As a home flipper, maximizing profit means making smart, cost-effective choices—especially when it comes to flooring. The right floors can boost a property's value without breaking the budget. In this guide, we’ll explore the best ways to buy flooring for house flipping, helping you save money while creating a stylish, market-ready home!
When we started ReallyCheapFloors.com back in 2009, the Great Recession was in full swing. Almost everyone had been stung, including me. What we experienced changed our thoughts forever on the differences between wants and needs. House flippers needed a floor in a house, but the floor has to be majestic! House flippers needed to save dough on flooring, but did not want junk. Our inventory was purchased to target those specific needs!
Flipping Houses Requires Saving Money On Every Part of the House
No customer is more price-conscious than you, the flipper. When we started this business, we immediately became popular with flippers and home builders, which has not changed. Why? Because:
1) You cannot buy wood flooring cheaper than we have it anywhere in the USA
2) You cannot get a better deal than what we can offer.
Being the cheapest is not hard on any given day. Being the cheapest and the most competitive day in, day out is a bit more of a challenge. I am getting ready to tell you our secrets, but you have to promise not to tell anyone, ok?
Real Estate Investors Ask, How Are We So Cheap?
The secret is supply and demand. Every manufacturer of flooring makes seconds and lower graded products, as well as sometimes having overstocked and discontinued goods. Unfortunately for them, they will lose some dollars on these flooring products. Fortunately for manufacturers, they don’t produce much of any money-losing flooring. So who sells this money-losing flooring? Big box stores don’t want to!
Big box stores want everything made easy, so their buyers acquire the same product at the same specs, month after month. They cannot be bothered with having to inspect material, or explaining different flooring grades to each customer, so they are not interested in the odd goods.
The World of Promotional Goods
Selling promo goods is a lot of work. We get stuck with a lot of small lots of flooring, and occasionally a lot will not be graded as represented to us. While problems are rare, they do occur. They occur often enough to keep most flooring businesses out of the promo goods business. Can you see why the demand is low for promo goods? Next, let’s cover the supply!
Remember the part about every flooring manufacturer has promo goods? About 5-10% of flooring produced by manufacturers are discounted and sold to avoid clogging up their warehouses. The buyers who purchase their promo goods are always going to save some bucks.
We Specialize in USA Made Flooring
That is where ReallyCheapFloors.com steps in. Of the top 4 manufacturers of wood flooring in the USA, we are the largest, if not the only outlet for promo flooring goods for 3 of them. Talk about specializing!
We are excellent at securing these products, moving them to our warehouses, inspecting the inventory, representing them to our customers honestly, and getting these flooring products shipped promptly. Sound easy? Never. But it is rewarding.
Our business has grown from a small, family-owned startup to a big, family-owned success story. We are still the same family, doing business the same as before.
You understand why we say, “You cannot find wood flooring cheaper than we have it anywhere in the USA.” Let’s talk about why we say, “You cannot get a better deal than what we can offer.”
Value Begins in Hardwood Grades
In the picture above, you can see 3 different grades of hardwood with the same species of wood flooring. All of these are Red Oak floors with a dark stain finish. Think they look a lot alike? What is the big difference? The cost. The most expensive is First Quality, and it will sell for about $5 a sq ft, depending on the market. While this is a little bit high for a standard first quality floor, this is not a standard floor. Somerset makes this floor primarily with select lumber and offers the highest quality construction and visuals you can buy.
The other flooring products are graded on attributes such as board length, color contrast, or natural defects such as knots or wormholes. Two of these options sell for less than $2 a square foot. That is where we offer such impressive deals! All 3 types are made from the same trees, milled the same, and finished the same, with aluminum oxide. You can see why house flipping experts, rental property buyers and home builders love shopping for promo goods!
You can purchase 1200 sq feet of this flooring and save $2400 between our Cabin and first quality, with little to no impact on your finished installation. That is value! Read our blog Hardwood Grades 101, to learn more about the differences between hardwood flooring grades and see them for yourself.
That was one example of selecting a floor for your flip. Keep in mind that we have lots of species, widths, and colors available. Saving your funds at ReallyCheapFloors.com does not mean you can’t get what you want.
Saving with Engineered Hardwood Floors
Another great way to save dough is to use one of our engineered floors. Our Engineered flooring is made in the USA because, well, all of our hardwood floors are! The leading manufacturer of high-end engineered flooring in the USA produces our Blue Label and Engineered flooring. Expect to see 1/2″ thickness, utilizing 8 plys of hardwood, no particle board, aluminum oxide finish, and a sawn face veneer to our Blue Label and Engineered flooring.
