BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 918: Creating Their Own Demand By Ditching the "Cookie-Cutter Flips" w/George and Heather Bassett

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

Fix and flips have looked a lot alike for the past few years. You see the same countertops, wall colors, appliances, and flooring in almost every new flip. While it makes sense for many high-volume flippers to use the same “cookie cutter” recipe repeatedly, it may not get you the highest price on your house flip. If you want to start a bidding war on your next investment property, you’ll need to think outside the box, like George and Heather Bassett have. George and Heather aren’t your everyday house flippers. To start, they filmed this entire interview from inside a church-turned-luxury house flip. George and Heather want to make each home they flip stand out and feel unique to every prospective buyer who walks through it, and their recipe for success sure seems to be working. On a recent flip, they had over fifty showings in one weekend alone. So, what house-flipping tips do they have that could help YOU sell for more? From unique finishes to thinking of livability first, asking the house what IT wants, and staging the not-so-basic way, George and Heather deliver an absolute masterclass on how to turn your next fix and flip into a show-stopping, bidding-war-starting, beautiful property that could give you tens of thousands more in profit than what the everyday flipper is getting. In This Episode We Cover: Why “cookie cutter” flips AREN’T what buyers want in 2024  Inexpensive, “unique” additions that’ll make your fix and flip sell for more Asking the house what IT wants and keeping the character of historic homes  How to use “bold” renovations to start a bidding war on your next house flip  Financing your next fix and flip with hard money, private money, and…credit cards? The ONE thing that’ll help your home sell for TOP dollar (which most people skip) And So Much More! Links from the Show Find an Agent Find a Lender BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Pro Membership BiggerPockets Bookstore BiggerPockets Bootcamps BiggerPockets Podcast BiggerPockets Merch Join BiggerPockets for FREE Learn About Real Estate, The Housing Market, and Money Management with The BiggerPockets Podcasts Get More Deals Done with The BiggerPockets Investing Tools Find a BiggerPockets Real Estate Meetup in Your Area Expand Your Investing Knowledge With the BiggerPockets Books Be a Guest on the BiggerPockets Podcast Hear Dave and Henry On the “On the Market” Podcast Dave's BiggerPockets Profile Dave's Instagram Henry's BiggerPockets Profile Henry's Instagram The Renovations That’ll Instantly Increase Your Home Value, Part 1 The Renovations That’ll Instantly Increase Your Home Value, Part 2 Check Out George and Heather’s Church Flip Connect with George and Heather: Team Bassett Facebook Team Bassett Website Check out more resources from this show on https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-918 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, investors, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Now, usually, when you see the word unique in real estate, it's basically just code word for weird or terrible. It's just like one of those things that I feel like a lot of listing agents put in their descriptions, and it doesn't really mean what you think it means. But with our guests today, making properties unique is actually part of their business strategy. That's right, Dave. And focusing on these unique and special character. is leading to higher profits for this couple.

Hey, everyone, I'm Dave Meyer. And I'm Henry Washington, and today we're talking to George and Heather Bassett. That's right. They've been investing together for seven years now. So they've made a lot of deals work in a lot of different market cycles. And before they started investing, they have a really cool story. George was a mechanic. Heather was a teacher. And now they've used those skills not only to become agents, both of them, but also to

become successful flippers where they renovate and sell. homes that don't look like every other flip you've probably seen in the past. All right. Let's dive in. Heather and George, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here. Thank you. To kick off the show, I'd love to hear about your flipping business and how your

approach to flipping homes is different from a lot of other investors. Absolutely. So when we started flipping, we knew we wanted to do things a little bit differently. We really focused on those little details that would. make our flip stand out from your average flip. And since then, we've kind of gained momentum in that space. And we have our ways of adding those little details and those little touches that make it look more custom maybe than it really is based on those details. I'm curious how you got started down this path, because I think a lot of people who first get into flipping try to learn from other

