Echo Park flippers land in escrow

In early May, house flippers Aubin Crowell and Liza Temple were standing firm on the $789,000 price tag of their Echo Park bungalow despite the lack of a single offer after a few weeks on the market. "We are going to definitely wait a few more weeks before doing anything," Temple said of the Echo Park Avenue house flip being followed by The Eastsider. At the end of May, Crowell and Temple blinked. They reduced the asking price on 1878 Echo Park Avenue to $775,000 and, soon after, a serious buyer emerged. "We generated a lot of new interest with the price cut and received an offer shortly after, " Temple said. "We are now in escrow."

If this escrow concludes in a final sale, what kind of profit will Crowell and Temple walk away from a project that began in April of last year? As they said earlier, it's hard to make a living by house-flipping alone these days. They paid about $535,000 for the Echo Park Avenue house. If their offer came in at the $775,000 asking price, they made a profit of about $240,000. But that profit will be sharply reduced once you take into account the money they poured into the extensive renovation, more than a year of mortgage payments and other costs.

Is what's left over worth the time and effort Crowell and Temple put into the project? We will see once the deal closes.