call in a stature. My welter actually takes care of the staging as part of her commission. But yeah, I was great, but I misunderstood. I thought, okay, once you're done, you call me. In. A couple of days later she does it. Well, no, it's like a couple of weeks before you're done, you call and so she can come and take measurements. And it's like, oops, it worked out. It worked out because I called and I said, okay, we got it, we're done, we like we've got to get this thing on the market. It's just so happened that the stature had an opening, so she came in early and like within the week of me calling, she was able to stage it.

So like oh nice, yeah, you lucked out there, I looked out very so she stage.

She came and measured like home and like a Thursday or something, and she actually stage on a Tuesday. Wednesday they took pictures, thursday was listed. I mean it just worked out.

That's amazing, yeah, that's.

And after all of that and after the open house and after we run the contract, we were still in there changing the last two windows.

Okay, so you listed just before Thanksgiving. Yep, what was the traffic?

like so we had an open house that Friday that I was actually we listed the day my grandson was born, so I was not even there and that Saturday there was open house and it was raining. And that Sunday we had an open house and it was not real pretty and I don't really know. There was only like one or two came in Saturday. There was only like two or three, maybe four that came in on Sunday, but one of those people was super interested.

And weekend before Thanksgiving, or was this Thanksgiving weekend?

Okay, because I was adamant it was going to be listed before that week. Okay, so the 17 is one of the students Got it.

Oh wow, so the first weekend there was interest.

Yep, and he started asking questions. It's like, okay, this guy's interested, we need to get this to work. And and then we were on the contract that Tuesday.

Okay, what did you?

listed at so I got coffee and I said no, we're not listening it for 460 or 465, we're gonna listen for 450. So we did we listen for 450.

Nice. And what would? What did you? What was the offer that you accepted?

It was well what we finally accepted it. It was 439 five Okay.

And that was the same guy. Yep, that original that. Did you get multiple offers? Or was it just that one hot buyer? Nice, that was it. Telling you multiple offers are hard, like one solid offer is all I need.

Yeah, and I mean we went back and forth and then he got real nitpicky with his inspector, you know, and there was some things like, okay, fine, those that should have been done, that should have been done, we fix them all. But there was a few things we ended up having to call plumber out to fix. You know, at the street there's the meter for that, for the city, and then there's the thing, the handle for the, for the owner, and that's that really was my fault. I forgot that it was, the handle was broken and we never fixed it. So we ended up having to call a plumber and get that done and everything else. There was a few things. There was like a plate missing on one of the plugs. That was, you know, stupid stuff like that. So you know, but that was it. There was nothing else major. Everything else we had told him like this is it, everything has to fix. I don't know what else you want.

Done it all, Okay. So from purchase date to the sale, the sales date. How much time was that?

like the day we actually closed. Yeah, it was three months and seven days from purchase to close. Yeah, because then we bought it September 14 and December 30. December 21 is when we signed and we had the offer in hand November 21.

That's amazing.

Yeah, that's amazing and we're the only ones in the whole neighborhood that sold, like everybody. There's still a house there that's still on the market. That went on about a month before ours. They're overpriced, right.

Geez and stubborn if they're still sitting there. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's a want to sell, maybe one day, not a need to sell.

I wanted to sell. My goal was to get one done and done and sold by the end of the calendar year.

Yeah, that was it. I always try to be in and out in three to four months, so much less can go wrong, yes, okay. So what did your profit end up being?

Right at 26,000 and change. That's awesome, Congratulations. The goal was to go in and we were both in like, if we can, we need a break even.

Okay, and now I know that you're out making other offers, yeah, and making things happen, yeah, and hopefully you'll be under contract on something soon. I'm sure you will, because you're making. I'm so excited for you guys and I'm just, yeah, I'm just sitting over here cheering y'all on because you're out there doing it. You're just doing it and you're making moves and you're doing. You're not just talking, you're just doing.

I'm doing and I'm very slowly building my team.

Well, here's the thing about team Like it. It it evolves. If your team can look like this one day and it can look like that the next day or the next project, it's. It's a very fluid and it's always kind. Of people come in and out and they might come back later.

Right, and you know, trying to find the contractor that's. You know that we're going to be able to work with really well, and I really liked the other contractor, but and we got by the end where we were able to communicate a lot better. But, um, like, but what if I wanted it this way? You know, I don't want this to help, yeah, so, yeah, well, the first one I was fine because I didn't know, but now I have a better idea. Yeah.

Yeah, well, that's the thing you did, your first one in a way that makes you want to do another one. Yeah, and you made money. And I made money, like come on, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, um, what were some of your? Did you have some fears going into it? Yeah, like so.

Yeah, like so Losing money, Right Cause you have to borrow money, which I'm a lot more comfortable with that. Like I don't want to use all of my money, I don't want to be at zero in the bank account, so I'm okay borrowing money, you know. And it was 12%, yeah, but like you always said, it's, that's 1% a month, I don't need that Three, four months? That's. That's not right.

That's not exactly. Thank you, I'm so glad one person gets that Nothing.

Well, I talked back to you so, but but yeah, I mean that that's that's not much. You know I can handle that. So, but losing money, because of our history, With the first one losing money was a big one and then Then, once we got, we got a lot of money and when we got a lot of money. We were like okay, we need to list it. Then I freaked out a little bit what if it doesn't sell? Yeah, because there was a lot of houses that were sitting but they were priced wrong or they. There was nothing done to them from from what they were, they were priced wrong, right? So when we listed it, we actually listed it for sale and rent at the same time.

Okay, Just in case so, and I really didn't want to lease it so, but I think that's that's a good point.