people and they say, okay, here are the trims, here are the finishes that they use. Like, why did you start or did you start with this approach or was this sort of the product of some trial and error over the course of your first few flips? I think from the beginning, we wanted to stand out. We didn't really necessarily know exactly what that looked like, but we wanted it to not look cookie cutter. And some of that was also like we became real estate agents right around the time we became flippers. And so I was also working with buyers at that time. And when we look at houses, I would notice the things that they would say, like, they wanted something a little bit different and we were having a hard time finding that on the market. So I knew there was a

demand for something that was finished, but not necessarily finished that looked cookie cutter. And so we took that from it and we knew to stand out and to create. the kind of demand we were looking for on our flips, like multiple offers, you know, multiple people interested in it. And we're using really our first flip was a little different, but we're using hard money from the beginning. So every day on the market is a lot of per diem interest that we had. So the quicker we could turn it around, the better. Great. So most flippers have always had or gotten the advice from, you know, other seasoned investors that you want to make every property appeal to the masses and you don't want to do anything too bold or too crazy. And it

sounds like your strategy has kind of been the opposite. So talk to me about like, who's your end buyer for this product? Our end buyer is your average buyer. Believe it or not. And I understand, like, we want things kind of vanilla. We want to appear, you know, we. We want to have the most amount of buyers interested in the home. And so it seems like we shouldn't do anything out of the ordinary, but actually the opposite works because I found that people are sick of the ordinary. And they don't necessarily know how to do something a little extra to make that ordinary something special to them.

Sometimes they do. But a lot of times they don't. And so if it's not already done for them, it's hard. And yes, like I would say the one that we kind of really went extreme with, I did like orange doors. I mean, I really did some extreme things in it that like goes against every flipping rule in the book. And we had 40 showings in that weekend. It was like 52 parties. Yeah, 52 showings that weekend.

And so it's like, okay, this is the one that I went crazy with. And I thought, I don't know if I went too crazy. And then really, people loved it. I think doing a few things that seem a little bold actually will pay off more than people think. And in going with what the house really kind of wants to, not necessarily doing the same thing in every house because every house doesn't want the same thing anyway. We don't do that. Right. You know, I think this is really cool because as I hear you talking about it and I think about this. So I don't go too bold on my flips. I do try to make them stand out. I'm pretty strategic about how I do that. But I was thinking through as you were talking. I sold a flip one year that we actually lived in for about a year first. And since we were going to live in it, I let my wife kind of go crazy with some of the things that she wanted to do. And one of those were we painted the laundry room cabinets like a bright. purple. And then we put a fancy wallpaper on the laundry room back wall. And then we like tiled a back

splash in the laundry room. So it was really, really overboard for a laundry room. But she wanted to try this purple cabinet color. And I was like, doing the laundry room, we'd be fine in there. So that house had so many offers and sold so fast when we actually went to sell it. And people were commenting on the cool cabinets. And, you know, it just, I didn't dawn on me then that I should be more aggressive in that. But that's super cool. And I think you're right. People are pretty. tired of the cookie cutter. You're even starting to see builders now do things that are a little more risky, if you would say. They pick different colors now where they'll put a more expensive, flashier kind of countertop in to kind of stand out and they'll play with tones and things.

And so I think you're right. I think part of that is understanding who your market and buyer is and what they want. And it may seem risky. But if you understand your buyer, that's actually the opposite of risky. So I think that's great. Exactly. You're actually creating more of a demand by stepping outside of that box that is supposed to be that very simple vanilla sort of look. You know, I think I hear a lot of flippers say that, right? They add these little touches. And I do the same things in my flips. But I think when you say that, a lot of people probably have different ideas in their head. So what are some of those touches? And are you picking those strategic touches based on like, you know, kind of return for a dollar.

So like for me, I might do an accent wall because it's cheap to do, but has a really high return because it looks more expensive. Right. So in our first flip we did, I did a lot of reclaim lumber and custom touches with some trim, some old barn boards, sanded, oiled, kind of went over the top with it. And we had some flipper friends of ours that kind of gave us a hard time about it. like, oh, you're spending too much time on this? We've scaled it back since then. So, like, now we have specific things we do.

