How To Find Houses To Flip On Zillow (The 2026 Investor Blueprint)

Written by

Alex Martinez, Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills. Has wholesaled and flipped houses for over 14 years, been part of 1,000+ real estate transactions, and personally acquired 55+ residential investment properties. Has trained 6,000+ investors nationwide.

RZ

Reviewed by

Ryan Zomorodi, Co-Founder & COO, Real Estate Skills. Reviewed the Zillow search steps, deal math, and legal points in this guide.

✓ Updated October 2026 ✓ Fact-Checked 📄 Free Deal Calculator Inside Watch on YouTube

Publication history: Originally published February 20, 2026. Updated October 2026 with a corrected Zillow search method, a new section on pricing your offer, current rules for working with listing agents, a real student deal found on Zillow, and a new on-camera Zillow walkthrough. Reviewed by Ryan Zomorodi, Co-Founder & COO of Real Estate Skills.

If you've scrolled Zillow looking for a flip, you've probably decided the good ones are gone before you ever see them. That isn't how it works. The houses that make money are the ones regular buyers scroll right past: the dated ones, the ones a bank won't finance, the ones that have been listed for months while the price keeps dropping.

My first deal was an on-market listing. I called the agent, made an offer, and got it under contract. Our students still find deals that way. Brayden, one of our students in Tampa Bay, found a house in St. Petersburg on Zillow this year and negotiated it to $50,000 under the asking price. Not every listing turns into a deal, but the deals are there if you know how to search.

Below are the filters and keywords to use, how to spot a seller who's ready to negotiate, how to run your numbers before you offer, and what to say when you call the listing agent. Before you make an offer on anything you find, run the numbers in our free deal calculator.

Can You Really Find Houses To Flip On Zillow?

The idea that every good deal disappears before it's listed assumes investors and families want the same houses. They don't. A family buying a home usually wants something they can move into, and their lender usually wants a house in livable condition. A home with a failing roof, a gutted kitchen or a structural problem is a dead end for most of them. To me, it's the starting point.

So those houses sit. The seller keeps paying the mortgage, taxes and insurance. The agent lowers the price, then lowers it again. By the time a listing has been up for a few months with a couple of price cuts, the seller has learned that a regular buyer isn't coming. That's when a clean cash offer starts to sound good.

As Ryan likes to put it, you don't have to buy, but some sellers have to sell. That gap is where flips come from.

When this doesn't work: in very tight markets with few homes for sale, regular buyers and other investors will compete hard even for houses that need work, and prices get bid up past what a flip can support. If every distressed listing in your area sells in a week above the asking price, widen your search area or add other ways of finding deals. Our guide on how to find houses to flip covers the off-market options.

How To Find Houses To Flip On Zillow (Step By Step)

Treat Zillow as a search tool, not a photo album. Every step below does one of two things: it removes listings you'd never flip, or it surfaces a seller who's ready to talk. Zillow moves its menus around from time to time, so if a filter isn't exactly where I describe it, look under Filters or More.

Step 1: Set Your Area, Home Type, And Price Ceiling

The price that matters is what the house would sell for after it's fixed up. That's called the after repair value (ARV). You'll calculate it properly later in this guide. For now, a rough ceiling keeps you out of homes where the math can never work.

Zillow's filters also include year built and HOA. A maximum year built pushes older homes to the top, and older homes are more likely to need the roof, plumbing or electrical work that creates room to add value. Consider excluding homes with an HOA (homeowners association), because association rules and approvals can slow a renovation down.

Don't over-filter at the start. My co-founder Ryan Zomorodi runs his keyword search first, then narrows down to his exact buy box: property type, square footage, lot size and part of town. A buy box is just the short list of properties you're actually willing to buy. (watch this part)

Step 2: Search Zillow By Keyword

Ryan ran this live in Chicago in spring 2026. The city had 4,656 homes for sale. He typed "motivated" into Keywords, hit apply, and 76 listings were left, each one an agent advertising a seller who wants to make a deal. In the markets he works, "motivated" typically flags 1% to 2% of active listings. Yours will vary. (watch this part)

Search one word at a time. Each word pulls a different set of listings, and a word that returns nothing in your market doesn't mean there are no deals there. Try the next one.

Then read before you trust a match. When Ryan searched "cash" on a listing site, one result was a house described as a "strong cash flowing investment property." The keyword matched, but there was no distress. A keyword gets you to the right listings; it doesn't prove anything about them.

