In this YouTube video, seasoned real‑estate investor Joe Homs reflects on four decades of buying rentals and flipping houses and shares three key pieces of advice he wishes he had known when he began. First, he stresses the importance of formal, written partnership agreements that clearly define each partner’s responsibilities and financial split, warning that informal 50/50 arrangements can lead to costly mispricing. Second, he encourages investors to adopt a more aggressive stance during market downturns, citing Warren Buffett’s principle of buying when others are fleeing and admitting his own missed opportunities due to excessive conservatism. Third, he discusses how to recognize market signals that indicate a buying window, acknowledging that while the market can’t be perfectly timed, clues such as price trends and buyer activity can guide decisions. Throughout, Homs urges viewers to educate themselves, ask questions, and avoid both blind fear and reckless speculation, while inviting them to subscribe and explore additional flipping resources.
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In today's video, I'm going to share with you 3 things that I wish I would have known when I started flipping houses. Coming up next. I've spent the last 4 decades buying rental properties and flipping, and I've learned a lot. Sometimes I wish I could go back and give myself some advice, but I can't. However, I can do the next best thing. I can share that advice with you. I'm glad you're here. I want to introduce myself. I'm Joe Homs. I made this channel for the new and experienced investor. I want to make sure we stay in touch, so make sure that you subscribe. So what are the 3 things that I would tell my young self? Number one, working with partners. And I tell this to most people that come that I mentor with, is when you're working with a partner, make sure that you're both on the same page. And if that takes writing it down, then please write down something on a contract that Partner A is going to do this, Partner B is going to pay for that. At the end of the day, we're going to share it 50/50. Whatever it is, make sure that you and your partner are on the same page. What happens a lot of times, and what happened to me, is in a 50/50 partnership That maybe that other partner is not as experienced as you are. And so you're listening to that 50/50 partner. They want to price the home way up here when you know it should be priced a lot lower than that. So to appease them, you price it too high. And just like in this market, if it's too high right now and then you start lowering the price as the market is going down, you're really like basically chasing the market down. Happened to me one time. I had to put my foot down. I lowered the price to a point where we ended up losing money on the deal. We recovered it on other deals after that, but please make sure that you're on the same page with your partner, whether that is a business partner that you happen to meet at a meetup, or if it's a family member, especially if you want them to be your family member for long. Please make sure that everything is down in writing and everybody has it so that there is no misunderstandings. Number 2, I would say to myself, you need to be a little bit, maybe a lot more aggressive. I am very conservative by nature. And so I like to investigate everything that I do. That's how come I've never really kind of invested out of state is because I'm the expert here in this area. And I want to be that expert. If I go someplace else, I'm just like anybody else in that area. I need to know what the good parts of town are, where the bad parts, what about contractors, what about agents, is it an escrow company that I'm dealing with or an attorney. I need to know all that stuff. Okay, so you want to be the expert in your area, and I would say to myself, be more aggressive. So as the market turns and we hit bottom, and I really kind of didn't learn this until the last downturn. And I had been to 3 downturns before that. As the market turns and hits bottom, like, you know, Warren Buffett famously said, as everybody's running out, you should be running in and buying as much as you can, which is what I did 10 years ago. But my younger self being so conservative, maybe I didn't buy, which I know I didn't buy enough. But be more aggressive in your purchases at the right time. Number 3, timing the market. I know you can't time the market, but there are signs out there. There are clues out there when it's the right time to buy. And you'll know them. You'll see them like we're experiencing right now. We're in, you know, July 2022. We are experiencing downturn. If it was 6 months ago, Everybody would say you're crazy. The prices are going up, multiple offers, multiple bidders out there, overpriced by $100,000 from where it was listed. That is totally not the market right now. It's going back down. Now the question is, you pull out your crystal ball and you figure out where is it going? I don't know. I can tell you that, you know, a clock is right 2 times a day, but I have no idea where this market's going. I know it's going going down. I have no idea how far it's going down. So right now is the time to be prepared to find out when that bottom is going to occur so that you can jump right back into the market, time it, and start making your purchases at that point. If you're looking to get into house flipping, don't let the fear of the unknown stop you, but don't walk in blindly either. Learn all that you can, ask a lot of questions, and find out about the mistakes that others have made. If you want to learn more about flipping, click on this video right here. As always, feel free to reach out anytime. I'm always here to help. See you on the next one.
