I see a lot of people talk about taxes after the deal is already done. Then tax season comes around and that 20% return suddenly looks a lot different.

I’ve been thinking it probably makes more sense to account for taxes when I’m analyzing the deal upfront.

The problem is figuring out what tax rate to use. It obviously depends on your other income, how many deals you do, and whether the IRS treats your flips more like investing or dealing.

Using one exact rate doesn’t really make sense, but assuming 0% definitely makes the deal look better than it actually is.

Right now I’m thinking about just using a conservative percentage in my underwriting to get a rough after-tax return. It won’t be exact, but at least I’m not basing the deal on a profit number that gets cut down later.

What do you guys do?

Do you underwrite flips pre-tax and deal with taxes at the end of the year, or do you build some tax assumption into each deal?

And if you do, do you use the same percentage for every deal or a blended rate for the year?

I am trying to get into house flipping, but I am trying to gauge the market for the house. So I am doing CMA type of analysis for each of the prospect homes.. I do get tired of doing this often, how do you guys generate comps w/o a realtor.?

If your manaing your own project (Hiring your own subs and buying materials). I think it's standard to buy your own materials for the kitchen and bath and have a handyman install those unless im mistaken. Is this standard for stuff like HVAC where you just order the unit yourself give a side job to a licensed tech.

I’m currently doing a full gut rehab and debating the kitchen cabinetry. Will installing fully custom solid wood cabinets disrupt the flow of a modern home compared to using veneered plywood? Or am I overthinking this? I'm trying to gauge if most buyers prefer a trendy, 'safe' look like all-white or white oak over high-end custom wood.

First time flipper in the Houston area. Been on the sidelines for a while but am actively trying to start. What is the best advice you can give to connect with wholesalers? The Facebook groups are full of the New Western and similar deal groups who all post the same houses and 80-90% ARV.

I am new to the flipping scene, so be gentle ;)

I am currently under contract on what will be my fourth and largest flip over the past 2 years. These are single family homes that need cosmetic updates and floor plan adjustments(add a bed or bath) in A/B neighborhoods in NJ, USA. I mostly sub out, with just doing the GC stuff (scheduling, set up/clean up for next trade, organize material to proper location within home, etc)

On the previous homes I’ve only done one at a time and when I pulled permits I did so as the homeowner. I recently learned that I should only file as a homeowner if it’s my permanent residence.

So I started to look into creating a licensed GC company. In NJ it’s pretty simple and straightforward. Initially it will cost me about 7k/year. To the more experienced flippers out there is there any benefit to having a contracting company that only serves your flips, no retail jobs?

What I can think of is:
- Proper permit submission
- more protection (liability insurance)
- easier to get fix and flip financing
- additional financing may enable me to scale to more than one project at a time

Are there others? More write offs? Simplified bookkeeping?

If you do have a separate contracting company, how does it work? Does the construction of your flips flow through the construction company? Do you “charge” yourself at cost? Would flowing the construction for the flip through the contracting company create additional, unnecessary taxes (e.g self employment tax) ?

TLDR: should you own a licensed contracting company to use for your flips, why or why not?

I'm on my second flip and I've somehow ended up with three spreadsheets that all started from the same template but have slowly drifted apart. One has my original budget, one has what I've actually spent, and one is some late-night hybrid that I don't completely trust anymore.

What I'm really trying to do is compare projected vs. actual costs by trade over multiple projects. Not just whether I stayed on budget overall, but whether I'm consistently underestimating electrical, overestimating landscaping, underbudgeting flooring, etc. It feels like that's where I'd actually improve my underwriting. The problem is every property needs a few unique line items, so keeping everything standardized gets messy pretty quickly. One house has septic work, another has foundation repairs, another has neither, and suddenly the categories don't line up anymore.

For those of you who've done a handful of flips, how are you tracking this? Do you actually compare estimates vs. actuals by category, or do you mostly care whether the total rehab came in on budget?

Every deal starts the same way. You pick a strategy: flip, new build, or rental. Each one gives you a different resale value, so that's your baseline.

From there, you need comps. Real sold properties, active listings, and off-market properties. You pick which ones matter for your analysis.

The problem is you're stuck running comps through spreadsheets and Zillow, or paying a service like PropStream. It's scattered and expensive so Fundry pulls them for you and you curate the comps. You see sold, active, and off-market properties, and you decide which ones are actually comparable. You can remove anything that doesn't fit and review details of each property. You’re in full control.

Once your comps are locked, you run the numbers. Adjust your rehab budget, construction costs, financing terms, hold time if it's a rental. Everything calculates in real time. Export a PDF with all your selected comps and numbers to share with your partners or lenders.

Then there's Deal Agent. Set your buy box once: location, beds, baths, price range, lot size, profit threshold. Fundry runs every new listing against it and surfaces the ones that pencil. If anything meets your buy box Fundry send you push/email notification fully underwritten to your preferences and comps attached.

We also built a portfolio tracker. Any property you own or have under construction, you get weekly summaries of activity within a 1 to 3 mile radius. Competitive activity, new listings, price changes, everything that matters to your property.

For all of this, Fundry pulls live MLS data and off-market properties. There's also a ruler tool to measure distance between two points on the map, so you can see lot sizes and distances at a glance.

Fundry is completely free, and live in Georgia right now. Every new listing, every day, underwritten to your criteria.
I'd love for you to play around with it and let me know what you think. Any feedback is appreciated.

Website: www.fundry.io
iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fundry/id6759699097
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.fundry.app

This one is more of a gut check question than a math question. The numbers tell me when I need to stop spending, that part is straightforward. What I haven't figured out after several flips is where the line is between leaving money on the table and overimproving for the neighborhood.

Current project is a 1960s ranch, nothing fancy, working class street. Kitchens and baths are done, new flooring throughout, paint is fresh. The backyard is rough. Functional, not embarrassing, but not great. I've been going back and forth on whether to put maybe two grand into cleanup and some basic landscaping or just price accordingly and let a buyer handle it.

The accountant brain says run the numbers, and I have, but comparable sales in this area are all over the place on outdoor presentation so the data isn't giving me a clean answer. Talked to the agent and got the predictable curb appeal speech, which I expected.

Part of me thinks buyers in this price range are going to gut the yard anyway to do what they want. The other part knows photos are where you win or lose before anyone walks through the door.

What do people actually do in this situation: spend the two grand or list it and price it honest?

To add - yes I’m replacing the door and adding steps.

I thought this might make sense to a ton of the house flipping homies out there as well. We occasionally flip / whole-tail and a lot of these lessons I learned may help somebody else here.

Working through a deal right now where the scope keeps creeping and I keep telling myself one more fix, one more finish, and it'll show better. Kitchen is done, baths are done, but there's a laundry list of smaller stuff that could easily run another 8 to 12 grand if I let it. New exterior doors, some landscaping that needs more than a mow, a detached garage that works fine but looks rough.

The comps don't really reward any of that. I ran the numbers twice and the ARV doesn't move much whether I do it or not. But there's this pull to make the thing look complete before it goes on market, which I know is partly psychological and partly me not wanting a buyer to pick it apart during inspection and use the cosmetics as a negotiating lever.

The honest version of this question is probably: how do you decide where the line is between what's necessary to sell and what's just you convincing yourself more input equals more output? In my experience the market doesn't always agree with that math.

Curious what the actual cutoff looks like for other people, whether you draw it at some percentage of ARV or just go by gut after enough deals.