The episode opens with Henry Washington making a direct argument against the prevailing narrative that house flipping is no longer viable. He acknowledges that costs are up, margins are thinner, and some investors are getting burned — but frames this as a feature, not a bug. Bad flippers are being exposed by a tighter market, he argues, while disciplined investors are finding some of the best spreads in years. Henry introduces Dominique Gunderson, a New Orleans-based flipper doing 10 to 12 flips annually, and together they announce the blueprint they plan to share: how to find, buy, renovate, and flip houses for a profit in the current 2026 environment.

Henry Washington formally introduces Dominique Gunderson to the BiggerPockets audience, inviting her to recap a career that began unusually early. Dominique explains that she jumped into real estate straight out of high school — now more than ten years ago — starting by getting her real estate license and learning sales and marketing fundamentals. She spent roughly a year and a half wholesaling to get comfortable in the investment world before making the full-time switch to flipping in 2019. Today, she's scaled to running 10 to 12 active flips at a time, with a small but growing rental portfolio on the side. Henry notes he operates at a similar volume — 10 to 20 flips per year — establishing that both hosts are speaking from significant, current operational experience.

Henry and Dominique dig into what has fundamentally shifted in the flipping market over the last two to three years. Dominique identifies the core problem: the margin for error has shrunk to near zero, meaning even small miscalculations now turn potential profits into break-evens or losses. This environment, she notes, has been steadily exposing flippers who relied on market tailwinds rather than disciplined underwriting. The pair discuss how ARV analysis has become far more nuanced — where in 2021 and 2022, any renovated property could command top-of-market pricing, today buyers are laser-focused on design quality and finish level. If your product doesn't match the comp that set the price record in a neighborhood, you can't use that comp ^{[1] — Dominique Gunderson "In 2021, all renovated properties could be lumped together and priced similarly. Not anymore. Today's buyers are hyper-picky, rewarding onl…" 04:01 Play} . Henry's response to this reality is philosophically extreme: he underwrites so conservatively that he tries to convince himself not to buy every deal. If the numbers still pencil after that scrutiny, it's almost certainly a strong opportunity.

The first sponsor break covers two financial products. Ethos Life Insurance is pitched as a natural companion to real estate investing — protecting the people who depend on an investor's income — offering up to $3,000,000 in coverage with no medical exam, some policies starting at $30 per month, and a free quote available at ethos.com/realestate. The second sponsor is the Fundrise Flagship Fund, described as a low-fee vehicle for accessing blue-chip private market real estate that has grown to over $1 billion under management in five years, with entry starting at $10 and available at fundrise.com/pockets.

With ARV strategy covered, Henry shifts the conversation to costs — starting with commissions and closing costs. Dominique's biggest move of 2025 was getting her real estate license, which she says saves her at least 2.5% per listing — adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year across a 10 to 12 deal annual pace ^{[1] — Dominique Gunderson "2.5% agent commission savings: By getting her real estate license in early 2025, Dominique saved at least 2.5% on commissions per deal, add…" 10:25 Play} . She also notes an unexpected benefit: direct access to buyer feedback that's nearly impossible to get secondhand from an agent. Henry takes a different approach, always underwriting a worst-case 6% total commission regardless of what he actually negotiates, keeping his offer prices anchored to the pessimistic scenario. On closing costs, Henry flags the most common and costly beginner mistake: only budgeting for sale-side closing costs ^{[2] — Henry Washington "Closing costs on buy AND sell: A common flipper mistake is only budgeting closing costs for the sale — forgetting the purchase-side closing…" 13:19 Play} . Forgetting purchase-side closing costs can be a several-thousand-dollar blindspot on every deal. His solution for newcomers who don't have historical data is to request a preliminary HUD statement from a title company using the property address.

The rehab budget section opens with Dominique's striking data point: on 70 to 80 percent of her projects, she encounters a surprise cost item exceeding $10,000 ^{[1] — Dominique Gunderson "70–80% of flips hit $10k+ surprises: Dominique Gunderson estimates that 70 to 80 percent of her rehabs produce a surprise cost item of $10,…" 15:00 Play} . The key reframe, she argues, is that this isn't bad luck — it's predictable, and should be systematically planned for. Her recommendation: a 10% contingency on top of the full estimated rehab cost for fully-inspected deals, rising to 20% for sight-unseen or limited-access purchases. Henry builds on this with his own rule: he always underwrites rehab costs at full market rates, never at the discounted prices his preferred contractors offer. His reasoning is practical — contractors raise prices, crews disappear, and any underwriting built on special relationships is fragile. By anchoring to market rates and adding a 10% contingency on top, he builds in a double layer of protection. Any savings from his preferred contractors become upside, not assumptions.

This extended sponsor block covers five products. Rent to Retirement offers new construction turnkey homes 10% below market value with down payment returns of 50–75% at closing and rates as low as 3.75%. Cost Segregation Guys has completed 12,000+ studies identifying $500 million in depreciation, with a free proposal at costsegregationguys.com/bp. Bolt is an AI tool that builds custom apps and websites from a description, offering a 30-day free trial with code BP26 at bolt.new/biggerpockets. Steadily provides landlord insurance for rental portfolios, with an extra 5% discount for BiggerPockets Pro members. Finally, Indeed is promoted for hiring, with a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast and the claim that sponsored postings are 95% more likely to generate a hire.

