[title subtitle=”WORDS Liesel Schmidt
IMAGES courtesy Virgila Dale’s Photography”][/title]
When Aaron Harris first reached out to the woman who would one day become his wife, the couple couldn’t have had any idea of where life—and love—would take them.
At the time, Hope Ann was a college student at OSU, so the pair talked regularly on the phone and FaceTime for a couple of weeks before they met face-to-face, when Hope Ann was on fall break. After a first date at a wedding, they started dating that November; and by December, