We put a Pflugerville flip under contract last month. We had to put $1960 down as earnest money and at a glance it looked like a deal worth doing. Buy at $200K and resell around $315K. Once we walked the property, we started underwriting it for real. And here's what I want you to see: a bad deal rarely shows up bad on day one. It gets worse the deeper you dig. We built the real rehab scope. $59,102. Margin got tighter. We priced the money. Senior loan at 9%, gap funding at 12%, about $6,200 in interest carry. Tighter again. We added the costs everybody forgets. Origination, title, insurance, taxes, utilities, sell-side. All-in landed at $300,130. Ran the exit at a $315K resale. Here's where it left us: - Projected profit: $14,870 - Margin: 4.7% - Contingency in the budget: $5,373 Sit with that a second. To make $14,870, we'd borrow around $290K, carry it three to four months, run a full rehab, and sell into a market that owes us nothing. The whole thing rides on $5,373 of cushion. One bad roof, one slow buyer, one surprise, and the profit is gone. Two surprises and we're paying to do the deal. Every number we checked said the same thing, louder each time. This one didn't pencil. So we terminated. We let $1,960 in earnest money go and we walked. That $1,960 was the cheapest money we spent all quarter. A bad flip on this one would've cost us five figures and a whole season of our lives. If it's not a HELL YES, it's a hell no. And a 4.7% margin was a hell no the deeper we looked. The pencil doesn't lie. If you wanna see our underwriting, peep the deal package attached. 👉 What's the smallest margin you'll take on a three-to-four-month flip before you walk? Drop your number below, and be honest about whether the deal on your desk right now clears it.