I agree with Bry! Just make sure it shows really well and can be replaced easily, if need be, when it comes time to sell but doesn't break the bank now. It would be a small miracle to find a buyer who wants exactly what you put in today in five years from now. Just get something affordable and put your money into something all people want (a well maintained home) and you'll be much better off.

This is the laminate floor I'm currently drawn to:

Armstrong X-Grain Sable (looks like white oak)

I dislike walking on laminate, are there some that feel the same as hardwood.?

I think we're all really talking about our experiences with flooring. Back in the flipping days, a lot, and I mean a lot of people were putting in cheap, floating laminates that looked good but felt squishy and didn't last.

People didn't like the quality issues, so they started putting in hardwood, but to save $$$, put in cheap and poorly installed floors. And they got scratched up by their dogs or got stained and didn't hold up well like hardwood floors are supposed to. Meanwhile the laminate companies started making higher-end products and engineered hardwood. And now it looks like somebody figured out plywood (which is a laminate).

It's also been cool seeing the early wood tiles that were a curiosity, and not that great looking, five years ago and now you can hardly tell if they are tile or hardwood - they are that good. Wish they had those 9 years ago and that's what would be down on our floors.

Bry911 - those are gorgeous! Very curious as to how they hold up!

I'm tired of the flip talk always being about cheap work. I've toured several flips in the last year, nice high end flips, nothing cheap about them, no laminate or shortcuts.

How durable they are really depends on what you want and how you decide to install them. But generally they are much more durable than hardwoods.

When looking at hardwood floors the durability really has a lot less to do with the floor than it does with the finish. Basketball courts are typically just maple with a high build urethane finish, it is the finish that adds the wear resistance not the maple. The problem with finishes over hardwoods is the wood expansion. You can submerge a proper sealed piece of hardwood or plywood in water and it will be fine for a couple of days. However, in floors, expansion and contraction put micro-cracks in the urethane on the face of the boards causing it to wear off, and larger cracks at board edges which lets moisture and dirt in.

Laminates, engineered woods or plywoods, have much more dimensional stability and expand a lot less. This means the topcoat is much more durable and allows for a better wear. It also allows you to get less joints in the wood which is where expansion hurts the most. As far as durability of the wood itself...it will probably be about as hard as pine, but really depends on the type of plywood.

@ cmarlin20 - I really don't want to start a fight but with a flip there usually has to be shortcuts. There are too many fees to overcome otherwise.

The best flipper is still going to use something like 10% of the selling price in buying, selling, administrative and money fees. Added to the fact that renovations don't typically even have an 80% return and the profit has to come from somewhere.

Look at a $180,000 buy with a target $300,000 price. $30,000 will get eaten up in fees alone, you would not take the risk for less than 10% profit so there goes another $30,000. That leaves the flipper $60,000 to add $120,000 of value. There are probably people out there doing good work, but they are few and far between.

The flips I'm seeing are in the $2mil and up range, one nearby was a very long two year flip, but the list is $2 mil over the purchase, 2 years is still too long. I don't see cheap, but nice redo, and they do sell.

cmarlin20, for the record, I was referring to the crazy flipping years - around 2006-2008 maybe? Height of HGTV flipping shows, everybody trying it, skilled or not, crazy market supported it.

We're all a lot smarter now, flippers have to be more skilled and smarter to be successful. And code inspectors are tougher, too.

Thank goodness.

Because, it's one thing to buy a house that has been lovingly and skillfully improved and quite another to buy something that has been altered by someone purely as a means of making some fast money. (My comment has nothing to do with the OP, it's just that those flipping times were attrocious.)

I agree c9pilot, in my area houses are expensive, buyers pay more, but expect more.

bry911 the 2 year flip I'm referring to was not lived in, it was bought to flip. I've been watching it knowing the buyer flips many houses, watching and waiting to see it come back on the market. Here is it. 5 Open Brand Rolling Hills It takes too long to rebuild, not a good city to flip.

I look at "Flippers" with a somewhat different take...

After all, if it was not for the investor / flipper during the last financial downturn, the neighborhoods that were hit the hardest would not have recovered nearly as quickly as most have. All of us should appreciate the fact that the flippers' work makes it possible for the lender to get buyers into a property that would otherwise remain vacant. We all know what a long term vacant home does to neighborhood values. Not only does it help out the neighborhood values, but it gives inventory to people that otherwise would not be able to afford a "new" home.

