This is a fun topic because most know reality tv is staged and produced to a large extent to garner the highest ratings. The question that I get from a lot of people is what are these shows not showing about a real estate flip that would benefit me to know. Well it's a number of important items but let's talk about probably the biggest myth which has to do with the actual profit realized by flippers on these shows.
This one always frustrates me because it paints a very rose colored picture with what you can make flipping houses and this hurts a lot of newer investors/flippers. The TV shows generally leave out the cost of the money they borrowed(lender carry costs) which can add up to a significant portion and hurt the bottom line depending on how long you hold the property. Other expenses not usually included are splits with investors(amount you owe an investor to borrow their money), realtor fees, purchase closing fees, escrow fees, insurance, lender fees, budget overruns, taxes(this is a big one because depending on where you build you could end up paying A LOT more to city/state/others), lawyer fees, title fees etc. The list is quite long and rarely are these numbers shown. I'll show you an example of this on a $510,000 sale how skewed this can be.
Reality Tv
$300,000-Purchase price
$100,000-Rehab
$400,000- Total all in Cost
$510,000- Sale Price
$110,000-Profit Made!! (something like this is what reality tv shows)
Actual Number
$340,000-Loan( 80% of purchase price+100% of rehab costs@12% interest)
$30,600- Realtor fees at 6%
$20,400-Cost of interest on loan for 6 months from purchase to sale(4 months build+2 month sale) This is actually a pretty aggressive timeline as well if it's your first project
$4,000- Purchase closing costs(title fees, lender junk fees, appraisals, lawyer fees, taxes, hoa capital contributions and others)
$10,000- Escrow closing costs(similar as above but the seller is generally responsible for a larger percentage of all fees associated with closing)
$110,000- Profit
-$65,000- Total extra fees
$45,000- Total Profit
$22,500- 50% Profit split with investor/partner
Surprising and sure does change the rosy $110,000 that they show on TV! This doesn't even take into account budget overruns, increased timelines, hidden taxes which could easily add on another 30k-45k which would then make this project very tight or not profitable at all.
I don't show this to discourage anyone from investing in real estate or from taking on their first flip but to help educate them about the truth. You can make a lot of money flipping houses and lay a great foundation for yourself to pursue other areas of real estate but there are some specific steps you need to take in order to make sure you are successful!
Hope that helps get you started!