Like, in every flip, we use different toilet lever. We just get the aftermarket ones for, like, $20. And they usually are, like, the round, spitty ones. And I know it sounds silly, but then it looks like a $100 toilet is actually, like, a $3 or $400 toilet because we just changed the lever. Another thing that we do is pot fillers. They're pretty cheap to buy like 60 bucks. We put one of those in as often as we can because it gives it a little higher end feel,

but it's a really simple touch. And when people walk in and see the kitchen, they're like, oh, it's got to be super special because this pot filler is here or the bathroom looks a little bit more high end because we have this toilet lever. And like you said, like yes, accent walls here. and there. What I've been doing lately is if we have an opportunity for like a little bit of a mudroom area is to do like a wallpaper wall and then a built-in bench making sure like the trim goes around the bench even if you buy a hall tree from Wayfair or something like that.

So it looks like a built in those types of things that make it look like a little bit more custom and a little bit more thought went into it. Just for someone who's never flipped a house, What is a pot filler? So that's kind of like a little faucet over the range. And it comes out. Oh, literally a pot filler. Oh, okay. Yes.

And it fills your pots so you don't have to take your pot from the sink to the range that your pots can be filled at the range. And they're pretty cheap now. I mean, you can get expensive ones. And I have gotten expensive ones depending on the level of flip we're doing. if it really calls for something expensive, but you can get them for like 50 bucks if you wanted to. Okay.

I thought it was some cool word for some like slang for something. I just didn't understand. Clearly I've never had a pot filler in my house because I don't know what they are. You're missing out. Yeah. All right. So we've learned the basics about Heather and George

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Hiring Indeed is all you need. There are two kinds of real estate investors. those who have reviewed their insurance and those who think that they have. Most don't realize their coverage wasn't built for how they actually invest. Vacancy periods, rehabs, short-term rentals, or LLC-held properties. These gaps surface only when filing claims. That's why investors work with NREG. They specialize exclusively in real estate investors,

understanding portfolios, risk at scale, and cash flow protection. One claim can erase years of returns. If you own a rental property, don't assume you're covered. Have NREG review your insurance with someone who gets investing at NREG.com slash BPPod. That's n-R-E-I-G.com slash B-P-Pod. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. All right, so let's take a little bit of a step back here. I'd love to just know a little bit more about your business.

First of all, where are you guys located? How long have you been doing this? We're located in eastern Connecticut. And we've been doing this almost seven years. Six and a half, seven years. Yeah. Yeah, somewhere right around there. and we, like I said, we became agents at the same time, kind of we became flippers.

And our real estate business for buyers and sellers is, it takes up quite a bit of our business as well. And we do the flipping at the same time. And I love it because I get tons of great feedback when we're looking at other houses, even other flips with my buyer. And I'm like, looking at what they're saying, listening. and kind of taking it because I find it's very interesting and it helps fuel our flipping business. So it really goes hand in hand. I love that. I think that's a great example of how

you can use your full-time job to augment and improve your investing skills. And obviously, you both work in the real estate space. And so there's some really obvious overlap. You know, you're working with buyers. But I encourage people out there who are listening to this to think about the things that you see on a day-to-day basis or the parts of your job that you can apply to your investing career. Like for me, I was a data analyst, but that might not sound like it applies to real estate. It does apply to real estate investing. Henry actually sort of has the same background. So you can see how these kinds of things can apply. So I love how you're bringing and sort of merging those two parts of your life, you know, one job and the other sort of complementing each other,

which is, in my opinion, the best way to sort of grow that long-term wealth. Now, Now, super cool story. It sounds like you guys are doing great. How many flips are you doing per year on average right now? We aim for five flips a year. It depends on how big they are. We've taken on a few big ones. We're actually sitting in one of our flips right now.

Yeah, because it looks cool. For those of you are not watching on YouTube, the flip looks very nice. And I thought I saw a pot filler back there, so I figured. There's a pot filler that way. And I can take you around to all the toilet levers later. So, so yeah, this one was big because this one was a condemned church and we converted it to a single family home. So it was a big one. It took us a year and a half.

