In this instructional YouTube video, real‑estate broker Joe Homs shares five practical “secrets” for selecting a house that will yield a profit when flipped. He begins by urging viewers to subscribe and explains that not every property is a good deal. The five secrets are: (1) Bad curb appeal can be an advantage because distressed‑looking homes often sell for less, allowing the investor to add value through renovation. (2) Always do your homework – educate yourself on the flipping process before investing, as lack of knowledge leads to losses. (3) Avoid unique or out‑of‑place properties; homes that differ from the surrounding neighborhood (e.g., a two‑story house in a one‑story area) suffer functional obsolescence and are hard for appraisers to value higher. He also advises staying away from busy streets, railroads, or freeways that force discounting. (4) Never pay retail price for an investment property; buying at market price assumes you can ride appreciation, which is risky, especially in California’s volatile market. (5) Work only with experienced professionals, especially real‑estate agents, and vet them by asking about home ownership, investment experience, and tenure. He stresses asking the right questions, comparing agents, and treating them like doctors – you wouldn’t trust a newly‑licensed doctor with surgery. The video ends with a call for comments, a reminder to base decisions on numbers, and an invitation to contact him for help.
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In today's video, we're talking about 5 secrets to choose a profitable house to flip. Coming up next. Not every house is going to be a good deal. Fixing up a house to have somebody say, I want to live here for a long time, can be harder than it looks. If you want to have a better chance of making a profit from your next flip, then listen carefully to these 5 secrets. Before I divulge important information, make sure you subscribe to the channel. I made this channel for you, the experienced and new investor. So if you're looking for a chance to live the life you've always wanted, give this video a like and we'll just jump right on in. Bad curb appeal can actually be a good thing. If it's, if it's not looking good, To somebody that's driving by, that's a really good property for me. If it looks bad on the outside, same thing as if it looks bad on the inside, that's really kind of money in the bank for me. I want it to look ugly. I want to make it look beautiful at the end of the day. I can't tell you how many times I've started a flip And I have neighbors coming over. Hey, thank God you guys are finally doing something with this property. Thank you for buying it. This has been an eyesore. These people in here have been a pain in the neck. We hear that all the time when we're buying properties that are in a distressed condition. So curb appeal can actually go in your favor sometimes. Number 2, Always do your homework, please. It's— I can't tell you how many emails or calls I get. Joe, I want to flip properties. Great. First question I ask them, how experienced are you? No, I'm not experienced. I've never done it. Okay. Don't you think it would be important to educate yourself on flipping properties before you jump in? That's a good way to lose money, not being educated in the process. So please, very important, educate yourself on this process before you jump in and potentially end up losing some money. Number 3, try not to buy unique. Unique most of the time doesn't work. And by unique, I mean you're in a single-family neighborhood and they're all one story, and then all of a sudden you see one that's 2 stories and you're thinking, Well, that's probably worth twice the price. That's not the case. The case is when an appraiser comes into an area like that, he's going to appraise everything in that immediate area. And if there's no 2 stories in that area, how is he going to add extra value to that property if it's a 2-story? So that's a term in real estate that we call functional obsolescence. It's functional. It's 2 stories, you can use it, but it's really kind of obsolete for that neighborhood. So I personally stay away from areas like that. Anything on a busy street I stay away from, near a railroad track, near a freeway. I get a little picky when I have to look at properties like that because most of the time you're going to discount that property 10%, 15%, even 20% of what the same exact model looks like maybe 2 or 3 streets over. Okay, so be careful. Number 4, don't pay retail. Why would you pay retail for anything? It's something I can tell you that if you get a property that's offered to you retail, it's probably through Somebody that just lacks the experience. They may be a wholesaler, they may be even a real estate agent that, you know, maybe just got their license a couple of weeks ago. They think they know how to work with investors, they think they know how to flip properties, they think they know how to evaluate them correctly, but they don't. There's no reason to buy retail. Like I said a little bit earlier on one of my videos, if you're buying in a brand new housing tract, you want to get in on the first phase if there's 10 phases to be built out. That you can buy retail, but anything else, there's no reason to buy retail. If you buy retail, you're just betting that here in California that you're going to ride the appreciation wave up instead of down. And I see a lot of people buy, you know, properties at the top of the market, and then they start panicking when it starts to go down the other side. So Never, in my opinion, never buy anything of retail value. Number 5, always use somebody that has experience. And this is a little bit of a pet peeve for me. I am a full-time real estate broker. I have about, right now, about 200 agents that work underneath me. I have agents that just literally got their license couple of days ago, all the way up to, you know, 20, 30, 40 years even of experience. A real estate agent is basically trained to help somebody buy and sell their properties. I always like to ask, and I always tell my clients and my investors, probably the biggest question to ask a real estate agent that you're working with, do you own your own home? And you'd be surprised that 75, even more percent actually don't own a home. And these are people that are representing your interests. So make sure you're out there, you're asking all these questions of people that portray themselves to be professionals. Okay, how many places do you own? How many places do you invest in? How long have you been investing in properties? Do you still do this today? Those are all important questions. You want to work with a professional. If I went to the doctor and the doctor said, you know, blah blah blah, and I asked him, I go, well, how long have you had your license to practice medicine? Oh, I just got it last week. Yeah, you know what, I think I'm due for a second opinion. Okay, maybe go find somebody that has 20, 30 years of experience if they're going to cut you open. Same thing with a real estate professional. Make sure you ask what their experience is. What are some of the things that you use to pick out a profitable flip? Let me know in the comments below. Finding the right property to flip might be a little bit more difficult than you think. Be patient and make sure that you're basing all your decisions on the numbers and not just your own specific taste. Run it by another investor or check this video To choose how to pick the best areas to flip. Or just reach out to me directly. I'm always here to help.
