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The Best Flooring for Flipping Houses

So you’re wanting to get into the house flipping game. Maybe a friend of yours has made money flipping houses, or maybe you’ve been watching a ton of reality television; whatever your reasons, you’re ready to test your eye for design and start flipping houses. However, what is the best flooring for flipping houses? Let’s get started!

What does “flipping houses” mean?

Hint: It’s not what happens in The Wizard of Oz. Flipping houses is when a person buys a house at (usually) an affordable as-is price and then, through remodeling, improves the overall house. The goal is to resell the property and have a high ROI, or Return on Investment.

Laminate:

Laminate is very popular among experienced house-flippers. One reason being it gives houses an expensive look without the expensive investment. Laminate can also come in a variety of looks, so the choice is yours (though we would recommend more neutral colors if flipping).

Laminate is a great choice if you have a lower budget but still want a good ROI when you sell.

Luxury Vinyl:

Related content –>2017 Vinyl Flooring Trends: 16 Hot New Ideas

Luxury vinyl flooring is the new flooring of choice for experienced flippers. While laminate is still popular for flipping, vinyl flooring has more perks at close to the same price. You can buy vinyl flooring in planks, tiles, or rolls, so you can control the look of your flip easily. Vinyl flooring also comes in a variety of finishes including wood look-alikes and natural stone.

Additionally, you can buy WPC vinyl flooring, which is 100% waterproof. This makes it a great choice for a continual flooring from living room to the kitchen. It can even be used in the bathroom!

Best yet: vinyl offers a great ROI.

Engineered Wood:

If you have the budget for it, engineered wood is great for a house flip. It has a high-end hardwood look because it is real wood! Engineered wood is constructed in layers to offer more durability and moisture resistance. These floors won’t have potential buyers daydreaming about ripping up your floors.

It is often more expensive than say, laminate, so it might be best to choose this for higher-value houses to make sure you earn a good ROI.

Hardwood:

Does your flip already have hardwood? Is there hardwood hidden underneath the carpet? If so, you struck a gold mine! Everyone wants hardwood in their home. If you have it already, even better. Your best bet would be the sand and refinish the hardwood to make it beautiful again.

If you don’t have hardwood, is it worth it to invest in it? Maybe.

Whether or not you want to buy hardwood for your house flip depends on the answers above. The truth is, hardwood will always raise the value of your flip and will make buyers more keen to make an offer; however, hardwood flooring is expensive.

If your budget doesn’t allow for it, or if hardwood floors are uncommon in the area you are flipping, it may not be worth the investment.

Carpet:

Carpet is a big no-no in the house flipping world. Adding carpet to a flipped house probably won’t increase your ROI. Truth is, not a lot of people want carpets in their houses anymore. Those buyers that are going to view your flip? Yeah, they’re just thinking about how much it will cost to rip-out your brand new carpet and replace it with something else. Pity.

However, replacing old carpet with new carpet is always better than leaving the old carpet in place. If you can’t afford to upgrade the flooring to something other than carpet, at least replace it and you’ll break even.

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Hardwood or laminate floor; which is best for my needs?

No matter your preference, there are pros and cons when it comes to hardwood Vs laminate wood flooring. We want to help you determine which one is best for your budget and home. 

Price

The reality of flooring costs and what you can afford may be miles apart.

Hardwood: CONS – Made of harvested trees it’s price depends on how exotic the trees are. In general hardwood is more expensive.

Laminate: PROS – The material itself is cheaper and laminate wood installation cost is, on average 50 percent less than hardwood installation.

Durability

A durable surface will make maintenance easier and look great for years.

Hardwood: CONS – It’s susceptible to scratching, can get damaged from moisture and will show wear. PROS – Hardwood is the real deal; it is gorgeous and can add value to your home.

Laminate: PROS – It is more durable, it resists scratches and moisture is also easier to clean. CONS Low quality laminate can have artificial-looking texture.

