Flipping Iowa

Neil Timmins
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You're always hunting the next deal. You're managing contractors who don't show up, subs who go over budget, and timelines that slip. And somewhere in the middle of all that, you're supposed to be running a profitable operation. Flipping Iowa is built for house flippers who are in the trenches. Every episode delivers the tactics and strategies that help you find better deals, manage your projects tighter, and protect your margins when everything else is trying to eat them. No fluff. No theory. Just what's actually working in Iowa right now. Two new episodes every week, hosted by Neil Timmins, Iowa's hard money lender. Neil has funded flips across the state through Little Guy Loans, closed over $300 million in transactions, and flipped houses himself. He brings what he sees on both sides of the deal to the mic every episode.

  1. 1d ago

    Ep 16: How a Basement Mix-Up Rewrote One Iowa Flip's Numbers

    One missing basement moved a deal's value by twenty thousand dollars, and the borrower never saw it coming. The after repair value is the one number every other decision on a flip comes from. Your max offer comes from it. Your rehab budget gets sized around it. Even what a lender can fund comes from it. Get that number wrong, and everything built on top of it is wrong too. Most bad after repair value numbers aren't lies. They're guesses dressed up as math, usually built on comps that only look similar on paper: a slab house comped against basement houses, an active listing mistaken for what a buyer actually paid, a search radius stretched too far because the immediate area didn't have enough sales. Any one of those mistakes can quietly cost twenty thousand dollars before you've written an offer, and the appraisal won't catch it until you're already committed. This episode walks through Neil's five-rule comp checklist, a real Beaverdale example run start to finish, and the loan file where one missing basement almost killed a deal, before it came back better than it started. In This Episode, You'll Learn: How to run the five-rule comp checklist before you trust any after repair value number Why a sold comp beats an active listing every time, and what an active listing actually tells you How a missing basement or the wrong finish level can swing your after repair value by twenty thousand dollars What to do when you can't find three comps that check every box How your after repair value directly controls what a hard money lender will actually fund And more. Hosted by Iowa real estate investor Neil Timmins. Want the written breakdown? Read the full article at https://littleguyloans.com/arv-calculation-iowa/ Find every episode at https://www.flippingiowa.com

    Ep 16: How a Basement Mix-Up Rewrote One Iowa Flip's Numbers

  2. 3d ago

    Ep 15: The Real Reason Iowa Flip Budgets Blow Up Mid-Rehab

    What if the contractor never lied, and the rehab still ran six thousand dollars over budget? Most contractors are honest. That's not where Iowa rehab budgets actually blow up. The real problem is timing: there's often no checkpoint between money going out the door and work getting verified, so by the time an investor notices a problem, two or three draws are already gone. Take a recent West Des Moines flip budgeted at twenty eight thousand dollars in rehab. By the time it wrapped, it had run to thirty four thousand, because draws kept getting approved off a phone call and a couple of photos instead of an actual walkthrough. Most first-time flippers skip the two documents that would have caught it: a real scope of work, specific down to the material and finish, and a real draw schedule that ties every payment to inspected, completed work instead of a calendar date. This episode walks through the exact checklist to run before releasing any draw, the warning signs a rehab is about to go over, and the story of a contractor who vanished at week four, and why the investor barely lost a dollar. In This Episode, You'll Learn: How to write a scope of work specific enough to catch a bad draw request before you pay it The six things to check every single time before releasing a rehab draw Why tying every draw to inspected milestones protects you even if a contractor disappears mid-project The warning signs that a rehab is about to go over budget, before you see the final number How draw discipline connects directly to your hard money loan's after repair value cap And more. Hosted by Iowa real estate investor Neil Timmins. Want the written breakdown? Read the full article at https://littleguyloans.com/avoiding-contractor-cost-overruns-iowa/ Find every episode at https://www.flippingiowa.com