How To Find FREE Motivated Seller Leads on Zillow

Watch Ryan run the "motivated" keyword search on Zillow live, then walk through the listings it finds, including one with $79,000 in price cuts after 232 days on the market.

 

Step 3: Check Listing Type For Owner And Foreclosure Listings

For sale by owner, or FSBO, means there's no listing agent, so you talk to the seller directly. Bank-owned homes, also called REO (real estate owned), are properties a lender took back and put up for sale, usually through an agent. Zillow's own guidance warns that a pre-foreclosure is not necessarily for sale, because the owner can still catch up on payments and keep the house. I explain each category, and how to work it, in the pre-foreclosure section below.

Step 4: How To Find Houses That Have Been On The Market For A Long Time

A house that sits costs its owner money every month: mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities. The longer it sits, the more open the seller gets to an offer that would have insulted them on day one.

Here's what that looks like on a real listing. One of the "motivated" results in Ryan's Chicago search had been on Zillow for 232 days. The price history showed it listed at $624,000, cut to $600,000, then cut again to $545,000. That's $79,000 off, and the description said the owner wanted offers. That seller isn't holding out for top dollar anymore. (watch this part)

One catch: the counter can understate how long a house has really been for sale. According to Zillow's help center, a listing the same agent pulls and relists doesn't restart its count unless it was off the market for 31 or more days in a row. Wait out that window and the listing looks brand new. The price history still shows the earlier listing and its price, so read it every time.

If a listing expires without selling, the seller may be even more ready to deal. See our guide on how to find expired listings.

Step 5: Read The Listing Like An Investor

Signs worth noticing:

• Few or no interior photos: Often the condition, or an occupant, is something the agent would rather you see in person.
• "As-is": The seller won't make repairs, and you're expected to account for them in your price.
• "Seller occupied" or a tenant in place: Showings may be limited, and you'll need to plan around move-out timing.
• Dated kitchens, baths and systems in the photos: That's where renovation dollars go, and where the value gets added.

Ryan showed exactly why motivation and condition are separate questions. One "motivated" listing in Chicago was a four-bedroom, two-bath bungalow of about 1,500 square feet, sold as-is with the seller living there. It was clearly lived in and partly updated, with a newer kitchen, so it wasn't a flip candidate. The seller's motivation still gave a buyer bargaining power. Motivation tells you the price can move. The repairs and your numbers tell you whether it's a flip. (watch this part)

Step 6: Check The Listing's Facts Against Public Records

Look the property up on the county assessor's or property appraiser's website by address or by its APN, the assessor's parcel number, a unique ID every property has. If the listing and the county disagree, ask the listing agent why before you write an offer.

One of our students, Brayden, learned this on his first deal. The St. Petersburg house he found on Zillow was listed at 2,400 square feet, but that figure included an indoor pool room, and the real living space was well under it. He had to renegotiate in the middle of the deal, and his planned $20,000 fee was cut in half. (Results vary, and this isn't typical.) Check the numbers before you sign, not after.

Step 7: Save The Search And Turn On Alerts

This step matters more than it looks. Offers that get turned down come back. A seller turns you down today, the buyer they picked can't close, and three weeks later the agent calls you. I've seen it happen over and over. A saved listing is how you notice the moment it goes from pending back to for sale.

What Pre-Foreclosure, Auction And Bank-Owned Mean On Zillow

Zillow shows foreclosure information at three stages, and each one works completely differently for a buyer. Pre-foreclosure data comes from public records, and Zillow asks you to create a free account to see it.

What Does NOD Mean On An Active Listing?

That last case is called a short sale, because the lender agrees to accept less than it's owed. Short sales take longer and involve the lender's own review, so ask the listing agent early whether the seller owes more than the asking price. Either way, a listed pre-foreclosure is an ordinary on-market deal: you call the listing agent and make an offer, as described below.

How Investors Use Pre-Foreclosure Data

Skip tracing means using a data service to find an owner's phone number or email. (Here's our breakdown of skip tracing services.) Zillow's foreclosure information can be out of date, so check the filing with the county recorder or court before you spend time on the house.

Be careful how you approach these owners. Never promise to stop a foreclosure, and never make your letter look like an official notice. Some states, including California and New York, have laws regulating investors who buy homes from owners in foreclosure. For letters that work and what to leave out, see our guide to real estate mailers. For the full foreclosure process, see how to find distressed properties.

This is educational, not legal advice. Foreclosure rules and timelines vary by state, so talk to a local real estate attorney before you contact owners in foreclosure or bid at an auction.

