How to Sell Your House to a Flipper in 7 Steps

When to consider selling a house to a flipper

A traditional sale might be what you had in mind when you originally bought your home. But life happens, plans change, and emergencies arise. Here are a few scenarios when working with a house flipper may make sense:

1. The house needs A LOT of work

If your home needs significant or costly improvements, selling to a house flipper might be easier than investing in renovations. A flipper has better access to the capital needed to make repairs and typically can put more time and effort into the process.

Kyle McCorkel, an investor who regularly buys, rehabs, and resells properties around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, once bought a 1,200-square-foot townhouse for $55,000 from two brothers who wanted to sell the home on behalf of their father, who had health issues and let it fall into disrepair.

He estimated the home needed $36,000 worth of repairs, including new flooring, paint, and cleanup from water damage. “Cosmetically, it needed a complete overhaul. The dad physically couldn’t take care of the place, and the sons didn’t want to deal with it,” McCorkel shares.

Additionally, if your home has suffered severe damage, either through a natural disaster or another incident, a flipper is likely to be more willing to take it on than a typical buyer. Jim Griffin, a top real estate agent in Johnson City, Tennessee, gives an example of a 1,600-square-foot home wrecked in a fire. The structure “had to be taken down to the studs,” he says, not the ideal condition for a conventional sale.

2. You need to move fast and get the extra cash ASAP

A traditional listing is honestly just too slow for some situations. Nearly 40% of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency, forcing them to rely on credit cards for unexpected expenses, according to an Empower report. The loss of a job or decline in a family member’s health, for example, can make it difficult to pay your mortgage.

One family sought Griffin’s help in selling a relative’s home fast so that the person could move into assisted living. The family couldn’t handle inspections and repairs at the time, but by bringing a cash buyer to the sale, Griffin was still able to attract an offer that netted roughly $130,000 for the family.

In this type of scenario, homeowners may turn to flippers for a fast and straightforward exit. Other motivations to unload a property fast include:

Today, it takes an average of 62 days for houses to go under contract with a buyer. When working with a financed buyer, sellers should tack on another 44 days, on average, for purchase loan approval. That brings the selling timeline to 106 days as of November 2024, the latest available data at the time of publication.

One of the main advantages of selling your house to a flipper — or real estate investor paying all cash — is a quicker closing, which can be reduced to as little as one to two weeks. With HomeLight’s Simple Sale platform, for example, you can connect with a cash buyer in 24 hours and close in as little as 10 days.

3. You’re overwhelmed with the listing process

Repeatedly showing the home and keeping it looking a certain way for weeks is a point of major stress for a lot of sellers. When you sell to a flipper, “You’re not going to have to put in any type of work to get the property ready to put on the market or get it presentable for photos, videos, that kind of thing,” says Shane Underwood, a top-selling real estate agent in Lexington, Kentucky.

“You’re not going to have to deal with showings and people walking through your home.” Underwood has worked with homeowners who were “relieved that they’re able to sell the property” this way because of personal or property issues.

4. You’re OK with accepting a lower offer

One big question you probably have is: How much do flippers pay for houses?

It’s important to note that if you sell to a house flipper, you likely will not receive full value for your property, and you may have to accept a significant discount. Flippers are looking to make a profit, so they will almost always offer a reduced price to ensure that happens.

McCorkel follows the flipping industry standard known as the 70% rule, which stipulates that an investor will offer no more than 70% of a property’s after-repair value, or ARV, for a house they plan to flip. If a property needs repairs, those estimated costs would be subtracted from that 70%.

While this doesn’t guarantee a profit for a flipper, it allows for quick calculations with wiggle room for expenses such as taxes, utilities, and other costs that can eat into an expected profit while the property is on the market. So, if you’re checking what homes in your area and price range have sold for, you can expect to get a fraction of that cost, especially if you’ve let regular maintenance slide.

Here’s one example of how an investor might price your property:

The flipper reviews your home and estimates that it has an ARV of $250,000. They apply the 70% rule to $250,000, reducing the amount they’re willing to offer to $175,000. The flipper then estimates that the house needs $40,000 in repairs. The amount they offer you as a result is $135,000 ($175,000 – $40,000).

“It’s all about working backward,” McCorkel says of the math.

There are homes where the ARV is so low compared to the repairs that it’s not worth the investment. For instance, if a home might be worth $50,000 at resale but it needs $50,000 worth of repairs, he’d pass. “Even if I got the house for $5,000, I just lost money on that,” McCorkel says.

If you’re in the dark about your home’s approximate value, we recommend that you consult HomeLight’s online Home Value Estimator to get a ballpark figure to work from. Simply tell us a little bit about your property, and we’ll provide you with an instant estimate, as well as the opportunity to connect with a real estate agent for more information.

5. Your house appeals to flippers in the area

Exactly how appealing your house is to flippers depends on the price range, the work involved, and the investor’s desired profit. Any investor weighs a project in terms of time and money.

Here are some signs that a flipper might buy your property:

• It’s located in an area that buyers want. Flippers and investors often have an ideal buyer pool in mind. Ruth Lyons, a Maryland realtor and real estate investor who does about two to three fix-and-flips per year, tries to make her flips appealing to first-time homebuyers, so she looks for three-bedroom homes in areas with good school districts.

• It’s not a historic property. Homes classified as historic require detailed permitting and inspection for repairs, says Lyons, who already must mitigate lead paint and radon in many properties. She checks sold comps to see what renovations provide the best return on investment so she’s not tempted to over-improve a property.

• They can rehab it and sell it in months. With the townhouse McCorkel purchased, he estimates two months for rehab and two months to market and sell it, including closing time. “I try to be conservative; sometimes we can beat that, but we have other projects going on,” he says.

• It needs some amount of work done to it. The townhouse is a “cosmetic flip,” meaning that it doesn’t need significant repairs to its bones, McCorkel says. A house that needed more work wouldn’t be a deal breaker, but it would change the economics. For example, if McCorkel’s townhouse hypothetically needed a new roof or treatment for termites, he would add that to his repair costs (and timeline), then offer less to the homeowner to recoup more on the sale.

That said, some investors will avoid properties with certain issues, such as a cracked foundation, regardless of the potential profit. But McCorkel and his partner believe that if the numbers work — meaning the ARV is there — they’ll buy a property. “If it’s an $800,000 house that has a foundation issue, I’ll spend $100,000 if I can make a decent profit off it,” he says.

Then again, there aren’t that many homes like that in his area. That’s why he focuses on mid-range properties that they can buy for about $90,000 and sell for roughly $200,000. “There are opportunities to make improvements, and because of the price point, we’re able to make it work for the seller as well,” he says.