Tying Up Loose Ends On Your Flips

Flipping houses sure looks easy on the TV home improvement shows. People hire a Realtor who shows them several ‘great deals.’ The people then buy some nasty rundown house, hire the host, and voila – in a half-hour show it looks like the house should be featured in Architectural Digest.

And somehow, it only cost the homeowners $30,000 to completely gut and rehab it.

Flippers in the real world know it’s not that easy. To make money on a flip, you have to:

Network and market to uncover great deals (they are not usually sitting on the MLS)
Evaluate the deals to include estimating the After Repair Value (ARV), and all the rehab costs
Find funding for the deal
Hire contractors, do paperwork, pay for material
Deal with contingencies and repairs uncovered during the rehab
Pass all the inspections
Clean the house and possibly (probably) stage it
Market the property for sale
Wait until it sells
Cash the check (that’s the easy part – at the very end)

Whew! There’s a lot to manage. There are as many flipping systems and lack of systems, as there are flippers.

Lots of flippers use what many financial people use – a good ol’ Excel spreadsheet. How dedicated they are to filling out the spreadsheet depends on the flipper. A lot of flippers also use Excel to track receipts. But it may not be able to help you look ahead to what’s next.

The Lazy Flipper’s Spreadsheet

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a spreadsheet ready to go? A spreadsheet that you just fill in some numbers and it does everything else for you.

If you want a ‘system in a box,’ spreadsheet-wise, head on over the appropriately named, houseflippingspreadsheet.com. The folks at House Flipping Spreadsheet (HFS) have come up with a very detailed spreadsheet to track and analyze all aspects of flipping a house.

Before you decide to buy this robust spreadsheet, you can download a free demo version with sample numbers to try it out. Either look at what sample numbers the company provides you, or fill in new numbers to try it out yourself.

The demo version does not have all the functionality of the purchased version, but it will give you a good idea of whether the software is for you.

You can also go to the company’s YouTube channel to learn how to use the spreadsheet.

You Want Functionality? I Got Your Functionality Right Here

This spreadsheet does a whole lot more than tracking receipts. The spreadsheet has a menu bar, just like a website, for all the areas you need to track during your flip:

Or you can go the ‘Home’ area, and navigate wherever you want from the buttons in the spreadsheet:

The ‘Analyze’ area is where you go when you are trying to determine if a potential property is a good deal to flip.

It provides everything in the order you would normally approach a new property:

An inspection checklist when you first take a look at the property
Setup spreadsheet if you do like the property to fill in general details
Repair estimator to determine how much it will cost to rehab
A rehab analyzer that will take the repair costs, buying and selling costs and ARV to determine what is the max price to purchase to make a decent profit

Alternative strategies to see what the property might make if you wholesaled it or decided to rent it out
Reports for all the above steps
A homeowner ‘offer report’ that you can provide to the seller that gives a detailed breakdown of why you chose to offer what you are offering

If the property looks good after your analysis and you decide to buy it, you will need the ‘Manage’ tab of the spreadsheet.

The ‘Manage’ tab takes you from buying the property, to listing it for sale, and everything in between”

Starting with the contractor, the spreadsheet provides you a ‘scope of work’ form that the contractor can sign based on what you put in your repair estimates. It also provides a contractor ‘prequalification’ form for you to do some background checking
The ‘Contact Manager’ keeps track of all your contractor’s information – including contact, tax and insurance information
The ‘Task Manager’ which gives you:
- A rehab checklist to make sure nothing slips through the cracks
- Project management lists to see what tasks are coming up
- ‘Punch List’ reports for you to walk through the place after completion
- Shopping lists to make sure everyone knows what needs to be picked up and when

A project scheduler acts like a Gantt Chart to track your progress and alert you to key items that need to be done
A ‘lien waiver’ report in the project closeout so no contractors can come back and put a lien on your property once you pay them
The spreadsheet even sets up a flyer to print out and help list your property

Accounting is closer to what house flippers might use a spreadsheet for:

Here you will be able to track all money aspects of your flip:

Spending by account (credit card, bank, etc.) and contractor
How you are actually spending compared to the budget you set up (has anyone ever actually come in ‘under-budget’ on a flip?)
Tracking all your expenses
Forecasting what you still have to spend
Setting up tax reports for your contractors and you (your profits)

You will even be able to integrate all the numbers with Quickbooks if you are using that software.

The last tab the HFS software gives you is the Reporting tab. Here you can see all kinds of reports for the other tabs (Analyze, Manage and Accounting). You can share these reports with contractors, or look them over yourself to determine if you need to change course.

Let’s Talk Green

‘How much?’ You ask. Try $97. One-time fee. For life. Plus they will upgrade your software for free whenever a new version comes out. If you want to share with partners, you can buy 3 licenses as a ‘Pro’ version for $167.

You can also get a tablet version to keep with you in the field for $67, although it has a lot less functionality.

HFS works on both PC and Mac, but you have to have a version of Excel that is 2007 or newer. You also can’t use things like Open Source Excel files or the spreadsheet on Google Docs.

For $97, it sure seems easier to purchase this house flipping software than to create your own. Plus the software may help you think of things you never saw coming, particularly if you are not a very seasoned flipper.

Give Us a Shout

Have you used this program? Tell us about it in the comments section below.

Create Systems – Making your investing up as you go along is definitely going to limit you from reaching your full potential.

Stay Organized – Don’t let your real estate investing overwhelm you. Find ways to keep track of everything and stay on top of it.

Build on What Others Have Done – Don’t reinvent the wheel. If you see a good tool out there, use it!

Share Techniques with Others – If you have developed or found good systems and processes for investing, share them in the comments section and help others.