With costs covered, the conversation turns to profit — how much to require before saying yes to a deal. Henry's approach is elegantly simple: he targets a net profit equal to his renovation budget. If he spends $100,000 on rehab, he wants $100,000 in profit. The logic is that larger renovations introduce more complexity, more moving parts, and more risk of cost overruns, so they should demand proportionally more reward ^{[1] — Henry Washington "Profit = renovation spend (Henry's rule): Henry Washington's rule of thumb is to target a profit equal to the renovation spend — if he spen…" 18:32 Play} . He'll flex this downward for houses he knows inside and out — familiar neighborhoods, floor plans he's sold many times — but the baseline remains tied to renovation exposure. Dominique takes a different approach: she targets a minimum 15% return on total investment, encompassing purchase price, rehab, and all closing costs ^{[2] — Dominique Gunderson "15% ROI minimum target: Dominique Gunderson targets a minimum 15% return on total investment (purchase + rehab + closing costs) for every f…" 20:46 Play} . Like Henry, she raises that threshold when she's less confident about a deal, when market conditions feel shaky in a particular sub-market, or when she already has plenty of strong projects in her pipeline. Henry notes that applying his approach in a more competitive market like Dominique's would likely price him out of deals entirely, underscoring how market context shapes every profitability rule.

One of the episode's richest exchanges comes when Henry and Dominique reflect on a recent visit where they toured each other's markets. Henry took Dominique through his Bentonville properties and she was struck by choices she'd never make in New Orleans: repurposed cabinet boxes, refreshed hardware, salvaged kitchen layouts. In her market, buyers expect a brand-new kitchen — full stop. Henry counters that he rarely installs new cabinets (fewer than 10% of deals), preferring to invest renovation dollars in bathrooms where impact per square foot is higher. Dominique observed the inverse in her market: she can often salvage bathrooms but rarely salvages kitchens. Her market also demands consistency — one paint color throughout, one consistent flooring material, matched light fixtures — because buyers in a high-inventory market are sensitive to anything that feels disconnected or dated. Both investors agree that studying the competition daily is non-negotiable: Dominique tracks every new listing in her market, categorizes it (flip, new build, or organic sale), and analyzes days-on-market and closing-to-list-price ratios to calibrate her own renovation and pricing decisions.

With underwriting covered, the conversation moves to the back end — how to price and list a finished flip for maximum velocity. Dominique tracks active listings obsessively in the thirty days before she goes to market, watching similar properties for signals about buyer appetite and absorption rate. Henry's strategy is more aggressive: when he has any doubt about a property or faces strong competition in a neighborhood, he lists below the best comparable listing rather than at it. His goal is to give buyers an obvious reason to choose his property — it looks better and costs less than anything comparable. He acknowledges the real cost: a recent deal went under contract in 24 hours after being listed $25,000 below his original planned price ^{[1] — Henry Washington "Listed $25k under planned price: Henry Washington intentionally listed a property $25,000 below his planned list price to ensure a fast sal…" 34:55 Play} . That meant leaving $25,000 on the table. But the alternative — chasing the higher number for months while holding costs accumulate — often yields the same or worse return, plus months of uncertainty and stress. Both hosts agree: money now is nearly always better than potential money later.

The episode's most candid and instructive chapter surfaces when Henry asks Dominique what she's learned from her worst deals. She reveals that her most significant losses came in 2024, and looking back at all of them, one pattern emerges: she wanted to buy the house too badly. Not because the deal was objectively great, but because she felt she needed to keep her pipeline full, or because she got caught up in a bidding war, or because slowing down felt like falling behind ^{[1] — Dominique Gunderson "The consistent theme on all the deals were, why did I want to buy that house so bad? That's it. It's a funky house. I didn't need to buy an…" 37:38 Play} . Henry echoes the exact same experience. Every deal he's lost money on was one where he was pushing numbers, buying just outside his comfort zone, or rationalizing something he knew was marginal. He adds a dimension most people miss: the real cost of a bad flip isn't the financial loss at closing — you're often glad when that day finally comes. The real cost is the months of anxiety, sleepless nights, and emotional energy spent trying to fix something unfixable ^{[2] — Henry Washington "It's all the anxiety and sleepless nights prior to that of you trying to fix it and not being successful, of you sitting there and waiting …" 39:12 Play} . Dominique closes the exchange with a wry punctuation mark: "That's why they call this business an addiction."

Henry wraps the episode by thanking Dominique for her transparency about her business and the detailed tactical breakdown the pair delivered. He promotes BP Con — the BiggerPockets annual conference taking place in Orlando, Florida on October 2 through 4 — as a place for listeners to compare notes directly with other active flippers, including a dedicated session led by Dominique Gunderson and James Daynard covering their flipping businesses in detail. Henry directs listeners to biggerpockets.com/conference for tickets and signs off with genuine enthusiasm for meeting the audience in person.