How To Find ARV On Zillow (And Why Not To Trust The Zestimate)

ARV, the after repair value, is the number every other figure in your deal depends on. Get it wrong and your profit was never real.

How To Pull Sold Comps On Zillow

A "comp" (short for comparable) is a recently sold home similar to yours. Here's how to pick good ones:

• Sold, not listed: Asking prices are what sellers hope for. Sale prices are what buyers actually paid, and appraisers work from sales.
• Close in distance and time: About half a mile and the last 90 days is a good starting point. In rural areas with few sales, widen both, and consider paying for an appraisal before you commit.
• The same condition you'll create: Look at the photos. If your plan is a full renovation, compare to renovated homes, not to the dated house next door.
• Normal sales only: Leave out a home sold to a family member at a discount, or one sold in obviously rough shape. They drag your number down for reasons that don't apply to your house.
• Square footage you've checked: If you compare price per square foot, make sure the square footage is right. Brayden's deal earlier in this guide shows what happens when it isn't.

This is a quick version. For adjustments and how to weigh one comp against another, see our guide on how to pull real estate comps.

Why Some Sold Prices Are Missing On Zillow

The full list of non-disclosure states varies a little depending on the source, so if your sold searches keep coming back without prices, check your state's rules. The fix is the same everywhere: get comps from someone with MLS access, and don't rely on Zillow's estimates to fill the gap.

Why You Can't Use The Zestimate As Your ARV

Zillow Offers bought homes, renovated them and resold them, which is house flipping at enormous scale. In November 2021, Zillow announced it was winding the business down. In Zillow's own announcement, CEO Rich Barton said forecasting home prices had proven far less predictable than Zillow had expected, and the company took a write-down of roughly $304 million on homes it had bought for more than it now expected to sell them for.

If Zillow couldn't flip profitably using its own pricing models, you shouldn't set your ARV with them either. Use the Zestimate as a rough first look at a neighborhood, then pull your own sold comps.

For a closer look at how Zillow's estimate stacks up against Redfin's, see our breakdown of whether Zillow or Redfin is more accurate.

How Much Should You Offer On A Zillow Flip?

Here's what each piece means:

• After repair value (ARV): What the house will sell for once it's renovated, based on recent sales of comparable homes nearby.
• Repairs: The full renovation budget, ideally from contractor quotes, not guesses.
• Holding costs: What you pay every month while you own it: property taxes, insurance, utilities, and loan interest if you borrow.
• Buying and selling costs: Closing costs when you buy, plus agent commissions and closing costs when you sell.

The numbers below are an illustration, not financial advice. Costs vary by market, lender and property, so run your own numbers for every deal.

A Real Example: Working Backward From $315,000

My co-founder Ryan walked through this house on camera: four bedrooms, two baths, about 2,200 square feet, built in 1940, listed at $200,000 and needing a full renovation. Here's how he built the numbers.

At the asking price, the deal isn't worth doing. $30,000 below it, it clears Ryan's minimum. That's how you arrive at an offer: not by knocking a percentage off the list price, but by knowing the number where your profit appears.

There's one rule that matters more than any formula. Don't push your ARV up or your repair budget down to make a deal work on paper. If the numbers don't work, negotiate a lower price or walk away. A flip that only works on an optimistic spreadsheet loses money in real life.

What About The 70% Rule?

Ryan's line-by-line math put this deal's starting offer around $170,000. The 70% rule would have stopped at $130,500. That's a $39,500 gap on the same house.

Ryan thinks the 70% rule is outdated and makes you less competitive, because sellers and agents take your offers less seriously when they're well below what the deal can actually support. That's a fair point in competitive markets. The other side deserves its due, though: the extra margin the 70% rule builds in protects you when your repair estimate is wrong, and as a beginner, your repair estimate will be wrong at least once. A reasonable approach is to use the 70% rule as a quick screen when you're scrolling listings, then run the full numbers before you make an offer.

Plan Your Resale Around The FHA 90-Day Rule

Ryan's five-month timeline clears the 90-day window. His resale price ($315,000) is about 85% above a $170,000 purchase, under the 100% mark, so a second appraisal wouldn't be triggered. FHA's property flipping rule has exceptions, and lenders can add their own requirements, so confirm the current rules with a lender before you set your resale timeline.

Run These Numbers On Any Zillow Listing

Plug in a listing's ARV, repair budget, holding costs and selling costs, and our free deal calculator shows your profit at any purchase price and the most you can offer. Ryan walks through these same inputs in the $200,000 example above, and the calculator works whether you plan to flip the house or wholesale it.

