I got an Uber ride to the airport the other day in California and when I told the driver that I was going to Virginia he told me his house flipping disaster story. He had lived in Virginai and bought 6 properties at the same time with about 10% down. He was renting them when the down turn hit in 2009. The renters moved out, the values crashed, he couldn't make the loan payments, he sold low and lost about $1 million. The wife blamed him and got a divorce and took the kids and stuck him with alimony and child support. He moved in with his sister in California and got a part time job that barley paid the divorce costs and was driving Uber to feed himself.
"Flippers" Get Taste of Losing
- Thread starter ExFlyBoy5
- Start date
Amethyst
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2008
- Messages
- 12,668
And not much more than feeding, i'd reckon. From all that the drivers have told me, you truly have to hustle to make money driving ride-hail.
I flipped 2 houses for a small profit and realized it was way more work than my day job and I could make easier money in the stock market.
The real estate market certainly feels different this last 9 months. I've noticed the builders changing things up a bit to get more profit for similar prices.. Lots of second/third phase houses that the molding isn't as nice, the cabinets/granite/etc are all lower quality selections at each sales level. They re-arranged floorplans so same model name but now magically 40 sq ft smaller. On the plus side they dont' appear to be giving things away anymore, in December timeframe there was a lot of free appliance packages, money towards closing, etc which seems to have stopped so maybe things are normalizing again.
The real estate market certainly feels different this last 9 months. I've noticed the builders changing things up a bit to get more profit for similar prices.. Lots of second/third phase houses that the molding isn't as nice, the cabinets/granite/etc are all lower quality selections at each sales level. They re-arranged floorplans so same model name but now magically 40 sq ft smaller. On the plus side they dont' appear to be giving things away anymore, in December timeframe there was a lot of free appliance packages, money towards closing, etc which seems to have stopped so maybe things are normalizing again.
I read that article. The town where he lost $300k is the town I grew up in. For a while buyers were adding $300k to asking price like the tip jar at Starbucks. Then it stopped suddenly. Very high risk gambling to flip expensive houses.