We did other flips in the meantime as well. This, like, wasn't our sole project. But we're careful not to take on too much, but we always. also have goals we set for ourselves that we want to take on this many, you know, this year. That was what I was going to ask next. Is it with a, with a goal like five, I think that's a great goal. It's an achievable goal. Are you trying to space them out throughout the year?

Are you just buying deals as they come? Like, how are you attacking that number of flips? Kind of depends on where we're at with the current projects. If there's something that comes our way that is like just way too much work. and we've learned by now what we can handle and not handle on top of other things. So we'll put it on the market for people, help them get the top dollar, or we can bring in other flippers that we know. We do get off market deals because people know what we do.

And so sometimes, like a referral, like we come out to the house and like, we want you to buy our house. We just want, we want this thing gone. And I say, okay, well, you can get more money on the market for this, nine times. out of 10. And we give people options. Like, you can sell it to us now. We can put it on the market, see what happens. And if what happens isn't to your liking, then we can buy it from that point. I like to get things done early in the year. So I'm all about like buying things now. So we're not left towards the end of the year. Like, oh, we didn't really buy anything. And I would like to hit our goal of

five, like with a few months to spare. Okay. Okay. I understand that. So talk to me. a little bit about how your business is structured. So like what roles are each of you playing, you know, George, you know, how long have you been directly reporting to Heather? Those kinds. Everybody knows. Everybody knows. Yeah. And it's funny because we are asked this all the time. Some people like, oh, Heather does all the design and George, you just like throw the hammer. Right. And it's like, no. I have a lot of design ideas. And sometimes, she lets me just roll with it and I don't have any doubts or questions and I just would get it done. And then sometimes I have questions.

I'm stuck. I got a roadblock and we bounce ideas off each other. And sometimes from that we come up with just a fantastic plan. And even when she stays, she does the staging when we're all done. And I don't, I don't want anything to do with the staging really, but she's still. Yeah, I still end up helping her, whether I realize it or not. So it kind of, it depends, I guess, but building wise, more me. Right, absolutely.

Like, definitely. Finishes and colors on things. Finishes and colors tend to fall on me. And if I get caught up in it, I'll ask him, hey, like, what's your vision for this? Because I have this vision. Is your vision the same or is it different? So we can kind of run it back and forth. And sometimes he's like, I don't have a vision for that particular thing.

So you run with it. And then he'll come to me and I'm like, I don't even know. You do what you want with that. I'm sure it'll be fine. And we make it work. But we don't necessarily have like specific roles. Okay, cool. Well, it sounds like it's working for both of you.

So I want to dig into, you mentioned building design. I want to talk about the scope of your flips and renovations because, Heather, you mentioned something earlier about, I think you said you have to sort of go with what the house wants. And I'm curious, sort of how do you think through this? Are you guys sort of taking each house and sort of making cosmetic changes? Because we've talked a lot about that. But are you also willing to sort of change the whole layout of the house? Are you pulling down walls and sort of telling the house what you want out of it? Both. Both. Both. So sometimes we will tell the house what it needs. Like, you need this, especially on those houses where you, like, have to walk through one

bedroom to get to another bedroom. Like, who wants that? So then when we knock down walls, we make a hallway there. We make it so it's a functional two bedroom, you know, there instead of walking through. So there are some things that we tell the house. But then the house tells us a lot to the setting of the house. We, so we're Eastern Connecticut, we're New England. We have old. We have a lot of older homes. We have stone walls. We have stone foundations. Stone foundations. Yes. And so looking at the age of the home, which we flip a lot of older homes, we want to be congruent sort of with that age. We want to bring it up to speed, but we don't want to disrespect the home, right? Like the history of the home. And so we will add in features that look a little older, but they're

not. And what I love is even on this church, like a lot of people have walked through and been like, is that light fixture original? And I'm like, oh, no. Oh, there's nothing original going on here, really. But the fact that someone thought that, that is what I'm looking for, where it's like you almost can't tell what's new and old because you've merged. That's very cool. I love that approach because it sounds like you're really taking what is unique about the original house and just be honoring it sort of in creating original new finishes and not trying to put a square peg into a round hole and make everything look cookie cutter because I'm actually, I was born and raised not far from where you operate. That's one of the charming parts about the areas that each house is really

unique and different and you wouldn't want to, you know, turn it into sort of a cookie cutter sort of environment. Exactly. Exactly. So like I have a few things. that irks me that some other people do. Like, we have a lot of, like, the traditional Cape Cod homes with, like, wood, wood siding around here. And you don't want to go in and stick a very trendy feature in there, like a waterfall edge on your island. Like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, when you look on the home from the outside, that's not what you're expecting on the inside. And one thing I like to do is bring a color or something, like maybe on a shutter or flower box or something, or the front door even maybe, on the outside, that they will see that same color on the inside.

