Page Turner Shares What She Loves Most About Flipping Houses On Fix My Flip - Exclusive
Flipping houses — that is, buying cheaper properties, fixing them up, then reselling them at a profit — can be a great way to make money. But it's not for the faint of heart: If you don't have serious skills in the construction trades or deep enough pockets to hire qualified builders, you can end up making your property worse than when you started. And even if you do manage to complete your planned renovation, you may still be in trouble if nobody wants to buy your property. In short, if done wrong, house-flipping can also be an easy way to lose a lot of money.
This is the very problem veteran realtor and house-flipper Page Turner addresses in her new HGTV show, "Fix My Flip." In "Fix My Flip," Turner works with would-be house flippers who've gotten in over the heads and need to turn their failing flips around fast. In each episode, she works with property owners to determine the smartest — and most marketable — ways to improve their property while staying within the owners' budgets. It's a challenge that showcases Turner's professional expertise in design trends, construction, and real-estate marketing — but her personal passion for what she does is also evident. In this exclusive interview, she shares what she loves most about the complex art and science of flipping houses.
Page Turner finds much of her work is about helping others
As a longtime real estate broker, Page Turner knows how daunting the process of buying or selling a home can be for consumers. Realtors spend much of their time answering their questions or helping them navigate the next steps in the buying or selling process. And she knows that restoring a distressed property is rarely as straightforward as it looks, especially if you're targeting your fixes to appeal to the tastes of a buyer you don't even know. Turner has experienced all these ups of downs of house-flipping herself, and for this reason, she feels a real personal connection to house-flippers struggling with their projects — and gains real satisfaction from leveraging her skills and knowledge to help them.
"I know a feeling of being stuck and needing help and needing guidance and a mentor and some money, perhaps," Turner said. "So that was my main inspiration. I can help people, because I finally, after 20 years in the business, I'm an expert. I know how to help people. I can get you out of this hole that you've dug yourself into."
She loves the feeling of making a home beautiful and livable
Anyone who watches "Fix My Flip" will come away understanding that flipping houses isn't a quick or easy process: It requires a good eye, financial discipline, business savvy, and a lot of hands-on work. But for Page Turner, the end results are totally worth all the work. House flipping has proven not only financially profitable for her, but enormously satisfying on a personal level. For Turner, there's a certain visceral pleasure in being able to drive down the street and see all her planning and work embodied in an attractive home.
"Sometimes flipping becomes a part and a reflection of your life, and things and stages that you're going through," she said. "It's an honor to be in a business where you can live your life's dream, and be able to say, 'Wow.' You can drive down that street in 10, 15 years and say, 'I renovated that house and it still looks great.'"
"Fix My Flip" premieres new episodes Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV and streaming the same day on discovery+.