Advice from a successful "house flipper" - AmericaNowNews.com

Advice from a successful "house flipper"

The practice of "flipping houses" can be really risky - if done the wrong way.

23-year-old Ben Fry has been investing in real estate since he was 20 and over the last two years, he has flipped six properties.

"Being 23, it's hard to get some people to take you seriously; they might think you don't know much," he says. "But having a degree from the University of Cincinnati for Real Estate really helps!"

Fry recently renovated a home and now has it listed for $90,000. Fry spent between $30,000 and $40,000 on improvements and hopes to take home a 44-percent return on his investment.

"Normally when you are re-habbing properties, normal bank properties, and turning them around and selling to the retail buyer, you're looking at about a 30 percent return," says Fry.

But the re-hab and re-sell game is changing. Money Expert Nathan Bachrach says as the market slowly improves, fixer-uppers are hard to find.

"The challenge for flippers is they've got competition," says Bachrach. "Houses have gotten so cheap and rates have gotten so cheap that a lot of people who weren't interested in owning a home are now saying, 'Hey, I might like to buy that and fix it up myself!'"

Fry and several of his investors and realtors are constantly looking for new homes and with school out of the way, Fry has more time to search.

"A lot of it for some investing is just knowing when a property is going to be coming on the market and being the first to put an offer in," says realtor Bill Zircher.

Copyright 2013 America Now. All rights reserved.

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