Repair

From minor accidents to excessive wear and tear both material have advantages and disadvantages.

Hardwood: PROS – Can be repaired by sanding imperfections and refinishing.

Laminate: CONS – This flooring doesn’t repair easily. To replace individual boards depending on sunlight and age, the new piece may not match properly.

Deciding whether to use hardwood or laminate is up to you, review the pros and cons and be realistic about your lifestyle that may influence your decision. Consider the factors and know that new floors will improve your home’s aesthetic, appeal and value.

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Laminate Flooring = Lasting Durability

Laminate flooring could be the perfect choice for your active lifestyle.

Durability, good looks and value are smartly balanced so you upgrade and decorate without breaking your budget or loose quality.

Choose Laminates to Achieve Your Decorating Goals

Laminates are available in a broad variety of handsomely crafted designs. They provide the rugged durability at a value price. Thus you can find a long-wearing laminate style that can help accomplish your decorating ideas within your budget.

Laminate Flooring = Lasting Durability

The beautiful design you love today will remain the same in the years to come.

All laminates are constructed of four layers:

The wear layer is a clear layer of aluminum oxide that protects against fading, stains and surface burns.
The design layer contains a photograph of the floor’s surface appearance.
The core layer is a durable high-density board to protect the floor.
The back layer is a stability layer that helps balance the floor.

Thanks to layered construction, Laminate Floors will always look as good as the day it was installed.

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Having THIS flooring inside your home can add THOUSANDS to your property’s value

ADDING value to your home can help when it comes to selling it, and having a certain type of flooring inside your property can do just that.

Installing new flooring across your home can increase your house’s worth, depending on what material you use.

Out of vinyl, carpet and wood flooring, which can add the most value to your property?

Discount Flooring Depot suggests the types of floor you should avoid, and which one you should invest in to up your property’s price.

The retailer suggests that low quality vinyls and laminates will drag your value down, and it seems most homes are leaning towards wooden floors rather than carpeted floors. The best floor to invest in is a wooden floor – which is better than carpet – as it provides “extra equity” in your home.

Plus, a high quality floor will last for much longer than a carpet, giving you life time value, as well as increasing house worth.

Hardwood flooring is ideal, as it’s a luxury that many people associate with money and class.

But if real wood flooring is out of your price range, you can get high quality laminates.

Top of the range laminate floors have realist V-Grooves to mimic the feel and appearance of a real board, and they have a wealth of grain variation and knots throughout, just as you’d expect from real wood.

When it comes to bathrooms or kitchens, hard wood flooring generally doesn’t go – but you don’t have to settle for vinyl.

You can get water resistant laminate, and it’s not that expensive.

Discount Flooring Depot’s Hydro Guard Range or laminate floors look like real wood, but without the problems that mixing real wood in a wet environment will often bring.The retailer says spending around £400 to £600 could increase your home’s value by £1,300.

The colour of your front door can also have a big impact on your home’s sale. So what shades should you go for, and which should you avoid?

Research carried out by Westbury Windows and Joinery’s found that white was the most popular colour for wood front doors or entrance doors in the UK.

Natural stained and/or varnished finishes were the second most popular choice with black in third place.

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Waterproof Plastic Laminate Flooring: Often Discussed, Rarely Seen

Laminate flooring, due to its large quantity of wood content, is acceptable but not ideal for environments with high moisture, such as bathrooms or basements. Even “laminate-friendly” rooms such as kitchens can have sub-zones that are unfriendly to laminate flooring: in front and under the dishwasher, sink, and refrigerator.

A type of laminate flooring called waterproof laminate, made entirely of plastic, allows you to install this product in such places.

While this product truly is water-proof, it has significant limitations that may encourage you to seek other types of flooring.

Laminate’s Solution for Dealing With Water: Avoid It Altogether

One solution has been to ask homeowners not to install the product in moist places, such as basements or even children’s bathrooms.

