How Mobile Floor Plan Sketches Can Make House-Flipping Easier

If you’re a flipping enthusiast, you probably already have a lot of trusty tools for renovating and flipping houses. But one you may not have considered yet is a mobile floor plan software app. Downloaded to your smartphone or tablet, this type of app can prove to be very versatile. And it may even become one of your favorite tools.

Read on to learn more about it.

Why a Floor Plan App Makes Sense for Property Renovations

Producing a digital floor plan of a newly purchased property can be beneficial for a number of reasons. Before you begin fixing and flipping, you can use the plan to:

• Document room dimensions and other measurements throughout the home
• Experiment with different design alternatives
• Visualize how people will move through a redesigned space
• Turn a concept into a concrete form
• Work through any potential challenges
• Note what exactly needs to be done
• Estimate your renovation plan accurately to develop a budget
• Order the correct amounts of materials and supplies
• Determine labor hours and plan a work schedule
• Double-check your next steps before starting any demo work
• Communicate your plan to contractors you hire

Ultimately, a good floor plan can be the foundation for every house flip going forward.

Floor Plans Also Can Help You Sell Your Newly Renovated Properties

Smart house flippers know that floor plans can give them a competitive edge when it comes time to sell. That’s because house hunters always want to gather as much information as possible on a property. The more they know, the happier they will be.

Plus, some potential buyers may not be physically able to view your renovated homes. Maybe they live too far away, have schedules that are too busy, or are physically disabled. For those folks, floor plans can be especially valuable.

Also, descriptions and photos alone cannot paint the whole picture.

A floor plan will help potential buyers see the entire layout of a house, and also understand the dimensions, location and features of each specific room. All of these things will help them better visualize the amount of living space available, see the flow within the home, and map out where to place their furniture, store personal belongings and stash infrequently used items. So, a floor plan can help buyers make more of an emotional connection.

Descriptions and photos alone can’t do that. But pairing descriptions and photos with a floor plan is definitely a winning and welcome combination. You can do so in your online real estate listings, and in printed literature you distribute at open houses. (Nice-looking literature can play a vital role in making your properties more memorable.)

Surprisingly, many real-estate agents fail to use floor plans when marketing residential properties. They simply view it as an unnecessary step. So, if you do use floor plans, you gain a distinct advantage. And that may help you flip houses even faster.

Real Estate Flipping Is Popular: According to the 2021 U.S. Home Flipping Report from ATTOM, a leading curator of real estate data, 323,465 single-family homes and condos in the United States were flipped in 2021. That was up 26 percent from 2020, to the highest point since 2006!

Why Using a Digital App Is Better Than Sketching by Hand

Unfortunately, the process of sketching by hand has some drawbacks:

• Working with a pencil and paper is tedious, imperfect and time-consuming.
• You may feel you need to sketch each room twice. For example, you probably would start out by drawing a rough sketch on paper to record your measurements and begin forming ideas. Then later on, you would want to draw a second time to create a more polished floor plan.
• You have to determine an appropriate scale (such as ¼” = 1 foot) and then make sure you adhere to that scale exactly. You’ll want to double- and triple-check every detail.
• There is a greater chance of human error, which can detract from the precision of your drawing.

A good mobile floor plan app is a fantastic tool that will help you avoid these problems. Look for a professional-grade app that is popular with residential contractors, accessible across different devices, multi-functional, and easy to learn and use.

How to Use a Floor Plan App

Start by installing a high-quality app on your mobile device. Then turn on the app and start moving your device around a room that you want to diagram. The app will work in tandem with the device’s camera to sense the dimensions of the room. Then it will use augmented reality technology to assemble a representative floor plan.

Are you concerned about the room measurements being slightly imperfect? Don’t worry: You can sync a Bluetooth laser distance meter with the app before you begin, to achieve measurements that are close to 100% accurate.

Once the floor plan is drawn, you should be able to add notes about utilities and other important aspects – or even insert objects, such as any new appliances you plan to install.

It Helps to Have An App That Also Lets You Create 2D and 3D Floor Plans

Viewing a floor plan in a more dimensional perspective allows you to get a better feeling for how a finished renovation will look. You may also want to share 2D or 3D floor plans with potential buyers who stop by in person to complete a walk-through.

Are You Ready to Get Started?

The real-estate market is competitive. Yet you want to get top-dollar for every house flip you complete. One way to assure that happens is to use the best tools available – including a high-quality mobile floor plan app. So, select a good one, download it and begin getting familiar with it. The more you use the app, the more it can help you boost your success as a professional house-flipper!

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