Alex Marmon
Alex Marmon has been a guest on Collecting Keys, the real estate investing podcast hosted by Mike DeHaan, Dan Austin and Dylan Koch.
How to Flip a Home as a First Time Flipper with Alex Marmon
First-time flipper and software engineer Alex Marmon walks through the renovation of a 1904 house he bought from Mike and Dan's wholesale business, including a demo phase that ran six weeks instead of one, a carbon monoxide leak that likely explained the prior owner's death, and wildly inflated trade quotes he learned to push back on. He shares the numbers ($280k breakeven, listed at $299k), the eight-month timeline, and what he'd do differently. Mike and Dan add context on hiring demo labor, time budgets versus dollar budgets, and why jumping in is the best education.
Key takeaways
- Hire out demo. Alex and his brother spent six weeks on demo they'd budgeted a week for, plus $2,000-$3,000 in dumpster fees, when a crew of five could have done it in about a week for roughly $3,500.
- Pre-1900s houses have endless layers. On a 1904 home with lath and plaster, drywall over plaster, newspaper insulation and additions, you can demo until the house is gone, so you have to decide where to stop.
- Learn enough to call BS on trade quotes. A plumber quoted $2,500 to $5,000 for a disconnected sewer line the day before an open house; Alex crawled under himself, sent a photo to another plumber, and fixed it for about $100. An HVAC company quoted $20k for full ductwork; Dan's guy replaced the system for about $5k.
- Never ignore a CO detector. Alex threw out a beeping CO monitor early in the project; an inspection later found a carbon monoxide leak in the HVAC, and he realized the previous owner had died in his sleep in that house.