And, if a flipper is not willing to take the risk of purchasing these vacant fixer uppers, then it will be the "slum - lord", who will not upgrade the property much at all, and put in a stream of renters. Having a neighborhood full of renters will bring values down, much more than a neighborhood having the same amount of flipped properties.

I am pleased to see these people jumping into the marketplace during the recession. They have greatly improved the glut of vacant homes, they have caused the duration of distressed properties sitting vacant on the market to be short lived, and they have caused a lot of the hardest hit neighborhoods property values to rebound faster than if they were not out there taking risk with their money.

So you'd rather have slum lords come in and buy up all the vacant REOs and put in renters?

Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme. A flipper never promises a buyer an ROI. If a flipper is trying to sell a house with very inferior products, the marketplace will reflect that and most purchasers will realize what they are getting and are very happy with it.

You chastise the flipper for buying properties at low, but market value and then selling for top, but market value. What the hell is wrong with that? Especially when no one else would have wanted the home in its distressed condition.

Edit: Let's just agree to disagree and get back on topic.

bry911 - the flip buyer buys a house on the open market, the general population had the same opportunity to purchase the same house, but chose not to. Same with a spec build, any buyer can buy that tear-down to rebuild., many people don't want to do it, but again, the open market is just that - open to anyone and everyone. You seem to have a distorted view of real estate investors. You know flippers use cheap material and cover problems, I'm sure some have, but you are painting with a very broad brush.

Again you're calling a flipper fool? Why/how is it foolish to buy a rundown house, update it to sell it for a profit?

Your wiki definition as a defense doesn't cut it. Sour grapes?

I am in the Midwest and I can say from personal experience that "proof" is not even close to actual cost in my area anyway.

Your posts are just too long for me, I didn't look at your link. I know the flips in my area are quality products and calculating their ROI, they did well. I linked the two year flip as I thought it unusual for a REA to buy knowing it will take so long to flip. Most here are ready in 6-8 months. I've said on here before, I did one flip about ten years ago, never again, I hated the time pressure. I enjoy buying and holding for 2-3 years, of course that is not always easy to do, but next year I plan to buy and hold for about two years so I'm researching all the short term flips to see which area is best.. I enjoy RE and also enjoy making money dealing with it. Its a win win

Two years is not a flip, the term literally means "to quickly resale." The goal is to resale before the first payment. Flipping is not a new word in investing, it has been going on a long time. So long that after it helped cause the market crash and depression it became sort of an expletive - e.g. "Bernard is flipping angry."

bry...I knew of this report before you even linked it so yes I am aware of the methodology but the cost estimator is considerably off in my area and others. How can the ROI be determined if the actual cost is so far off?

btw...the "study" was sent out to 200,000 (and all were not appraisers) and 6,500 responded,,also...your statement" However, you can design a project and send it out for bids, then compare the bids, which is what they did".....the cost was determined by an "estimating tool" and not actually sent out for bids.

This is not a "I am right and you are wrong" post...it is simply meant to be that others have opinions also and they too have merit.

Research Team

• REALTOR® Magazine and the National Association of REALTORS® distributed an online survey to more than 200,000 member agents, brokers, and appraisers to obtain estimates of resale value. More than 6,500 responded at least in part.
• The Farnsworth Group, an online market research company, programmed and hosted the Remodeling Cost vs. Value Web-based survey. It collected and compiled the data between August and October, 2014, and also provided consulting.
• RemodelMAX, a publisher of estimating tools for remodelers, used Clear Estimates remodeling software to generate cost estimates for all 36 projects in 102 markets.

You guys win, I am wrong, house flippers ride around on little white horses saving the planet.

So, why delete all of your posts? Now the discussion is meaningless!

And, no one has said that flippers are saviors of the planet, but if you look at the services and products that they deliver in a MACRO economical sense, then you would have to agree that the outcome of their actions provide the macro economy much more positive than negative.

Since your posts have been deleted, I can only assume from some of the responses that you are saying that there is no way a flipper can make a profit w/o totally cutting corners. You have to remember that these people make money when they BUY the property, not when they SELL the property. If they buy it right, the profit is there, w/o cutting corners.

I deal with a client and his wife currently that work their tails off buying junk and rehabbing them back into great shape. I have these properties sold before they are even finished with them. How can you say that these are terrible people?

