House Flipping Business Plan: Free Template + Example

A house flipping business plan is a short document, usually 5 to 10 pages when a lender will read it, that shows where you’ll flip, how you’ll find and pay for deals, what each flip should net after every cost, and what you’ll do if a house doesn’t sell. Lenders and partners read it to decide whether to fund you. You should read it before every offer to check that you’re still working your own plan.

Most first-year plans break on two lines: where the deals come from and what the house costs you while you hold it. That matters more now, since flip returns in 2025 were the lowest since 2008 (ATTOM, 2026). It works the same way as any real estate business plan, but the numbers are specific to flipping.

Below you’ll find a free template, how to fill in each section, a worked example of a 4-flip year, and what a lender checks first.

Free House Flipping Business Plan Template

Our house flipping business plan template is a free Google Doc with no signup. Open it, then make a copy in your own Google Drive or download it as Word or PDF. It runs about 12 pages and follows the same sections as this article, with fill-in tables for your buy box, lead funnel, capital stack, per-deal profit and loss, and 12-month projection.

The main tables (buy box, funnel, capital, per-deal profit and loss, and 12-month projection) have an example column filled in with one sample deal, so you can see how the numbers connect before you put in your own.

What a House Flipping Business Plan Includes

A house flipping business plan includes 9 core sections: an executive summary, your market and buy box, a deal flow plan, deal analysis rules, rehab scope, financing, team and entity, exit strategy, and financial projections.

The template adds a short company overview, a milestones table, a risk table, and a lender appendix. Use them if someone else is reading the plan; skip them if it’s only for you.

How to Write a House Flipping Business Plan

Write the sections in the order below, except the executive summary, which you write last.

Executive Summary

The executive summary is half a page that tells a lender or partner the whole plan before they read the rest. Write it last, once your numbers are settled.

Four sentences are enough. For example: “We buy distressed 3-bedroom houses in two east-side ZIP codes of Columbus, Ohio, renovate them to a mid-level finish, and sell to first-time buyers. In 2027 we plan to complete 4 flips with an average purchase price of $150,000 and an average after-repair value (ARV) of $280,000. Our deals come from purchased motivated seller leads and direct mail, funded by a hard money lender and $100,000 of our own capital. Our edge is an in-house project manager with 10 years of general contracting work.”

Market and Buy Box

The same quarter can be great in one city and a loss in another. In Q2 2026, flips in Pittsburgh returned an 81.5% gross margin, while the typical San Antonio flip resold for less than its purchase price (ATTOM, 2026). That’s why market choice comes before anything else in the plan.

Those margins compare purchase price to resale price only, before rehab and holding costs (ATTOM, 2026). A 2.8% gross spread means the typical flip in that market loses money once you pay for the work.

Once you’ve picked the metro, narrow it to a buy box: the exact property you’ll buy. Name 2 or 3 ZIP codes, a property type, a purchase price range, an ARV range, and the most rehab you’ll take on. For reference, the median flipped home in 2025 was bought for $259,019 and resold for $325,000 (ATTOM, 2026). Your band can sit above or below that, but you should know which side you’re on and why.

Then write your comps rule, the way you’ll set ARV on every deal. Mine is renovated sales within half a mile, sold in the last 6 months, within 15% of the subject’s square footage.

Deal Flow and Acquisition Plan

A deal flow plan works backward from the number of flips you want this year to the number of leads you need each month. It’s the section most plans skip, and it’s the one that decides whether the rest of the plan happens at all.

This is the funnel for 4 flips a year. The ratios are an example; replace them with your own once you’ve tracked a few months.

The bottom row is where plans fall apart. If a raw list takes 30 leads to get one real conversation and leads from sellers who already said they want to sell take 3, you need 10 times as many raw leads to hit the same target. That ratio, times your cost per lead, gives you a monthly lead budget, and that budget belongs in the plan as a real number.