And it just creates a sense of congruency even in your mind that, like, this house flows. And people don't even realize what's happening. Right, right. You're creating this emotion in people and they don't even know it's kind of designed to do that. So we've learned how these finer unique finishes can increase your sales price of a flip. But the question is sort of how does this translate to mom and pop buy and hold investors? Like, does this actually apply outside of flipping and to people who own rentals? We'll hit that right after the break.

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Welcome back to the show. We're here with Heather and George, and we're discussing bespoke finishes to increase the sale or rent of a home. I'm curious because as I alluded to before, I've never flipped a house. I am a rental property investor. Do you recommend or think that this approach to creating unique properties also works if you're doing a renovation for a rental property, like a burr, for example, or if you're trying to fix up rental properties, do you think paying attention to these small details would make a difference? On a different scale. Yes. Different scale. On a smaller scale. it would make a difference. So a few things here and there on a rental or a burr that someone's going to do, you're going to attract more tenants looking at it, greater availability of applications

and things like that. And I think it could make a difference, but it has to be on a smaller scale, I think, for someone holding rentals. Depends on the area, too. So I should or shouldn't put pot fillers in all of my rentals. I would recommend no pot fillers in the rentals. I can see bad things happening. Yeah, I just, no, it's like a liability.

Like, oh, I forgot the pot filler was on and then the place is flooded out or something. Like, nah. Skip that one. You know, I thought that was a great question, Dave, because I do this on a smaller scale for my rental properties. I call it perceived value. I think that's really what we're talking about here because maybe the money you spend on some of these updates don't actually add physical value. but the perceived value is there. And for me, I measure perceived value by the ooze and odds the tenants give,

the potential tenants can when they're walking in. If they walk in and they go, ooh, that's nice. I'm like, that's right. That's 50 bucks a month extra right there. No, I'm right. Right. Right. But in all seriousness, it's the perceived value.

And it may not be that they're going to pay more to live there because of that perceived value, but maybe they live there and they have a little more pride of ownership. because they enjoy the furnishes so long. Maybe they stay longer and are longer tenants. And in your case, maybe they pay more, which then actually does turn into real value. Yes.

I totally agree with that. And I do think it can translate to value. If you don't know, I know this sounds crazy because I'm an investor, but I do rent my apartment in Amsterdam. And I would pay more. And I do pay more for a place that has nicer finishes because just like any homeowner,

I want to be proud of the place that I live. And when people come over, I want it to look good and unique and not cookie cutter. So I totally agree with you, Henry. And I think it may, this is just speculation. But, you know, I think it may attract the type of tenants that have a similar mindset to you. That, you know, like if they care about this and you care about that, you might have a good symbiotic relationship with that kind of tenant. That's a great point. All right, you two.

I'm going to ask the real question here. what everybody really wants to know. How much money? You are spending this money and you're doing these fancy upgrades and how is that translating to actual profits for you? So give us a little bit of a kind of background. Like what are you typically paying for a property? And then, you know, what's kind of the NOI or what are you selling these things for?