Ncrealestateguy....I don't believe that bry deleted his post....they appear to have been wiped...you know..like with a cloth.

bry911 - these forums are open discussions, we all live different lives, have different experiences and different goals. Many topics have different answers that are neither absolutely right or wrong and can't be absolutely proven with a link.

These forums keep their value to all of us when we are free to discuss our views from our experiences and remain open to the fact that others have different views based on different experiences.

First, what deleted post?

Second, yes ncrealestateguy I am saying that flippers cut corners - often enough that they have an established reputation for doing so. Does it matter if every flipper doesn't? Nope. That is what generalizing means. There is simply too much evidence to pretend the problem isn't real. For example, this started when cmarlin said - "I'm tired of the flip talk always being about cheap work." Maybe there is a reason that people always talk about it like that. Occam's razor - it seems to me that reason that people always talk about a "flip being about cheap work," is because it very often is, while admitting it is wholly possible that the many are wrong and the few are right.

Third, @ cmarlin20 - words and labels have meanings and it is very hard to have a discussion of views when people don't know the meaning of the words they are using. You defended your post about flipping can be quality with, "one nearby was a very long two year flip" - that is not what flip means. It just isn't...A week by definition doesn't last a year, a month can't also be a week, a minute is actually 60 seconds and has yet to last a whole month, and two years isn't a flip. Flip is about the time you hold an investment, not what you do to it. If it is very fast for profit, then it is a flip.

Edit: Just to be clear the best example I can think of to illustrate flipping has to do with companies who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to lay fiber optic cable between the exchanges so when a large order comes into one exchange they can get it to the other exchanges before the large order. The investments are held for microseconds, before they are resold.

At this point I think my opinion is clear. I am afraid that you are not going to move me off of it regardless of how much you disagree. I can see that some of you have differing opinions, and I fear that I will not change your opinion either. At this point, we are simply repeating ourselves more emphatically to prove our points.

Can we agree that there is no point in continuing this part of the discussion? I am happy to keep it going, I just don't see the point.

bry911, I think one of the issues is that the term "flip" has come to have a meaning different from what you are using. It's become common to discuss "live-in flips" and there even have been books written about "The Art of the Two-Year House Flip." As an analogy, you might think about the expansion of the term "McMansion." In our area folks tend to call call all investment rehabs "flips" and all tear-down/new builds "McMansions."

House flipping has been around forever, only now it is seen on TV in 30 minute drama segments. Oaktown - in my area investor new builds are referred to as specs. Interesting never knew there was a book about two year flips, the live-in tax bonus is great.

bry911- you missed my comment that the two year flip was too long. I do dispute a "flip" is bought and sold before the first payment is due, you're assuming flips are mortgaged. Experienced flippers I know use cash to save time and money.

Your cable example just isn't working.

I am not assuming flips are mortgaged, I am assuming that money is fungible and that there is no difference between interest paid and interest foregone. When I said before the first payment, I was referring to a margin account.

Let's put things in perspective, investment flipping has been around for a long time, it was largely responsible for the 1637 Netherlands crash, it has crashed several markets since then. Most notably it was a big contributor in both the 1929 crash and 2000 tech bubble crash in the U.S.

Flipping real estate has not been around forever. The coin was termed in the late 80's when deregulation helped the SoCal real estate market skyrocket. Originally, they didn't rehab properties they just held them. The term got adopted by investors who wanted found they could make even more doing work on the houses.

Sometimes it seems like I wrote a book on the real estate bubble...Maybe they will make a movie of it some day...

Investors have bought fixer properties with the intention of upgrading them, reselling quickly for a profit long before the 1980's, including people in Southern California.

And they were not called flippers.

We are just having a semantics argument. To you flipping is anytime you buy a property to resale for profit. To me it is a more specific type of buying to resale. Those guys who put signs up thay "will pay cash for your house," are flippers. Along with others who do cosmetic remodels to get the house back on the market.

bry911 says: " Let's put things in perspective, investment flipping has been around for a long time, it was largely responsible for the 1637 Netherlands crash, it has crashed several markets since then."