Slightly more effective solutions have been to develop tighter seams between the boards and to introduce more melamine resins in the fiberboard mix.

But none of that matters when your dishwasher overflows. This is the reason behind the “topical spills” clause in most laminate flooring warranties.

A typical industry warranty (Armstrong) notes that its laminates are covered under warranty and “[w]ill resist topical water damage, meaning that planks or tiles will not swell, delaminate or peak at the seams due to topical spills, provided that the liquid is wiped up and the floor is allowed to dry.”

Topical spills means a dropped glass of water, not an overflowing clothes washer. Even though topical does not mean “top,” it could: all spills which remain on the plasticized wear layer, with perfectly seamed boards, and with 100% silicone caulk added in problem areas (around bathtubs), should remain free of damage.

What Happens to the Fiberboard Core?

The problem is not with the top layer, but with the core. Laminate flooring’s core is little more than a dense type of fiberboard. If you’ve ever seen a sheet of particle board get rained on, you’ll know how it bubbles up and crumbles like a wet soda cracker.

One little-known aspect of this moisture-and-laminate issue is that the moisture problem actually starts in the factory, not in the home. Flooring manufacturers have found that high moisture content in the fiberboard particles in the factory can result in poor adhesion of the top melamine wear layer.

Waterproof Laminate Brands

Today, Parcolys NV, a Belgian company that is the parent of Aqua-Step, is the main manufacturer of waterproof laminate flooring. With 23 woods and 3 stones, Aqua-Step does not have the wide range of styles homeowners might expect from the non-waterproof market.

But the good thing is that Aqua-Step is truly 100% waterproof–no need to lay down a moisture barrier. Planks join by way of a click-and-lock method. Conventional laminate needs expansion joints to allow for the product to expand and contract according to room humidity. Aqua-Step absorbs no water at all, so no need for expansion joints.

Dumaplast Dumafloor is another one, also from Belgium. Dumafloor has been in production since 2007.

Expansion Profiles Unnecessary

One unexpected benefit of installing waterproof laminate is that it does not require expansion profiles. These are intermittent gaps that are imposed on a large field of conventional laminate flooring to allow for natural expansion and contraction of the flooring. Waterproof laminate is 100% unaffected by moisture, thus it needs no expansion profiles.

Luxury Vinyl Flooring as an Alternative

Most of the waterproof laminate market has been siphoned off by an upstart called luxury vinyl flooring (LVF).

LVF is thicker than ordinary vinyl flooring; has better embossing (texture); and looks more like real stone or wood.

LVF manufacturers have been pumping out tons of exciting wood species and stones, such as teak, bamboo, travertine, and bamboo.

It is 100% waterproof, too. You can drop LVF in a tub of water for weeks and it will come out having absorbed no water.

One downside of LVF is that it is not as thick as waterproof laminate. Aqua-Step clocks in at 8 mm; for LVFs, 8 mm would be considered very thick and very expensive. Average thickness for LVF runs around 3-5 mm.

Is Mannington ICORE Indicative of the Waterproof Laminate Market?

In 2003, Mannington Mills patented a new type of waterproof laminate that bypassed many of those previous solutions. Their product, dubbed ICORE, had some of these features:

Thermoplastic Core, Not Fiberboard – The key aspect is that ICORE did away with the fiberboard and replaced it with a “plastic” core made of PVC. As you can imagine, PVC (which is also used for water pipes) is quite waterproof.

Print Layer and Overlay – This is just like conventional laminate flooring. Separate layers are required for better print adhesion, rather than printing straight onto the thermoplastic core.

Honeycombed “Cells” Inside – “Foot feel” is important with laminate flooring, because it is so thin. Walking on laminate flooring can be difficult because it has little “give.” With waterproof laminate such as ICORE, interior channels or cells made for a springier feel.

Then, Mannington pulled the plug on iCORE, no reason given but presumably due to poor sales.

Original Source By Lee Wallender