My first year flipping, I budgeted for 4 flips and bought the cheapest list I could find. Most of the numbers were dead, and most of the owners who answered weren’t selling. I talked to a handful of sellers a month and closed 2 deals. The next year I wrote this section first, set a monthly lead budget, and only paid for leads from sellers who had shown some intent to sell. I talked to about 60 motivated sellers, got 5 under contract, and closed 4.

Name the seller types that fit your buy box. For flips, the best fits are usually motivated sellers who own dated houses with equity and need a fast, as-is sale. Homeowners facing pre-foreclosure often have equity and a deadline. Heirs selling through probate tend to want a clean sale of a house nobody has updated in decades.

Finally, list your channels and what each costs. Off-market leads face less competition than houses listed on the multiple listing service (MLS), which is why flippers can often buy them below retail. Purchased seller leads, direct mail, and agent or wholesaler referrals each get their own row with a budget and an expected number of leads.

Deal Analysis Rules

The maximum allowable offer (MAO) is the most you’ll pay for a house, and the classic version is the 70% rule: ARV times 70%, minus estimated repairs. A house with a $300,000 ARV and $45,000 of repairs gives you a $165,000 MAO.

The 70% rule is a rule of thumb, so adjust it to your market. A 65% cutoff fits slower markets and cheaper houses, where fixed costs eat a bigger share of the price, while 75% can work on higher-priced houses that sell fast. Write down your percentage, your minimum net profit per deal, and who approves an offer. A house flipping spreadsheet makes this a 2-minute check instead of an argument with yourself.

The rule tells you your ceiling. Making the offer to the seller is a separate skill.

Rehab Scope and Project Management

The rehab section names the kind of renovation you’ll do (cosmetic, mid-level, or full gut) and which one you’ll start with. Most new flippers should start cosmetic or mid-level, since a full gut has more ways to run over.

Add a contingency of 10% to 15% of the rehab budget, write how you’ll vet contractors, and pay in draws tied to finished work rather than large payments up front. Permit rules and wait times vary by city and county, so note yours. A rehab checklist keeps every walkthrough consistent.

Financing and Capital Plan

The financing section lists how each flip gets paid for and how much cash you need on hand at once. In 2025, 37.7% of flipped homes were bought with financing (ATTOM, 2026).

Then work out the cash each deal needs. With example terms of 90% of purchase and 100% of rehab financed at 11% interest and 2 points, an up-front fee of 2% of the loan (assumptions for illustration; get real quotes), a $150,000 purchase with a $45,000 rehab needs about $39,600 of your own cash. That covers the down payment, closing costs, points, contingency, holding costs, and interest. Two projects at once plus a $20,000 reserve means about $99,200 of available capital.

Team and Business Entity

This section says who does what and which company owns the deals. Your core team is an agent, a general contractor, a lender, a title company or real estate attorney, an insurance agent, and a certified public accountant (CPA).

You don’t need a limited liability company (LLC) to flip a house, since you can buy in your own name. I buy through an LLC, as do most flippers I know, and picking an LLC name is the easy part. Formation fees, rules, and tax treatment vary by state, so confirm the setup with an attorney or CPA in yours.

Exit Strategy and Backup Plans

Your exit strategy names how you’ll sell the house and the two fallbacks you’ll use if that doesn’t work. Write the trigger for each one, such as “no offers after 30 days on market.”

The usual main exit is a retail sale through an agent. Budget for commissions and closing costs; the example below uses 7% of the sale price. Selling it yourself saves part of that but usually takes longer. If the numbers change before rehab starts, you can sell the contract or the house as-is to another investor, the same way you’d wholesale a deal. Some states regulate this. In Oklahoma, you usually need a real estate license to wholesale, so check your state’s rules before you sell a contract. If the house won’t sell at a price that works, renting it and refinancing turns a stuck flip into a rental, but only if the rent covers the new loan.

One timing rule catches new flippers. A Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan can’t be used to buy your flip if the buyer signs the purchase contract within 90 days of the day you closed on it. Between 91 and 180 days, a resale price 100% or more above what you paid means the lender needs extra documentation, including a second appraisal (24 CFR 203.37a). FHA buyers bought 10.7% of the flipped homes sold in Q2 2026 (ATTOM, 2026), so in an entry-level market, don’t accept an FHA offer before day 91.