The "Dutch Tulip Mania Bubble" of 1636-1637 was indeed responsible for the Netherlands crash but it seems that just recently the term "similar to a flipper" was used as a general descriptive phrase.
Let me make sure I understand this.

cmartin20 said:
Investors have bought fixer properties with the intention of upgrading them, reselling quickly for a profit long before the 1980's, including people in Southern California.

and bry911 said:
And they were not flippers

So Investment flipping Tulips in 1636-37 is indeed a flip but cmartin20's description of reselling real property for a profit is not a flip? [The Tulip Bubble](http://www.thebubblebubble.com/historic-crashes/)

@ Oaktown - I think most of the modern real estate savvy population would think flipping has a somewhat negative connotation. Maybe I am wrong, and certainly language evolves over time but this is a pretty quick change in meaning.

The fact that someone wrote a book and used the wrong word in the title doesn't surprise me. Hell, every time I see that stupid insurance commercial when it uses the word depreciation wrong, I want to throw something at the tv. In the history of cars no car ever depreciated more just because you drove it off the lot. Nor does anyone give you less money for something because it depreciated.

@ Sunmers - I added the word "called" in an edit earlier, it was an omission as I am typing on my cell.

And yes. they didn't hold the tulips for two years.

The idea of flipping is simple. You interject yourself into a transaction only because you know someone else wants it. You typically don't add any real value. This got perverted or modified, if you prefer, when flipping got mixed in with remodeling. It started when the people "buying houses for cash," decided adding paint and new carpet would sell the property faster. This is what started us down the current path. I consider flipping to be cosmetic changes, the idea being that you want to put enough lipstick on the house to make it look good. At some point a flip becomes a rehab or a remodel. To me, these deal with the bones of the house.

Again the idea of the flip is that you are making money interjecting yourself into a transaction that you have no real interest in other than jacking up the price.

What is the point of having a semantics argument? My point is very well documented, and is not only mine. I have given both the history of the word, it's first common usage, when it was considered so bad that it started being used as an expletive that actually means "more," and corroboration for my opinion. Certainly, while you don't have to agree with my usage, you must at least admit that it is somewhat common, or at the very least not remote.

I understand that to you all it means something else, and you have also documented very well what the word means to you. So exactly why do we keep posting on this crap? I am not leaving myself out of this, I am guilty too, but can we end this soon?

Are you requesting we accept your multiple definitions of flipping to discuss "flipping"?

cmarlin20, in our area the investor new builds sometimes are called "spec McMansions" to distinguish them from the ones built by/for the owner occupant :-)

bry911, the point I was trying to make is that I think most people view "flip" as a slang term -- trying to convince others to use a narrow definition against popular usage might be a bit like tilting at windmills? As opposed to depreciation, which has a technical definition.

[edit: I have a friend, who tells people she is "flipping houses" but what she is doing is expanding 2BR/1BA homes into 3BR/2BA homes.]

Back on topic, hopefully nabq can get some input from local realtors, or more information by checking comparable listings in the area.

Bry, you say that most flippers cut some corners. I'm saying that given the fact that the homes sell, that most of the buyers could care less.

After all of these posts, I still do not understand why you think these people are the scum of the earth. And yes, there are at least two of your posts now missing.

@ ncrealestateguy

I am sorry...for some reason I thought you took issue with my saying, "material is a secondary concern to beauty. While people may believe they want quality, what they really want is impressive looking," but now that you noted that buyers could care less about quality, I see that we have been in agreement all along. Great.

Someone reported the posts I assume. They are not missing for me, they don't look particularly nasty but I may have said damn...oops I did it again.

@ cmarlin20

Are you requesting we accept your multiple definitions of flipping to discuss "flipping"?

You have outed me...As the inventor of the internet I claim all content found on the internet as my own. Especially Wikipedia definitions.

Frankly, I don't care what you accept. I think you are completely wrong, you probably feel the same about me. I feel I linked credible written evidence that supported my position but several people disagree with me, which is hard to ignore.

So why continue? It adds nothing to the discussion. You feel that there is nothing wrong with good high quality remodels for profit...I agree. I feel there is something wrong with people covering up problems just to make a buck...I am confident that you agree with that. Do we need to agree on the definition of a word for that?

Bry911, when do you ever run out of steam? Are you still amusing yourself in this thread?

I have a lot of free time. I can only read so much stuff before I need a break, this is my break. I laugh a whole lot on here, which is nice. Really though, the amount of stuff I do on here pales in comparison to reddit stuff, but there I am known in real life so I have to keep it polite and helpful.

I read fast and type better than 120 wpm so, this rarely takes much of my time.

