Our Challenges With Choosing the Perfect House to Flip

The perfect first house to flip was not an easy one to find for us here in Mazatlan. Outside of considering the location, physical characteristics, and financial considerations, we wanted to make sure we found a house we wanted to work with.

When we ventured out to find our first flip, we read up all the necessary books, magazines and websites, hoping to school ourselves on the masters of finding the perfect flip. There we were, January 2019, with notebook and pen in hand, jotting down the checklist of all the necessary things that summed up to an ideal flip.

We reviewed first time flippers experiences, watched countless shows, dissected the 70% rule, created an idea board to give substance to our search. We scoured the internet searching for that perfect flip on all the real estate sites based in Mazatlan.

Then we started just walking up and down the neighborhood hoping to find a sign out in front of the homes with the names of the real estate agency or phone number to a trato directo - owner is selling direct - and then we walked right into it.

The perfect flip found us! It was on a quaint street with beautiful cobblestones lining the road and a recently renovated treelined sidewalk. It was steps from the Fine Arts Museum and a 5-minute walk to the beach. It just screamed our names in its dilapidated form. The asking was way higher than what we had hoped for but we reeeeeeally wanted it.

It turned out that the structure, we cannot even call it a house as it only had a facade, with its overrun weeds and fallen rooftop, was in such a disarray with the deeds to the property. Because the deeds of the property had not been vetted through the judiciary system which can take years to complete, we needed to pass up on countering to our initial offer. The house we knew we would love to work on fell through.

Forlorn, we somberly walked around town thinking that we’d never get a jump start on our new endeavors. We found another corner house that we felt would be a hard sell with two streets framing the property.

Just up the street from the corner house was another property listed with a local real estate agency. Walking up to scout the neighborhood we came across the big En Venta [for sale] sign. The exterior had a café-style look that screamed 60’s retro. The windows were too wide for an ideal city center house with the limited privacy and excess sunlight as its southfacing, solar radiation would be significantly elevated thus creating an overheated house.

There was much to dislike about the house, but I think that was the point. We saw so much potential and could see that restored it to the Mazatlan’s tropical neo-classic colonialism-style. Because we didn’t love this house the way we loved the first house, we knew it was the perfect one. After much grieving of not acquiring the first property we made the offer on we realized that it would not have been the best decision. How can you sell a property you’d love to have as your own?

After much conversation, we put an offer on the table that was accepted. The Casita on Constitucion became the perfect house for our first reno and flip opportunity. We hope you join us on our journey through the renovations of this house. We promise we’ll share all the before and after pictures once completed.

xoxo
Sophia y Socrates