The Untold Truth Of Flipping Virgins

HGTV's Flipping Virgins proves that, in this precarious economy, people are looking for all different kinds of ways to make money on the side and invest in their family's futures as well as their own retirement. One popular way, as evidenced by the show, is to buy a run-down house on the cheap, fix it up yourself, and then sell it at hopefully a large profit margin. Also known as flipping houses, this process may sound easy but is actually a multi-layered task that requires some level of expertise in order to successfully accomplish it without going broke in the process. 

Enter Egypt Sherrod, an experienced real estate agent as well as property flipper with years of experience. On Flipping Virgins, she teaches first-time flippers the ropes. The show's first episode premiered on Sept. 11, 2015, airing a short four-episode season. As the show's popularity has grown, each season has become progressively longer and tackles flipping more properties. Since its start, Flipping Virgins has continued its mission of helping people with their real estate hustles.

Flipping Virgins is not host Egypt Sherrod's first real estate reality show for the HGTV network. In fact, she took over another of their popular Canada-based programs, Property Virgins, from previous host Sandra Rinomato. Because of her personal experience not just with selling real estate but also with flipping homes for a profit, Sherrod pitched Flipping Virgins as a spinoff of Property Virgins, hence its short first season as a test run.

Banking on the success of Property Virgins, which focuses on first-time buyers who plan to live in their new home, Flipping Virgins distinguishes itself by making sure participants will be selling their home for (hopefully) a profit after the renovations are complete, as noted by XONecole.com. Sherrod also proposed moving the show to Atlanta, Ga., which happened to be where she and her family already owned a home... and also where she'd never get stuck in a snowstorm again like during her time on Property Virgins. 

When we think of people buying a house together, we often tend to think of couples, possibly with children, who are putting down roots for their family. But as we see on Flipping Virgins, that is not always the case. In the first season's fourth episode and season finale, two sisters went in on a flipping project together. In the second season's premiere, two best friends — one who was recovering from a nasty divorce and property dispute — decided to flip a house together. By the second season's sixth episode, Flipping Virgins featured a mother and daughter who wanted to tackle flipping a house as a team. 

The third season featured two more mother-daughter episodes, two more pairs of best friends, a couple of teachers who wanted a new stream of income, a father-daughter duo, and two more sisters who bought property together. This diversity of buyers makes Flipping Virgins a unique addition to other house-hunting and house-flipping reality TV shows. While some of the homebuyers' relationships might come with different emotional attachments and tensions than romantic couples, Flipping Virgins focuses on the teamwork aspect along with Egypt Sherrod's professional advice.

With years of experience under her belt, Egypt Sherrod has flipping houses down to a science, as she told Fox News Magazine in March 2016. As she says on Flipping Virgins, it's all about "finding the right house at the right price." Flipping involves buying a home below market value and then fixing it up to sell above market value when possible. If a house is too damaged, flippers end up eating away at all their potential profits to renovate. 

To avoid this, Sherrod has found a sweet spot that she describes as "a third, a third, and a third." Sherrod will only invest in a house if she can assure that its current buying price is a third of its after-renovation sale value. "By the time you renovate it, whatever money you've put out, you've still stayed under two-thirds, so that your profit is a third." She added, "Even if you wind up getting less than that third, you've left enough buffer for yourself to make a profit. Because time is money." And the sooner you flip your property, the sooner you can invest your profits in another fixer upper. 

Getting involved in real estate is not as easy as it may appear, and buying a property comes with a lot of moving parts with many different people involved, from brokers to buyers. Egypt Sherrod has flipped dozens of homes — she flipped her first in her mid-20s after getting her first major radio DJ paycheck — and she has the system down to not just a science but an art form. On Flipping Virgins, Sherrod has one cardinal rule. "Get a mentor first," she advised BlackAmericaWeb.com. "Find someone who's doing it successfully." Which is exactly where Sherrod comes in, even if you're only a Flipping Virgins viewer and not one of her clients.

In an interview with XONecole.com, Sherrod elaborated. "Be careful who you listen to and get real estate advice from," she said, adding, "Sometimes our family members really want what's best for us but they don't realize they're giving us bad advice. In some cities the real estate market is booming! While in some cities it's still doing really, really bad. So why would we take advice from Auntie Vera [who's] living in California if we're living in New York City?" So true.

One of the easiest ways to turn a profit with house flipping is to do your own renovations rather than outsource the work to contractors, which can prove to be a more challenging aspect of the experience for some. This is especially true if the new homeowner has never had any DIY training like most of the participants on Flipping Virgins. Egypt Sherrod calls doing your own renovations "sweat equity," as noted by the Los Angeles Times, and it can be satisfying, especially as it helps the ultimate dollar value of a property go up.