    Ep 15: The Real Reason Iowa Flip Budgets Blow Up Mid-Rehab

  3. Oct 8

    Ep 14: The Seventy Percent Rule That Protects Every Iowa Flip Budget

    What if two nearly identical houses, same street, same square footage, were never actually worth the same money? Every fix and flip offer in Iowa comes down to one formula: after repair value times seventy percent, minus your rehab cost. That's your ceiling. Two inputs, one number, and it decides whether a deal makes you money or quietly eats your margin. The formula is simple. The inputs are not. Get the after repair value wrong and the seventy percent rule will let you overpay without ever feeling reckless. It'll feel like discipline. It's actually just bad math wearing a discipline costume. That's the trap hiding in plain sight on almost every Des Moines metro deal. A missing basement, a comp pulled from the wrong pocket of town, or a listing that sat too long can quietly swing your after repair value by twenty thousand dollars, and the seventy percent rule will never warn you. This episode walks through the real formula with real numbers, when experienced investors stretch past seventy percent on purpose, and the loan file where a missing basement almost cost a borrower his entire deal. In This Episode, You'll Learn: How to calculate your true max offer using the seventy percent rule before you fall for a house How to tell whether your comps are actually comparable, not just technically nearby Why a missing basement can quietly move your after repair value by twenty thousand dollars When it actually makes sense to stretch past seventy percent, and when it will bite you How the same seventy percent cap controls what a hard money lender will actually fund And more. Hosted by Iowa real estate investor Neil Timmins. Want the written breakdown? Read the full article at https://littleguyloans.com/70-rule-max-offer-iowa-flip/ Find every episode at https://www.flippingiowa.com

    Ep 14: The Seventy Percent Rule That Protects Every Iowa Flip Budget

  4. Oct 6

    Ep 13: The Three Checks That Protect Every Iowa Flip Budget

    A house from the nineteen forties can hide an eighty-thousand-dollar surprise behind a wall that looks perfectly fine. Light rehab or full rehab is the single most expensive guess a new investor makes, mostly because it usually gets treated like a decision instead of the guess it actually is. Neil breaks down the three checks he runs on every property before committing to a number: age and systems, comps and the after repair value ceiling, and timeline tolerance. Get the scope call wrong in either direction, and the gap can run twenty to forty thousand dollars on a mid-range Des Moines metro flip. The episode also covers a Windsor Heights deal where a hundred-fifty-dollar sewer scope, and the willingness to ask one more question, turned a ten-thousand-dollar concession into a three-thousand-dollar one. In This Episode, You'll Learn: - The three checks Neil runs on every property before setting a light or full rehab budget - How to tell a genuine light rehab candidate from a house dressed up to look like one - What an aging sewer line did to one Windsor Heights investor's negotiation, and how he protected his margin anyway - Why a hundred-fifty-dollar sewer scope belongs in the contract on any pre-1960 Iowa house - How the scope call changes your actual loan numbers, not just your contractor's invoice - And more. Hosted by Iowa real estate investor Neil Timmins. Want the full breakdown? Read the article at https://littleguyloans.com/light-rehab-vs-full-rehab-iowa Find every episode at https://www.flippingiowa.com

    Ep 13: The Three Checks That Protect Every Iowa Flip Budget

  5. Oct 1

    Ep 12: The Three Numbers That Control Your Iowa Flip Loan

    One number was twenty-seven thousand dollars off, and nobody caught it before it nearly killed the deal. Ninety percent of purchase price. Up to one hundred percent of rehab. None of it means anything if the after repair value underneath it isn't real. Neil breaks down loan to cost in plain terms, what it actually covers, where borrowers get it wrong, and why the after repair value cap is the number that actually controls a deal no matter how good the other two look on paper. They also dig into a real deal where a missing basement quietly moved a property's after repair value by twenty thousand dollars, and how catching it early turned a dead deal into a twenty-seven-thousand-dollar retrade instead of a loss. In This Episode, You'll Learn: - What loan to cost actually covers, and how it's different from after repair value - Why the lowest of three numbers, not the biggest, is the one that controls your deal - What a missing basement did to one Iowa flip's comps, and what it ended up costing - The three things to pull together before you ever pick up the phone about a deal - How fast a real, well-documented deal can actually close - And more. Hosted by Iowa real estate investor Neil Timmins. Want more like this? The full article, Hard Money Loan-to-Cost Explained: What Iowa Lenders Fund, is on its way to https://littleguyloans.com Find every episode at https://www.flippingiowa.com