And how are these finishes translating to dollars? Yeah. Right. So numbers have changed since COVID. probably everywhere. Like, you know, before COVID, we could buy something for $40,000, $50,000, put $100,000 in and make $50,000 in profit. Those numbers are changed. I wouldn't say maybe our profit has necessarily changed, but our buy-in cost and our sell cost is higher. And even our labor cost is higher. Everything is a little bit higher. So just for an example, on the house

with orange doors that I was telling you about that we had 52 showings that weekend, we made a solid $60,000 on that house. And basically those things that we put in, we got back then some because it was different. It was cool. It was something that people were really after. And we created more of a demand and more offers. So it does make a different. It does make a different So when you can create more of a demand for your flips and the offers come in at a greater level, they're going to come in at a higher amount. You're going to get potentially a cash offer in there with no appraisal, which was good for that one as well. We've sold a few of our flips cash, no appraisal, which is good because there's a few that

would we were like on the cusp of appraising. But when you create that more of a demand, you know, you have offers you can choose from and therefore it's probably going to sell higher. Just as a point of clarification for people who may be brand new. So what you're referring to is you're going in and you're putting these finishes in. And I would assume that there's probably not a lot of comps that would match what your finished product looks like. And if you're demanding a price point that's higher than the comps, there's always a fear that maybe that house won't appraise for even what somebody is saying they're willing to pay for it. So if you list a house for $300 and the comp say $275 and your buyer says they'll pay you $300 and

their appraiser says, well, no, it's worth $275, then really all you can sell it for is $275. And so that's what they mean when they're saying, hey, we just, we were probably on the cusp of appraisal. Exactly right. That's exactly right. And there are some people that are willing to pay over appraisal still in this crazy market. But that's becoming less frequent. So we can't bank on anything like that. the thing that we can bank on is trying to get as many feet through the door as possible to look at our

property and love it. And that's what we're going for. And we've generated a following. There's people that want one of our flips sometimes. There are some agents that call me and say, when do you have another flip coming up? Because I have a buyer that wants one. Wow. And sometimes I'm like, yeah, I don't necessarily have what they're looking for or whatever. But we do, I have had a number of agents call me and ask me. It's a good feeling. It is. Yeah, that's the response you want, right? Yeah, that is. That is.

And so we're talking a lot about those details that really matter, but also the behind-the-scenes stuff really matters. I should say that as well. If we see something, we address it. And even if it costs us more money or more work, our integrity and our reputation is worth the more money and more work. That's the most important thing to us. Bottom line.

Our reputation, people know we do it right. We do what needs to be done. we don't pretend we didn't see something. Never. Got to do it right. Yeah. And I think that that mentality, like, yes, we're in this to make money. Don't get us wrong.

But at the same time, we have to stay true to who we are. And part of that is doing things right. That's just one of those return on investment things that you can't measure. It's just an intangible part of spending this extra money. And it's not going to show up in every flip that you do. So, you know, you do spend a little bit more on these finishes, which is great. But think about the value of having people in your town knowing your quality craftsmanship and how much you care about things and having essentially a built-in buyer list already because you're doing things correctly. It's just one of those things you can't really measure in terms of numbers, but clearly is working out for the two of you.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, it is. All right. One last money question. I asked you about money on the sales side. Let's talk about money on the buy side. How are you getting the money to purchase these properties?

Yes. Okay. We'll start from the beginning. We'll start from the beginning. So our very first one, we had no relationship with any lenders. Nobody knew us from anybody. I called a few of the hard money lender big banks. They're like, what kind of flips have you done?

None. We didn't have any skin in the game. Oh, we had nothing. We had nothing. So what we ended up doing was basically we renovated our. our own house, we took out a line of credit on those renovation, like after it was renovated, we took out a line of credit. We used that as a down payment on a loan. And then I got every single credit card that would possibly tell me that they would approve me. And we had $90,000 in credit

cards. We're talking a stack of credit cards. Yeah. A stack of credit cards. How did you do that? I'm like, oh, got this baggy fly. A credit cards here, make it happen. Right. But once we showed ourselves with that first one, then we approached some hard money lenders, and they gave to us. So then we started with hard money lenders, and we grew from one to another. And after that, we ended up partnering with word of mouth, essentially, is how this happened.

We were referred to them. We were a private local lender. So yes, it's hard money as far as, you know, it's not our own money. But he's local. He trusts us. And we have such a good relationship with him that he's like, oh, yeah, of course. You're like, you have another deal coming up? Yeah.

