• Phoebe Grier, now 18, flipped a home during her high school summer break.
• She used a hard-money loan and got financial help from her father as well as a private investor.
• Grier made a profit of $39,500 — she saved some, donated some, and bought a car.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Phoebe Grier, 18, who flipped a home in the Twin Oaks neighborhood of Lexington, Kentucky when she was 16. She used her father’s credit to secure a hard-money loan through Backflip, a platform that helps residential real-estate investors find, analyze, and finance projects. The conversation was edited for length and clarity.

The summer I flipped the house, I still babysat and housesat, but that was my job.

When I wasn’t playing golf, I was running errands for the house — going to buy things, making sure the things that the contractor said were supposed to be happening were happening and that people and places were where they were supposed to be.

My friends were thinking about going out to eat or buying makeup and clothes. One was working at a golf shop, one was working at an ice cream shop, and one was working as an intern. They didn’t really realize what I was doing. They didn’t even know what to think.

A lot of people were supportive of the fact that I was a young person who wanted to flip a house. Some people were impressed. Other people were like, “OK, you’re a 16-year-old girl. Why am I listening to you?”

If I want to do something, I want to do it. I make it happen. It also definitely helped to get empowerment and encouragement from my parents.

My dad and an investor helped me buy the house and fund the renovation

Since I was little, I’ve had a passion for design and houses. My mom and I love HGTV — we really bonded over the design shows.

When I was in third grade, I collected a bunch of cardboard boxes and I built a house within my house. Even then, I loved anything related to building houses or design.

I first saw people flipping houses on TV. Then my dad, who was a pastor for most of my life, started working in commercial construction and started flipping houses.

My parents were in a real-estate “mastermind” class, and I went to a session and heard about a girl who flipped a house. I was like, “That is something that I think I could do also — and that I would love and be good at.”

With my dad’s help, I created an LLC called Phoebe Flips. Because I wasn’t 18, my dad and I owned it 50/50. With his credit, through Backflip, I was able to get a hard-money loan to pay for the house.

I had to find all the money for the 20% down payment and the renovation on my own. Through talking with family members and friends, I found a private investor to cover the down payment and the renovation costs.

I bought the house for $234,500, including the 20% down payment, and $80,000 went into the rehab.

I had hoped my budget for the renovation would be around $45,000. I didn’t know exactly how much every inch of the house needed to be touched. As the project progressed, no room was left untouched — the floors were refinished, walls were taken down and put up. We painted.

The house was in worse shape than I expected, but it ended up selling in 24 hours

I knew I was going to get a return because of the area that the house was in — Twin Oaks — but it really did need to be gutted.

I got the house from a wholesaler, which can sometimes be a little bit more tricky than buying it via a traditional real-estate agent.

The house hadn’t actually been on the market. The day I bought the house, its resident hadn’t gotten all of his things out. I showed up with the key, and he was actually there with his sister, still moving some of it.

There were still piles and piles and piles of junk, and it smelled. It was like, “Oh, gosh.” With the help of my sister and my mom, we filled up, like, 12 bags of trash just within the first two hours we were there.

We didn’t have enough time to get all the junk out ourselves, so I hired Junk Luggers to take it out of the house for $3,000. That was an extra expense that I wasn’t planning for.

The renovation was my favorite part, and it was also the most challenging part. I love being able to pick out the fixtures and the different flooring and pick colors — just how it all goes together.

In the kitchen, I originally wanted light blue tiles, but they’d sold out, so I ended up going with dark emerald green tiles.

It doesn’t just look like any old house; it doesn’t have your average subway tiles and gray walls and boring floors. It appealed to all sorts of buyers, but still had some unique flair.

It took 91 days from starting the renovation to closing the sale.

In the moment, that felt really long, but looking back, I’m like, “Wow, three months.”

Within 12 hours of listing, I received an offer over asking price, and in less than 24 hours, I had accepted it. I really did not experience any sort of agony with selling the house. We sold the house for $390,000, so the net profit was $39,500.

I didn’t think it would be that fast. I wasn’t expecting it to be on the market forever, but my expectation was not for it to be sold within a day. It was kind of shocking. I was really lucky.

I spent the money on a car, but I also donated and saved

With the money from the house, I bought a car. At the time, that was what I was working toward.

I also used the money to save for the school year so that I wouldn’t have to have a job while in school.

I tithed and gave to my local church and also gave to two small group leaders who had been mentors in my life.

Some of the money is still in my savings account, but it’s not enough to pay for college or anything. I’m going to college at Taylor University in the fall, and I’m going to play golf there. I’m going to study business and hope to minor in either entrepreneurship or Spanish.

I’m very grateful for the opportunity to flip a house. Looking back, 8-year-old me would have never thought she could do this.