The Real Estate section is sponsored by:
Moving On Up
From $168,000 to $980,000 in eight resale-savvy steps. What one consummate house flipper learned about unstable markets while fluffing for a big payday By Bert Archer
You have to think about resale and not
spend a lot of money on, say, your ideal sink
Image credit: All photographs by Derek Shapton
Val Strba cashed out just before the end of the latest boom, selling her eighth house in a decade-long flipping odyssey. When she and her husband, Randy, bought their first property, Val was a waitress at an Italian restaurant. Randy was a real estate appraiser and home inspector who could build a house from the ground up. With their two sons, the couple moved into their first home the month the market turned around after the 1989 crash. Over the years, Val, now a widow, taught herself how to cut tiles, lay carpet and raise drywall. The family lived in each home—most in North York, one in Scarborough—until it was renovated and sold. Val eventually gave up waitressing and became a real estate agent (she found many of her bargain properties while on the job). She’s currently renting an apartment at Bayview and Steeles. Flipping that many houses took a little perseverance, a lot of grit, and a keen sense of what the market would bear.
Here’s how she did it.
Comments
Comment on this story
Neither Bert Archer nor Toronto Life necessarily agree with the comments posted here. Editors will not correct spelling or grammar. Toronto Life reserves the right to edit or delete comments entirely. Read our full policy
Some articles on this site require that you have a Torontolife.com account in order to comment, and this is one of them. If you do not have an account, you can register now.
Follow Toronto Life on Twitter, Facebook and via RSS