Have you heard of a sawn face veneer? I will try to explain it in as few words as possible.
Most engineered hardwood floors are made with a veneer that is rotary peeled. In the diagram below, you can see what I mean.
While this process yields more veneer than any other way, the veneer suffers from a fairly severe case of ugly. House slippers are used to seeing ugly though.
With a sawn-face veneer, the log is sliced the same as a solid hardwood floor would be cut, just thinner. The sawn-face process results in a high-end engineered hardwood floor that looks just like a solid. The downside is that this process costs more, and results in a finished product that, while looking much better, and performing better due to it’s higher density, costs a lot more unless you have a friend at ReallyCheapFloors.com that can hook you up with these floors for well under $2!
Our Best Flooring Deals in the Country
While we also offer rotary peeled floors for the jobs where the price is the only consideration, our Blue Label and Builder offer a deal unmatched in the flooring industry. Hickory, Maple, Red Oak, and White Oak in widths up to 7″ and over 20 different finishes ensure you get the floor your customer wants at the price you need and the quality you never expected. A house flippers dream.
Our Antique Collection features a wire-brushed finish that looks a little more rustic, while our Oak Plank Collection is a smooth surface. Our Appalachian and Country Low Gloss Collections offer natural Hickory and Maple floors, along with different stains.
Monthly Warehouse Sales
Another opportunity to save big money is during our monthly Warehouse Sales. Each month, at each location, we reduce the inventory prices that we need to get rid of more quickly. Bring a truck and some dough. We will try to fill your vehicle and only take part of your dough! However, some customers like to stop at Harrah’s in Murphy or Cherokee on the way home. I understand that sometimes the cash they saved disappears over there.
Luxury Vinyl Plank And Tiles
Another product that is popular for use in a lot of resale homes is LVP. flooring If you are not familiar with LVP floors, or if you just want to know more technical info pertaining to them, read our What is Luxury Vinyl Plank blog. Luxury vinyl plank flooring has a few claims to fame that house flippers are taking note of. The first is being waterproof. While this isn’t applicable to all LVP flooring products (read the blog!), all of the ones we offer are waterproof. Second, LVP is pet-proof. Third, LVP is kid-proof.
Honestly, it is hard to oversell a good quality LVP floor, and very easy to oversell a bad one (anything under 12 mil of wear layer). Always look for a quality brand like Shaw Floors or Coretec.
Luxury Vinyl Plank floors are made using layers of material on top of a central core. Made correctly, this results in a very stable floor that will resist dents and scratches for decades. Luxury vinyl plank is an excellent match for rental properties. We sell vast amounts of this in both house flips, remodels, and personal home projects.
COREtec Value in Luxury Vinyl Plank and Tile
At ReallyCheapFloors.com, we are proud to offer LVP made by COREtec, the leading producer in the world in terms of style, quality, and value. Our Trackrock Classic collection has s a 12 mil click that will not warp due to moisture or temperature swings, is available in 2 great colors and priced at only $1.19.
You can buy floors a little bit cheaper than that, but it will be a low end, 6 mil or 8 mil, and you, a renter, or buyer will have problems with it. Don’t call me whining when you do! Spend another 20 or 30 cents and save your sanity and reputation. It is not a great value when you are getting sued because the floor is warped!
Never Heard of Us?
Listen, as a house flipper/home flipper shopping online for whole property can be daunting. Especially with a company, you have never heard of. I understand. But please believe me when I say that we will save you money. We want your money to go right back in your pocket, where it should be. I started ReallyCheapFloors.copr because I am really cheap.
I make sure that every product we sell is offering you way more value than you pay for. You can trust me on that. My brother Jason? Well, he likes to fish. And golf, so he fibs a little. Jason told me he doesn’t read these blogs. I hope you’ll email him and let him know he needs to start!
Free Samples for Buyers
We offer free samples for the first pack of four or five samples you order. If you are indecisive and keep ordering sample packets, we will let you pay for the shipping.
Repeat Customers Are Our Lifeblood
Home flippers are a big part of our customer base, and we are very proud of that. As I said earlier, being the cheapest option isn’t very hard especially if house flippers are used to fast turnovers. Offering the best value, day after day, that is quite an accomplishment. We take care of our house flipping pals because you are the reason we can stay in business. We give a flip about you! Was that a bad pun? I will let you decide.
If you have any questions about any of our products or just want to talk to someone with a Southern accent, please give us a call.