Oh, of course I'm down for that, you know. And that's been so nice and such a blessing that we have this very trusting relationship. And he gives us 100% of the purchase price and 100% of the renovation cost. Wow. Another benefit of a good reputation, right? That's right. So instead of bringing money to the closing table, we walk away with money to start.

He gives us money to start. It's really amazing. And we've had some private lenders reach out to us and say, hey, do you need any lending? I've had two in the past week. Yeah. And it's like, oh, do we need any lending before? I couldn't get anybody to lend to me. Go ahead and you can shoot me an email with his name, phone number, email address.

You know, I'll just, I'll just, you know, asking for a friend. No, but that's great. And that's actually what you want from a private money lender. You want them calling you asking when the next deal is because that means you did your job and you paid them on time and you paid them a fair amount, you know, and everybody wins when you do it that way. But also, I want to go back to the risk you took on, right? You put some money on some credit cards to get started. A couple of things.

One, that's great grit in terms of, like, I'm going to do this. Nothing's going to stop me from doing this. And I think that that's just an entrepreneurial mindset that everyone needs to have when they're starting a business in general. There are risks with putting money on credit cards. And so this isn't a strategy for everyone. Credit cards are just a tool, guys.

They're a tool to be used in the right situation by the right party. If you are a person who knows you're not great with credit card debt, if you're sitting on a mountain of credit card debt, you can't pay right. now, don't go take out credit cards to fund your flip. But if you've been responsible with credit cards in the past, then you understand the risk that comes with not paying them off in 30 days. And that's something you can do. Then I think it can be a way to get started in your living proof of that. You just have to know yourself. You have to know your financial situation. You've got to be able to weather a storm if something goes bad. And one of the best ways to weather a storm

in the case of a real estate transaction is you buy a good deal. Because if you buy a good deal, you can typically sell out of that deal, make some money, and pay everybody off. But if you're paying retail value and you're borrowing the money on credit cards to do the work, you're in trouble. And you're going to find yourself in a world of hurt. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And I think the best deals can be found where like the floor plan is awful. I found that. Like if you can't think outside the current floor plan and people are passing on the, that house and there's really no offers on it, that's when I found we get good deals when it's like no one can think past how to fix this floor plan. So once you've done a flip and you're ready to sell the property, are there any tricks or tips that you have for people on how to get top dollar for your renovated property? I bring my wife in. So we really were big proponent of staging And we've done it since the first flip.

And I put up a fight. I was like, we're not spending $3,000 on furniture. But I gave in. I said, all right, let's do it. And it turned out great. And that was her first one. And she's just got nothing but better since then. And people, it, I remember it confused people because they didn't know if we live there,

if it was staged, if it was a flip. They couldn't tell. Yeah. Some people were like, I don't see clothes in the clock. closet, but this looks so like cozy in here. Do you live here? No, we don't. But I think that staging can really take it up a notch. And before we even do the renovation, I'm thinking about how I'm going to stage the home. Because when I'm thinking about how to stage, I'm looking at the functionality of the home. And thinking about that has actually helped our renovations, like our

current clip right now. It's an 80s colonial, so it's not actually that old. but they had like 15 rooms downstairs all the time. Like who needs this many living rooms? And so we took down some walls and I was still like, I'm not going to stage three living rooms in this home. That's ridiculous. Who wants that? And so then we were like,

oh, we're just going to expand the kitchen. Like this living room is going to become part of the kitchen. And we're making a coffee bar and we're doing things. And it makes it look like you can use the space. It's a much more grand when you walk into that. A kitchen. It's going to be beautiful. We changed the design of the island so it all flow nicely. It's going to turn out pretty cool. But we didn't come to that conclusion until I thought about how I'm going to stage the space. Turn a problem into a better outcome. Yeah, we return problems

into good things. Yeah. Every time. You know, that's a great point. I think it's really smart to think about the staging when you're still trying to figure out what you're going to do for the renovation. Because you're right, If you're thinking about functionality, you're not the only one that's going to be thinking about. The buyers are absolutely going to be thinking about functionality. And when you can build that into your floor plan, it's definitely going to make your house feel more homey and more livable. And that's exactly what we're looking for. But what I'd like to do is throw your curveball here. Okay.

