How to Sell a Fix-and-Flip That Won't Sell

By Kevin Langan

Kevin Langan is a trusted real estate advisor dedicated to elevating the level of professionalism in the industry through expert strategy, real guidance, and exceptional results.

A flip that won’t sell is a math problem with a clock attached. Interest accrues every day the property sits. By the time most investors call an agent, the question has quietly changed from how much can I make to how much can I keep.

The clock is the real cost. Investors financing a flip are usually working with hard-money loans rather than a conventional mortgage. These run 10% to 13% and sometimes higher, so the carrying cost compounds against the margin every week. The investor who called me had properties that just weren’t selling, already listed and canceled once before he reached me. The project had also gone over budget, and partnership problems were making everything harder. By that point, the job had stopped being about profit and become about salvage.

Know the math before pricing. Most agents in that situation will list it and hope. I’m an investor myself, so I start with the carrying costs, the loan terms, and the margin that’s actually left. Then I tell the client the truth about where they stand. With this one, I laid out his real situation, what the market would bear, and the smartest way out. It wasn’t the outcome he’d pictured when he bought these. The job was to protect as much of his money as possible, and that starts with an honest number, not a hopeful one.

Speed protects the margin. When a property is losing money daily, most people get the balance wrong, pricing too high and letting it sit, or panicking and handing it over. I priced these aggressively enough to cause a real market reaction, but anchored the number in the comparable sales so we weren’t underselling. Then I paired that with heavy premium exposure. One of the properties went under contract in about ten days.

Make the price absorb it. On one property, the buyer asked the seller to cover their closing costs. Plenty of agents take that straight out of the seller’s proceeds and move on. I went back with the comps and showed the home justified a higher number. At our list price, there was no room to also pay their costs, I told the buyer, but the comps supported going higher if they wanted them covered. The buyer agreed, and the sale price rose $10,000 to cover the concession. His proceeds were protected instead of shaved, which is the entire point of having someone at that table.

The agent decides the ending. Flips go sideways, even for good investors. What changes the ending is whether the person representing you understands your numbers, can move fast on price without handing the property away, and fights for every dollar at the table. This investor recovered essentially all of the equity he’d put in, and he keeps bringing me his next deals.

If you’ve got a property that’s stuck, or a flip turning into a problem, don’t wait while it bleeds. Call or text me at 480-327-8092, email me at info@langanteam.com, or visit kevinsellsaz.com.

Let’s build a plan to get your money out.