So obviously you were just going to refile it into a rental. Yeah, yeah, I was starting to make those phone calls and that's, and that's why, and that's why I kind of pushed to have it listed for a little bit less than what she thought we could potentially get an offer on. And then we made a special, like I asked us like you've got to put in the places where only realtor see, like, make offers, just just make me an offer. Yeah, I'll entertain all offers, right, so that part is scary yeah.

That was when it go, when you listed. That's the. It's the hardest part still for me.

Yeah.

And it's like I don't know what are they going to do? I don't know. Are they going to like what we do? Right, are they going to make some offers? What's going to happen? Kudos to you for not only having a backup strategy in place in mine, but already starting to execute it, just in case. Yeah, it's not like you're at month seven freaking out oh my God, now put it on the rental market. And so now it's been sitting on the for sale market for months and now it's for rent. It's like, oh my God, this person is straight up desperate. And then you put an offer for $100,000 less Exactly. Yeah, what about your husband Was? Was he so? Oftentimes in a relationship, there's one person that's like oh yeah, this is like we got this, we're good. And then there's another person that's like, oh, kind of pulling back, like I'm scared, I'm scared. Are either of you that way or you all both kind of like it's going to be fine, we got this.

I think we're both. It's going to be fine. I think I did more freaking out a couple of times than he did and he was kind of and he doesn't like hard money at all, so I have to, you know. So we balance each other out and he's been in the construction world a lot of his life. Okay, but I kudos to him. He made me make some of the phone calls.

Nice, good.

Yes, kudos to him, which was good for me, yeah, but he did, he came and helped and you know he and I put in those two windows and we did a few things and a few things that we've learned, that you know, time versus money, yes, and there are things that we will not do. In the next one, I will pay. I will pay Lo's to put up all the blinds, because that's a pain and a half and this cheap those blinds. Oh, you know, after the fact, after I spent like two or three hours in Lo's, you know, waiting for them to, you know me asking questions and going back to the house and measuring and then going back and having them cut it and then picking them up and taking putting. I like wait after that. I think, wait, you charge $99 to put up nine blinds. What the heck am I doing Right? So they will put the next ones. Yes, yes, yes, they will come out and measure and get it for a hundred bucks. Absolutely, you do it. Yeah, like I love all of it. I like being there and making sure things are done. Could I do some of it? Sure, if it was my house. Yeah, do I want to do it on these houses? No, I'll pay. I'll pay somebody to do it. They'll do it faster, more professional. I don't want to do it Exactly, I want to get it done fast.

Time is so important, especially in any kind of like it's. It's just so important, yeah, so important. There's just like I said earlier, there's so much less that can go wrong. Yes, In a shorter amount of time.

Right and you know, like the whole windows thing, by the time we finally got to me, well, first of all I had to order them right, and then, of course, one of them didn't come in until like two weeks later than they said, and then it was raining, then it was, you know, the grandkids, and then it was raining, then it was this, and it was that, like, it took us three weeks to get these things in, like, why, why, I'm paying somebody else next time. You deal with it.

Any other things, any thing we haven't talked about that you wanted to talk about, or lessons learned, or anything I think. Well, I did set the one.

like you know, stick to your number. That spreadsheet is awesome and you've got your max offer. Stick to that number. That's lesson number one, and that's what I will definitely implement on this one. And then the second one, which I've already implemented on this one with the contractor is, instead of walking in because I noticed, you walk a house with contractors and they have that little book in their hand, but they hardly ever open it. They just walk around saying oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this time I typed up on the spreadsheet like I want, okay, this, this, this, this, this is what we're doing in the kitchen, this is what I'm doing here. And so when I met with the contractors with this new house, I each gave them the same sheet. And this is what we're doing, yes, yes, so I don't have colors, I don't have those kinds of things, but I have. You know it's gonna be two, not just all white. This time we're gonna have two colors and you know we're gonna put the quartz countertop and we're gonna do this, and you know so that, and they were both very grateful for that. So hopefully that helps.

Yeah, I always show up with that too. I always show up with my list Cause, first of all, I'm gonna forget, I'm not gonna remember everything so.

I need to have it Right. We still forgot to talk about the backsplash and then the other things I had forgotten and I remember you talking about that. Some point was stupid door stops. Like I had to go back twice to get door stops and then at the last minute I knew I was changing all the door knobs right, and at last I was like I got to change all the hinges. The hinges look crappy now that I've changed all the doors and stops, the door knobs, like. So so that's in the budget for this one, yeah, you know. And and then the plug ins. Like we should have changed most of the plug ins and we didn't Because they've looked kind of a little bit yellow. So I took all the plates and I cleaned. I cleaned all the plates but then some of the plug ins were like it's too late now. So Keep collecting all these lessons, keep collecting, yeah, but the two big ones are, stick to your price and have a list of you know, all those, the scope of work that you want to get done upfront, and those two, those two are probably the two biggest things that I learned off that house that I wasn't ready.

I was just like oh, okay, let's do that. Those are great lessons. Yeah, you did it oh so excited. I did it Well. I'm super excited for you guys. Thanks for hanging out with me and thanks for sharing your story. Yeah, no, this was fun. Yeah, awesome. All right, we'll have a great rest of your visit with your daughter and your grandkids. Thank, you. Yeah, bye, isabel, all right, goodbye. I know Isabel's story is going to inspire somebody else to go out there and do the thing, and I love that. Now, if you want some help doing the thing and you want somebody to give you all the steps and show you all the things and tell you what to do and also support you every single day, that's exactly what we do inside our coaching program and community. So go to herfirstflipcom and fill out the application and schedule the time to chat with our team. All right, let's see how we may be able to work together. Okay, until next time, go out there, flip houses like a girl, leave people and places better than you find them and make it a great day. Bye-bye.