Financial Projections

Financial projections come in two layers: a profit and loss for one typical deal, and a 12-month plan for the business. Build the per-deal numbers first, because the year is just those numbers times your deal count, minus overhead. The next section walks through both.

House Flipping Business Plan Example: One Deal and a 4-Flip Year

The example deal from the template is a 3-bedroom house bought for $150,000, renovated for $45,000, and sold at an ARV of $280,000. The buy price is just under its 70% rule MAO of $151,000.

The gap between purchase and sale price is $130,000, which is what a gross profit figure measures. Your take-home is far smaller. ATTOM’s gross profit leaves out rehab and other costs, which experienced flippers put at 20% to 33% of ARV (ATTOM, 2026). The table below includes every cost.

That’s $40,800 on $39,600 of cash, a strong deal. It’s also less than a third of the $130,000 spread.

The line that moves most when things go wrong is time. On a 2023 flip in Columbus, Ohio, I bought a 3-bedroom for $142,000 with a hard money loan at 11% and 2 points. The plan was a $38,000 rehab, 4 months, a $242,000 sale, and about $31,000 of profit. Then the sewer line failed, which cost $5,000, and the permit for the replacement took 7 weeks. The project ran 7 months, the extra interest and carrying costs added up, and I cut the price by $6,000 to sell before winter. I made about $14,000.

Since then, every plan I write carries a 15% rehab contingency and prices holding costs for 1.5 times the timeline I expect. If the deal still works on those numbers, I buy it. Run the same downside version on your example deal: add 2 months and take 5% off the sale price. On the deal above, that drops net profit from $40,800 to about $23,300.

The 12-month view multiplies the deal by your target and subtracts what the business costs to run.

Owner pay comes out of that $133,200, so decide up front how much you’ll draw and how much stays in the business for the next deal. Once the year is under way, track actual results in an income statement and compare them to this plan every quarter.

Fix and Flip Business Plan for Lenders and Partners

Hard money lenders read a plan to judge whether you can finish the project and repay the loan, so a fix and flip business plan written for a lender should lead with four things.

• Your track record, or the experience of a partner or contractor who has done it before.
• A schedule of real estate owned listing the properties you hold now.
• 2 to 3 months of bank statements showing you have the cash the deal needs.
• The deal itself: scope of work, rehab budget, comps for the ARV, and your timeline.

A private lender or equity partner reading your business plan for flipping houses wants the same facts plus how they get paid and what happens if the house doesn’t sell. For that reader, turn the plan into a one-deal investment proposal with the per-deal numbers, the exit, and the backup exit on two pages.

Is House Flipping Still Profitable in 2026?

House flipping is still profitable in 2026, but the margins are thinner. In Q2 2026, investors flipped 77,991 homes, 6.2% of all home sales, for a typical gross profit of $60,526 and a 21.5% gross margin, holding each house about 161 days (ATTOM, 2026).

For all of 2025, the typical gross return was 25.5%, the lowest since 2008 (ATTOM, 2026). Remember that these are gross figures, before rehab and carrying costs. When the spread is shrinking, deals bought at the right price and finished on time still work, and that comes down to deal flow and honest net numbers.

Final Thoughts

Most flips I’ve seen go wrong had a plan. The deal flow and holding cost lines were just guesses. Write those two lines first, run the downside version on every deal, and keep the plan open when you make offers.

Every number in a house flipping business plan depends on one line: enough of the right sellers coming in each month. That’s the part UndervaluedX handles. On our exchange you pick the counties you flip in, set your maximum bid, and pay only for the motivated seller leads you win. Every lead is checked before it’s listed. If your acquisition plan needs a steadier source than raw lists, create an exchange account and see what’s available in your market.

References

1. ATTOM, 2026. Home Flipping Profits Lowest Since Great Recession.
2. ATTOM, 2026. Home Flipping Profits Continue Gradual Two-Year Decline.
3. Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, 2026. 24 CFR 203.37a: Sale of Property.