Another false narrative that you base your argument on is that flippers "cover up problems just to make a profit". I am saying that with today's due diligence afforded any buyer, that this mass cover up that you speak of is negligible. And when it does happen, it is usually found by the buyer, who most of the times, ime, is ok with most of it, as the flipper is providing a product that most of these buyers would not otherwise have afforded.

bry911 said:

I have a lot of free time. I can only read so much stuff before I need a break, this is my break. I laugh a whole lot on here, which is nice. Really though, the amount of stuff I do on here pales in comparison to reddit stuff, but there I am known in real life so I have to keep it polite and helpful.

I read fast and type better than 120 wpm so, this rarely takes much of my time.

So since your aren't known in real life here you don't have to be polite and helpful on this forum?

So since your aren't known in real life here you don't have to be polite and helpful on this forum?

Nope I can be as mean as I want. It may sound bad but being known creates a different dynamic, not just from me, but to me. I didn't really give my name or anything on reddit but it was rooted out pretty quickly. There the posters are mostly experts giving accounting, financial and economic advice that is rooted in academia or very specific expertise rather than common sense advice. So we challenge each other differently there. Rarely do I get into lively debates more like respectful disagreements with lots of citations.

There is value to that forum and some of it I add here, but there is value to this forum too. Here I very often give well supported academic information and get called to the carpet for it. Which isn't a bad thing, life doesn't exist in a theoretical bubble. One of the biggest barriers to my communication on this forum is that I often answer here like I am there. Things that would not get challenged there do get challenged here and vice versa. I like it here better than there, but there simply isn't much activity here.

I hate laminate floors, but that being said, it really comes down to what other people in your neighborhood have. If they have hardwood and you have laminate your house's value will not be as high, given that everything else is comparable. So if everyone else has hardwood, then you should put in some hardwood, but it doesn't have to be all hardwood, some tile would probably be okay. No way would I ever spend $10000 on laminate flooring. To me that would be a total waste. I would spend $5000 on hardwood though, some more money on tile, and maybe a little money on some nice carpet in bedrooms. At least with some hardwood, new buyers would feel like they didn't have to pay to upgrade the entire house, they could do it a little at a time. That's not so overwhelming then!

You have to live with these floors for five years before you sell. I would go with what you like. The laminate sounds super easy and some can look quite good. I have seen the Property Brothers use it;) Not sure how they hold up. We had a wood look laminate in our entry when we bought this house. The house was four years old and the laminate fared better than the carpet. We ripped out the floors and the laminate came up very easily. One of the guys who put in our wood asked to take it home. He put it in his bathroom.

I hate laminate. Even the better laminate still looks/feels fake. For ABQ, go with tile, tile that looks like wood, or engineered hardwood. Most of my clients complain about if if I show them a house with it, regardless of the pricepoint. Most calculate in the cost to remove and replace with one of the above, in their offers.

If the OP still reads this thread even after the "detour," I'd say put what you like the best (either tiles or wood floor.) You said you'd be there for 5 years or so. Why not have some nice flooring and enjoy it rather than for the future home-buyers?

(1) Laminate WILL NOT stand up to big dogs. I have a breed that is huge - 29" at the shoulder 110 -130 lbs.

Water bowl spills kill it.

Potty accidents kill it.

(2) wood-look laminate floors -- I will either walk away or make an offer low enough to cover ripping that junk out and replacing it with anything else.

It is NOT wood. It is sawdust that is glued together. The a photograph of wood is glued to the saw dust. The plastic is poured over it.

Absolute low rent garbage.

$20,000 to put down hardwood flooring....... WOW! That is nuts for anything less than 1600++ sq ft of oak or maple that had to be stained and finished.

FInd a Lumber Liquidators store. Get some unfinished pine - even down to the $1.39 a sq ft. Get some mastic. Get some stain. Get some real varnish - like McCloskey's Marine and do 4 coats. Get a circular saw. Put down the flooring. If you need to level, get some underlayment - adds about $1300 to the project.

Pay your handyman $20 an hour. Work alongside him getting boards, putting down mastic, spreading stain and varnish, doing the light sand between coats with 150-200 grit and wiping with a tack cloth...... if it takes 2 weeks (huge am0unt of time) you pay him $1600.

Total cost for the whole house - $5200 -7300 if you do it and $6800 -9100 if you have help. (and you won't be doing the bath or kitchen....so sq ft would be less)