Cool Moms to Watch: Andrea Melendez of Mommy Flips Houses
Andrea and her adorable kids!
Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with Andrea Melendez, owner of Mommy Flips Houses.
Andrea started flipping houses when she was 25 years old. Her mom literally asked, “Hey! Do you want to flip a house with me?” Andrea said “Sure. Why not!” They did not have a lot of starting capital, but her uncle was a contractor, so the three of them purchased a home and went all in.
During this time, Andrea was in college studying to pursue a career in law; however, she left college before her junior year after she was given an opportunity to work for Ryland Homes in the Design Center. Anyone who was building a home with Ryland got the opportunity to sit down with Andrea to pick out floors, cabinets, and all other design elements.
Her position within the Design Center kept Andrea so busy that she decided not to return to college for her junior year. A year later, the first house she flipped with her mother and uncle was purchased.
When Andrea agreed to the project, she did not realize it meant manually renovating the house herself. She learned how to tile, paint, and demo, which has helped her make sure each contractor is doing their job properly.
Andrea along with her mom and uncle sold that first house over 17 years ago, and they profited 38k by simply winging the process. The three of them did not exactly know what they were doing, and it took them 10 houses to iron out the kinks and perfect the process!
You can say that Andrea’s family loved houses, and it was in her blood to pursue a career in house flipping. Her great uncle was an architect (who designed the first A-Frame house) with designs featured in the Boston Museum of Art.
After that first house sold, Andrea was hooked on flipping. Her passion and love for the art helped Andrea flip over 200 houses over the past two decades.
Once Andrea had her first daughter, the way she flipped houses changed simply because of the time constraints of motherhood. She perfected the process so that the moms she teaches now can flip a house working only 10 hours a week.
This woman is badass.
The transition to coaching happened when she met other new moms in the community who, when they found out Andrea flipped houses, wanted to learn how they could be a flipper too! The next 2-3 years was spent helping her friends (mostly voluntarily) as she continued to flip houses on her own. Additionally, Andrea was privately hired as a consultant to help potential flippers find property, funding, and show them all the steps needed to flip properly.
Around this time boredom set in for Andrea. She had been flipping houses for so long that is just became repetitive. She started to fall in love with teaching other moms how to flip, which became more of a passion than the flipping itself.
One of her mom friends asked if she had considered teaching other moms how to flip. That night, ‘Mommy Flips Houses” came to Andrea in a dream. She decided to go for it, but it took her one full year to put the program together. Her program includes how to get funding, what do I do with contractors, what forms to use to protect yourself with contractors, and so much more. The program is truly soup to nuts, and takes the guess work out of the flipping process.
It has been 2.5 years since the Mommy Flips Houses program launched. In that time, Andrea had helped over 60 moms flip their first home.
The big question most moms have when they approach Andrea is, “How can I do this with minimal starting funds?’ Mommy Flips Houses teaches moms how to get the funding they need to start the flipping process including, research on specific lenders who loan on the equity of the property you are looking to purchase. This type of loan has nothing to do with tax returns, income, or credit. They only look to see if you have had any recent foreclosures. She also discusses the route of finding independent investors who will grant you a loan to earn interest in return.
Most of the moms who flip houses in Andrea’s program are stay at home moms who do not have the funding upfront to purchase a property. Andrea believes that “Our time as moms is incredibly precious. We have an extraordinarily little amount of time, so I set up this program to teach moms how to flip a house, and then to go out there and actually do it.”
Mommy Flips Houses, has a workshop coming up on June 30th, which will show the process of securing rental properties for your children to help pay for their college. Her two children have 5 properties between them!
Since Andrea has switched to more of a coaching position she has slowed down on the flipping, but still flips one to two houses a year.
This pretty lady is married to a film producer and lives in sunny Florida where she enjoys shopping (especially Homegoods!) and spending time with her 6-year-old daughter and 3 year-old-son.
You can learn more about Mommy Flips Houses HERE!
Author: Jenna Liu is mommy to Poppy and founder of Sixx Cool Moms.