FLIPT: real estate ROI beta app a flop so far?

FLIPT launches – let’s take a look

FLIPT promises to be your go-to app for “Connecting Property ROI Insights with Realtors and Investors.” The app that will – according to their website – allow you to “Discover the best “Fix and Flip” and other Real Estate investment opportunities, including calculated ROI, recommended “fixes,” and suggested suppliers and agents.”

As far as I can tell, FLIPT is nothing more than an App that lets me:

• Write down the address of a house
• Write down what I think the actual purchase price will be
• Write down what repairs are needed and how much they will cost
• Write down how much it could sell for after all of the fixes

While “There’s an App for that” has been a fun little saying for the past few years, I have unfortunate news for the folks at FLIPT: I have a pad of paper and it does the exact same thing. If I’m feeling fancy I can use a word processor to write a report and a spreadsheet to show some calculations – both marvelous inventions that date back to, oh I don’t know, the 1980s?

Adding value elsewhere?

If FLIPT was adding value somewhere along the way – and perhaps they are, and I just didn’t have access to the full program or they aren’t in my local market (San Franicsco, CA) – it could make for an interesting product. But as far as I can tell, it’s a glorified book report writer, a book report writer that requires you still read the book, take the notes, decide what the important points are and write the report.

But once you’ve written that book report, it’s happy to add your picture, phone number, and email address, and then email it to anyone you want.

The value a Realtor brings to investor clients interested in flipping a property isn’t in the presentation of a pretty report with a bunch of hypotheticals. The value a Realtor brings to this situation is local market knowledge that allows us to see an opportunity the rest of the market is overlooking, and to help our clients move quickly so that they can capitalize on that unrecognized opportunity.

The verdict

I can see nothing in the FLIPT app that might make it easier for a Realtor to identify unrecognized opportunities. No heat maps, no big data analysis, no neighborhood demographics, no historical trends, no guaranteed pricing from contractors (although it does have a “Get Bids!” button that didn’t work for me), no local “inside scoop” about upcoming changes to neighborhoods, local zoning laws, building ordinances, or anything else.

Successful “flippers” in my experience are either in the right place at the right time, or they have identified a pattern unique to their local area that they are able to replicate on a regular basis with contractor’s that do good work for them at reasonable prices.

Pretty book reports don’t get you a property for under market value, don’t guarantee good work by contractors, and don’t guarantee you’ll get the sales price you are aiming for. And that’s the end of my book report about FLIPT. Which I had to write all by myself.