Spike TV's 'Flip Men' Help You Flip that House

If you watched Flip Men last season, you probably remember the house with the huge tree growing in the middle of it.

Well, this season, (premiering Sunday, Aug. 5 at 10 p.m. ET?PT on Spike TV) Utah's real estate and renovation experts Mike Baird and Doug Clark encounter even more gnarly scenarios, including a drive-thru meth lab, a former murder scene and a late night encounter with thieves who come back to strip an abandoned home of its valuable copper wiring.

"The moment you walk in, it can be man vs. nature, like the rodent aspect, insects that cause dry rot and those types of things, man vs. man, who knows what type of squatter, vagrant, dead person or otherwise tripped out druggie may be there, and then it's also just man vs. house. These homes have been vacant and abandoned for a long time, so there's mould and there's meth residue still left behind," says Baird.

Given how bad these places are, it's a wonder that anyone can restore them to a livable condition, let alone stay on budget and completely eradicate any semblance of their former state. But, Baird and Clark have been doing it for years and they've agreed to lift the curtain on their technique just for us.

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The Key to Any Market

When we last talked to the two men at the beginning of Flip Men's first season, America's real estate market was pretty much dead with a few bright spots that Baird and Clark were taking advantage of. One year later, things have changed for the positive.

"When we spoke prior, there was some good activity going on in the marketplace, but not nearly to the level that's going on now," says Baird.

"We in Salt Lake City are probably at an all-time four-year low when it comes to the amount of housing inventory that's available for purchase. So, inventory has gone down and inventory going down obviously means lower supply. We've also seen a greater demand. I think banks and lenders have finally loosened up a little bit and even more so in the last six to nine months since we spoke last. Interest rates are still low. So what we're seeing here is a decrease in supply and a greater increase in demand, due to some of the lending guidelines and interest rates. We're seeing multiple offers in three to four days. We've had up to nine offers in a 24-hour period for properties and that's pretty much the norm for all of the ten homes featured on the show."

But the overwhelming success doesn't change the fact that property auctions are still the best place to find homes worth flipping. Homes are still entering foreclosure and those are backlogged up for years, so the strategy doesn't change under more advantageous market conditions. However, there is one thing budding flippers need to keep in mind if they want to seize the day.

"Where people get in trouble is they price everything for today's value and it ends up holding for a year, thanks to a really long and nasty rehab. You can get really in trouble really fast, but the key to it all is speed. If you're in and out in 30 to 45 days, it's unlikely the market conditions are going to change much and that's kind of what we base our business on more than anything else," says Clark.

The Tricks of the Trade

When it's actually time to start renovating and rehabilitating the houses, there are definitely tricks of the trade designed to attract more buyers --- and it starts with the flipper.

"The problem is, if you were to profile your normal flipper, they typically have some amount of money, they've been some type of business, but they typically don't have a design type flare," says Baird. "As a result, you walk into some of these bread and butter type flips and it feels like a flip."

Baird means the home doesn't feel lived in, it feels fake and artificial. There are still half-empty paint cans on the floor and baseboard tape on the walls. It doesn't yet feel like a home. Instead, it feels like the newly renovated house is about to be dumped on the buyers, so that the flippers can take the money and run.

"To avoid that feeling, flippers need to keep up on the latest design trends and paint colours," says Baird. "For example, seven to eight years ago everyone was using beige and tan colours. Well, I have to say it, but beige is so yesterday. The truth is, when you walk in, you want your home to feel like a model."

That means using fresher, newer and hipper paint colours, such as grey and cream tones. It's also important to stage your home with furniture, just as a realtor would do. Curb appeal is also one of the first things any good flipper has to tackle, usually in the form of a well-manicured lawn. "It's something you need to take care of really, really because that's where the initial thought occurs, as to whether someone wants to buy or not," continues Baird. Appliances are also an important feature that is rarely left as is and it's something Baird and Clark are both very picky about.

"We rarely leave appliance as is inside a home because we like them to match and we want them to look new," says Clark. "On cheaper homes we usually go with a black, but on more expensive homes it has to be stainless steel. It's something we're very picky about because it's jewelery for the kitchen. Typically, a woman wants to walk into kitchen that is bright and new and has never used appliances with the paperwork still in them, there's just something that people like about that when they're buying a new house. It helps really pull in the women buyers."

The Latest Housing Trends

Pretty much all of the tricks in Baird and Clark's arsenal are tailored to capitalize on the various housing trends they've seen over the years.

"Carpet is fine for bedrooms, but any opportunity you have to bring hardwood floors through an entry area or a kitchen area, is always a must," says Baird. "People love to brag about how their house has no carpet in it. They want it surgically clean with hardwood floors, so any opportunity to bring in natural woods or stone is the thing to do."

Granite is right up there with hardwood when you talk about housing trends, but Baird warns that manufactured stones, like silt stone and zodiac, are also coming on strong. Track lighting and stainless steel or chrome light fixtures are also much more popular than the traditional brushed nickle or brass.

"Everything was tan and, for about a decade or so, we've been seeing a lot more shades of grey. Grey is kind of the new tan, as far as colours go, and that has been a major shift. We've also done more pure white, high-gloss kitchens than we've ever done before," says Clark. "Mike used the phrase 'surgically clean', that's kind of the look we're going with right now and their flying off the market."

Areas to Focus On

If you're flipping a house, or just completing your own renovations, there are specific areas you're going to have to spend money on to be successful. For Baird and Clark, one of the most annoying of these is the mechanics of the house.

"It's one of those things I hate spending money on because the buyer is not going to know if we improve the electrical system," says Clark. "They expect it to work and they don't care if it worked before or after, it just has to work when they take it over. So, I hate spending a lot of money, but you have to."

There are places that they do enjoy spending money and one of these is the kitchen: "Sometimes it's not a lot, sometimes it's just a few hundred dollars and you can make it look absolutely brand new, but the kitchen has got to pop."

Plus, as the two said earlier, the curb appeal of the front yard is often overlooked, but there are a lot of simple things you can do to entice buyers from the street. "Maybe it's bark, or mulch, or a few little plants that keep the yard green," says Clark. "It's a few tiny little things that aren't very costly, sometimes it's shutters for $20. Things like that, in the front yard, to kind of put the final lipstick on the home is something that's not expensive and a lot of people skip that step and try to over improve the inside, forgetting the fact that the outside is the first thing ever to be seen and really is the true first impression."

Flip it, Flip it Good

Since it's so crucial to flip properties before market conditions change, and make like Baird and Clark by being in and out in a month or so, you're going to need to flip these properties fast. While some of that comes with experience, The Flip Men will tell you there are things you can do to go from disaster to dream in a month.

"For a new person getting involved, it's at least planning out the time to be at property and kind of put your foreman hat on," says Clark.

However, the biggest key is having a qualified team in your employ for all the things that you yourself aren't qualified to do. "We don't do all the work ourselves, we have a fantastic team around us and we rely on a lot of professionals. There are a lot of things we're not qualified to do like electrical work, certain plumbing work or HVAC work. We have a phenomenal team and there's plenty of people in every county in America who could become part of yours."

In general though, show up and be the boss: "You better be there, you better make sure that whoever is helping you, be it skilled labour or yourself doing whatever you can, be on task and you will find things that you never expected," says Clark.

"That's why it's so important to be on site, especially for someone that's new, and just understand that things are going to happen that are out of your control and you want to use the best team around you to help fix that and do it in as little time as possible."

Watch the second season premiere of 'Flip Men' on Spike TV Sunday, August 5th at 10 p.m. ET/PT.