Download the free deal calculator

How To Call The Listing Agent And Make An Offer

The listing agent is the person who talks to the seller. They know why the house is for sale, what the seller needs, and whether anyone else has made an offer. Zillow can show you the house; only the agent can get you the deal.

This section explains how the offer process generally works. It's educational, not legal advice. Contract forms and disclosure rules vary by state, so have a licensed real estate attorney review anything before you sign.

Find The Real Listing Agent On Zillow

In Ryan's Chicago walkthrough, the listing agent's name and phone number were right there on the listing. No skip tracing, no guessing at an owner's contact information, no mailing lists. You know exactly who to call, and you can call today. (watch this part)

What To Ask On The First Call

I call this a discovery call, and the most important part is listening. Stay with the agent's answers even when the conversation goes somewhere your script didn't plan for, because that's usually where the useful information is. If the seller needs time to move out, offer a flexible closing date. If the agent has been burned by an investor who disappeared, tell them how you'll stay in touch from contract to closing, then do it. Small promises kept build trust: if you say the offer will be in their inbox by 3 p.m., send it by 3 p.m.

Some agents won't accept an offer from someone who hasn't seen the property. Brayden, one of our students, runs into this, so when an agent asks, he walks through the house first and then submits.

Know What To Ask Before You Call

Our free discovery call script has the questions we use on MLS deals to qualify a distressed listing, uncover the seller's motivation and build rapport with the listing agent. It was written for wholesale deals, and the same questions work when you're buying to flip. Ryan mentions it in the Zillow walkthrough above.

Download the free discovery call script

How To Turn Your Offer Into A Signed Contract

Proof of funds is a document showing you can pay for the house: a bank statement, or a letter from the lender funding your purchase. Including it with your terms tells the agent you're a real buyer, not someone fishing for a price.

Use the purchase contract and disclosures approved for your state, and make sure the terms reflect what the seller told you matters. If you're not working with your own agent, nobody on the deal is looking out for your interests, so read every page and have an attorney review your first contracts.

What To Do When The Seller Says No

Don't close the door at the first sign of resistance. Ask the agent what it would take. Keep a simple record of every offer: the property, the agent, your price, the seller's response and your next follow-up date. After several offers, you'll see the patterns, like whether your repair estimates are too high or which agents keep listing the kind of houses you want.

Even when a deal doesn't work out, a real offer gets your name in front of the agent. Ryan's goal is to get on each agent's short list of cash buyers, so the agent calls him first about pocket listings, meaning homes the agent has been hired to sell but hasn't advertised yet. That's how a single Zillow listing turns into a source of future deals.

Should The Listing Agent Represent You Too?

The old advice was that a listing agent would push your lowball offer harder if they could keep the whole commission, sometimes called a "double dip." That changed with the August 2024 NAR settlement rules. Offers of buyer-agent compensation can no longer be posted on the MLS, and agents working with buyers must have a written agreement with them before touring a home. So don't assume a fixed commission split, and don't build your offer around one. If you want to explore having the listing agent represent you, ask how it works in your state and under that listing. For the details, see our guide to dual agency and double commission.

Flipping Houses On Zillow: FAQs

Final Thoughts: What To Do On Zillow This Week

Finding the house was never the hard part. The investors who close deals are the ones who make offers every week and follow up when the first answer is no. In Ryan's experience, about one in every 5 to 15 offers gets accepted. Results vary by market and by how well you price, but the math only works if the offers go out. And making an offer costs you nothing but your time.

The other discipline is walking away. If your numbers say $170,000 and the seller won't go below $200,000, let it go and make the next offer. Your profit on a flip is set the day you buy, not the day you sell. Know your maximum before you call, and stick to it. Our guide to the maximum allowable offer (MAO) formula walks through it.

About The Author

Alex Martinez

Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills

Alex Martinez is the Founder and CEO of Real Estate Skills. He has wholesaled and flipped houses for over 14 years, been part of more than 1,000 real estate transactions, and personally acquired 55+ residential investment properties. He has trained more than 6,000 investors nationwide.

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Real Estate Skills is not a law firm, and the information in this article is provided for educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, tax, or financial advice. Real estate laws, disclosure rules, and lending requirements vary by state and change over time. Real estate investing carries risk, and the deals described here are examples, not a promise of future results. Always consult a licensed real estate attorney, lender, and tax advisor before entering into any contract or transaction.