    Ep 12: The Three Numbers That Control Your Iowa Flip Loan

  6. Sep 29

    Ep 11: Should You GC Your Own Flip or Hire It Out

    Two nearly identical houses on the same Norwalk street. One investor walked away with real profit. The other barely broke even after a year. Every flipper eventually has to answer the same question: run the rehab yourself, or hand it to a general contractor. There's no universal right answer. It depends on the deal, and it depends on you. Neil walks through the real math behind a general contractor's markup on a real rehab budget, and what your own time is actually worth once you're running more than one deal at a time. Self-GCing wins the money on paper. It doesn't always win the deal. The episode gets into two investors on the same Norwalk street with the same rehab budget and opposite outcomes, plus a borrower who tried to save money rehabbing a house himself and lost far more in carrying costs than he ever saved in labor. In This Episode, You'll Learn: - How to run the real math between a general contractor's markup and what your own time is worth - Why the same self-GC decision can be right on one deal and wrong on the very next one - The three numbers Neil checks before picking a lane on any given rehab - What actually happened when one Norwalk investor tried to save money rehabbing a house himself - How to split the difference and self-GC most of a project while hiring out just the trades that need it - And more. Hosted by Iowa real estate investor Neil Timmins. Want the full breakdown? Read the article at https://littleguyloans.com/gc-your-own-flip-or-hire Find every episode at https://www.flippingiowa.com

    Ep 11: Should You GC Your Own Flip or Hire It Out

  7. Sep 24

    Ep 10: How Driving for Dollars Finds Iowa Flip Deals First

    What if the best deal on the block never makes it to a listing at all? Every investor checking Zillow and the MLS is looking at the same twelve houses everyone else already found. That's not an edge, it's a scrum. The real margin in an Iowa flip often gets made before a property is ever listed, and driving for dollars is how you get there first. Neil and Maggie break down what actually works: how to map a neighborhood in a grid instead of wandering the same three streets, which distress signals on a house are worth writing down (and which ones mean nothing on their own), and why a handwritten-style mailer beats a slick postcard almost every time. They also get into what two of Little Guy Loans' most profitable borrowers do at scale, running mail, signs, and calls against one carefully built list from four directions at once, and why the sixth postcard works when the first one goes straight in the trash. In This Episode, You'll Learn: - How to map a Des Moines-metro neighborhood so you cover every street once, not the same three blocks four times - Which two or three distress signals on a property actually mean something, and which ones don't - Why a handwritten-style mailer outperforms a slick one almost every time - How Iowa's most profitable off-market investors run one list from four directions at once - What changes, and what doesn't, on the financing side once a deal is off-market - And more. Hosted by Iowa real estate investor Neil Timmins. Want the full breakdown? Read the article at https://littleguyloans.com/driving-for-dollars-des-moines Find every episode at https://www.flippingiowa.com

    Ep 10: How Driving for Dollars Finds Iowa Flip Deals First

  8. Sep 22

    Ep 9: How Iowa Flippers Structure Deals With Zero Cash Down

    What's the real difference between a flip that closes with zero cash out of pocket and one that comes up $46,000 short at the closing table? "No money down" isn't a loan product in Iowa hard money lending. It's a structure, and most first-time flippers get the mechanics wrong before they ever pick up the phone. A hard money loan alone almost never gets you to zero cash out of pocket. The real work is filling the gap: a seller carry-back, a private gap partner, or equity you already own. Every one of those structures lives or dies on the 70% after-repair-value cap. Neil Timmins breaks down two versions of the same Iowa bungalow, one with room to spare, and one that came up tens of thousands short. On this episode, Neil and co-host Maggie Monroe cover all three ways investors get to little or no cash at closing, the real ARV math behind it, and what a lender needs to see before stacking a second position. In This Episode, You'll Learn: - How to tell if a hard money loan alone gets you to zero down, or leaves you short - How to fill the gap between what a loan covers and what closing costs, three ways - How to run the 70% ARV math before you call a seller or a partner - How to know what a lender needs before stacking a second position behind their loan - How to tell if a no-money-down structure fits your first deal or is one to grow into And more. Hosted by Iowa real estate investor Neil Timmins. Want the full breakdown? Read the article at https://littleguyloans.com/no-money-down-hard-money-iowa/ Find every episode at https://www.flippingiowa.com

    Ep 9: How Iowa Flippers Structure Deals With Zero Cash Down
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About

You're always hunting the next deal. You're managing contractors who don't show up, subs who go over budget, and timelines that slip. And somewhere in the middle of all that, you're supposed to be running a profitable operation. Flipping Iowa is built for house flippers who are in the trenches. Every episode delivers the tactics and strategies that help you find better deals, manage your projects tighter, and protect your margins when everything else is trying to eat them. No fluff. No theory. Just what's actually working in Iowa right now. Two new episodes every week, hosted by Neil Timmins, Iowa's hard money lender. Neil has funded flips across the state through Little Guy Loans, closed over $300 million in transactions, and flipped houses himself. He brings what he sees on both sides of the deal to the mic every episode.

Information

  • Creator
    Neil Timmins
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    17
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026
  • Show Website
    Flipping Iowa

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