So as we close, I want you to tell people a little bit of advice. So I'm sure there are people thinking, you know, what are some things that I could do maybe inexpensively to to kind of set my house apart? And how could they do those things? Or how do you think about doing things like this without overspending or over renovating? Because that is still something that can happen. You can spend a lot of money on things that end up not producing a return. So how do you find that balance? Okay.

So I think that it's important to order some things online. I'm not saying spend more money. But when someone walks into your flip and it looks like they just walked into Lowe's or Home Depot and everything is off the shelf and everything is up and oh, that vanity I just saw last week and that light fixture is there and there's nothing that looks different than you've lost it. You've lost it. And I know it takes a little bit more effort in looking, but it does not take more money. It just is something that can't be found a mile away down the street when you walk into the big box store.

I'm not saying don't buy anything off the shelf, but I'm saying mix it up with some things that people don't see every day. So whether that's door knobs or some light fixtures or a faucet, some things that they don't see. Another tip that we do to save money is we paint the walls, the trim, the ceiling, all the same color. And it's a flat finish. So after renovations are completed, staging's done, we can go through and touch it up and you can't tell it's been touched up. In the beginning, we picked out custom, fancy colors. And, you know, we'd go back in there after a month, the buyer had a question or something. And we noticed they painted everything.

They changed every color we did. And I'm like, well, that was a waste. So we're not going to do that anymore. And now we do a type of white, off-color white, and it kind of gives her stage in a nice blank canvas where she can kind of feature her design or style. We've been using, just so people know, I've been using Sharon Williams' alabaster for pretty much everything.

That's the white you see behind me. Everything goes alabaster. And then from there, I add, you know, We can add wood accents here and there, or I do a lot of mixed metal. So then you can see those things because we've created the canvas. And so people get caught up like the trim needs to be this and the wall needs to be this and the ceiling needs to be this. Like, no, paint this thing all the same color.

It does not matter. Wow. Hearing it from the people who are espousing to think out of the box, that is reassuring that you can just paint everything the same color and people will still like it. Well, Heather and George, thank you so much for joining us and helping us really learn to think a little bit outside of the box. It's obviously important to develop systems and processes that are predictable. But as you can hear from George and Heather's story, trying to apply your own personal creativity and finishes to a situation can improve your ROI in an individual deal. And

obviously, as it has for these two, help you develop a reputation that's just going to help your business scale over the long run. So thank you both so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Well, that was great. I feel like that was just a different perspective than what we get. I don't know how you learned how to flip Henry, but I've always heard that people when they flip, they sort of just try and create this repeatable sort of almost assembly

line type of atmosphere in their deals. And it was cool to just hear how Heather and George are using what clearly is like their personal strengths to their advantage in their business. Yeah, that was super. refreshing almost. And it was kind of like the permission I needed to be a little more aggressive in how we plan out what these projects can look like. And you're right. I always learned I just needed to be conservative and an appeal to the masses. But the more I heard them talk and the more I listened to, you know, how it's not just like they're like, we'll do some fancy stuff, but

they were strategic about what they were doing and how they were doing it and who they were marketing to. And that's just great business acumen. Totally. And there, you know, there's reasons people teach these things like, you know, make it repeatable, follow these steps. Because when you're learning, you do want to sort of limit your risks. But I think it's so important for everyone, whether you're a flipper, long-term rental, whatever you do, is to think critically and think for yourself. Like, if you're seeing on the ground, like something is working, go with that. Just because other people or Henry and I don't say it on the show that you should be doing it. If you can see with your own two eyes that this system is working, you should be doing it. That is what entrepreneurship is. It's never cookie cutter.

You always have to apply your own creativity, your own little flare to whatever that you're doing. So I loved hearing about that. If you want to learn more about George and Heather, you can check it out in the show notes. We'll put links to all their information and social medias and all that. and I think we're good to get out of here, Henry. Thanks for joining me, man. Yes, it was a great time as always. Thank you, sir. All right.

And thank you all so much for listening. We'll see you next time. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calicoe content.

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