Field notes · August 18, 2026 · 4 min read
Five of the six deals in your inbox were never deals
Most bad flips don’t become bad flips during construction.
They were bad before anyone picked up a hammer.
A wholesaler sends you a property for $185,000. ARV looks like $275,000. Rehab is “probably 35k.”
At a glance, there’s $55,000 sitting between those numbers.
There isn’t.
Closing costs. Holding costs. Financing. Insurance. Commissions. Utilities. Taxes. The rehab item somebody forgot. The extra month because the buyer’s lender needed another appraisal.
None of this is complicated.
That’s the problem.
The boring math gets skipped because the deal feels obvious.
We like to run the ugly version first.
What happens if rehab is 15% higher?
What if ARV is 5% lower?
What if it takes 45 more days to sell?
A deal that survives those three questions deserves more attention.
One that doesn’t wasn’t necessarily a bad property.
It just wasn’t a deal.
The useful system isn’t the one that finds more properties. It’s the one that helps you say no faster.