However, the two things that she does not recommend doing yourself are electrical and plumbing since the risk of accidents outweighs the money saved, as she told Acorns' Grow. If you mess up a tile, it'll cost you a few dollars to fix it. On the other hand, if you jack up a sewer pipe, flood your home, or — God forbid — electrocute yourself while trying to save a buck, you're putting both your life and your profits in danger. Flipping Virgins encourages people to make smart and thoughtful choices about the property they're renovating.

Flipping Virgins host Egypt Sherrod is not just a shrewd real estate developer and house flipper — she is also way savvy with her finances. On her website, Sherrod shared, "While everyone else was buying pocketbooks and shoes, I was buying properties." She added, "I wasn't necessarily the best dressed in the industry, but I was building a foundation for myself just in case." Sherrod also encourages people to always have multiple streams of income. "Always save more than you spend," she recommends (via Acorns' Grow). 

And to young women in particular, she's said (via Vibe), "Always write your own checks." While she said it's fine to "have financial advisors," she stated that "you need to be the one watching and managing all your money." She also noted that, while money can be a helpful "tool," it "shouldn't be the dream." 

Sherrod has also advised potential home buyers to make sure that, along with saving as much as they can, they keep track of their credit scores. This helps when you get to the stage of finally talking to lenders (i.e. the bank) and agents to help find the right property to flip.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the entire metropolitan area of Atlanta, Ga. boasts over 5.9 million people in a collection of diverse neighborhoods featuring interesting architectural styles. Depending on where you are, Atlanta can potentially pass for Brooklyn, Malibu, or even France, making the city a popular spot for television and movie projects. Some of Atlanta's most iconic architecture includes country Victorians, Greek revivals, Italianate-styled homes, and American Foursquares, among other architectural styles, making the city a flipper's delight.

Because there are so many different styles of available homes in the area — old and new, bungalow and mansion — Atlanta has become the exclusive site where Flipping Virgins find, buy, and flip their properties. Egypt Sherrod told The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, "Atlanta is a big city but it still has plenty of charm you get from being in the south without it being too slow." And with so many different home styles to choose from, there is something for everyone.

Flipping homes on Flipping Virgins comes with a caveat: Homeowners are given a grand total of 60 days to complete all of the work on their properties, according to Design2Sell, a home staging company that has worked with the show. Which also happens to be what Egypt Sherrod recommends even when she's not on Flipping Virgins. Why? Well, as Sherrod told Fox News Magazine, the quicker you can get the house in shape, the quicker you can turn a profit, especially if you've chosen your location properly.

Potential Flipping Virgins must also be available to film for a total of eight days, though that time is often staggered over months of home renovation. After the buyers are finished, Flipping Virgins partners with home staging companies like Design2Sell to make the fresh house look as appealing as possible for new potential buyers. Home stagers help arrange furniture, maximize natural light, and bring in other details that will help catch a potential buyer's eye.

To qualify for Flipping Virgins, potential participants must already have their finances in place, whether it's at least $100,000 cash or a secured loan, according to a casting call for the show. Atlanta, Ga. is an ideal place for Flipping Virgins since its a rare American city that actually has some decent properties available starting at $100,000. That said, according to Zillow, the average home price in Atlanta is roughly $260,000 and it's steadily on the rise. That's perfect for Flipping Virgins stars as property continues to boom there.

And there's a large number of homes on the market in Atlanta, giving potential buyers a huge pool of properties from which to choose. But buyers need to hurry, as Atlanta is currently the fourth fasting-rising city in America in terms of real estate prices — maybe because so many properties are being flipped.

Flipping Virgins and its host, Egypt Sherrod, partnered with Gold Peak Real Brewed Tea for the TEA Shed project, a collaboration to help folks revamp their backyard with sheds for relaxation rather than storage, as reported by Times Square Chronicles. First off, Sherrod asks folks to figure out what will be the purpose of their sheds because designing a space for meditation should be approached differently than setting one up to be an art studio or game room. 

The shed should combine style with functionality, and Sherrod recommends taking a number of factors into account for the shed's design, especially the area's climate and humidity. Depending on where you live, you'll need to make sure you have sufficient ventilation, especially to keep the shed cool in the summertime. And since a shed is a smaller space, Sherrod recommends furniture that will maximize the area and serve multiple functions, such as a day bed instead of a full sofa or floating shelves instead of a table. Remember, less is more, so your shed doesn't get too cluttered or overcrowded. Take it from Flipping Virgins.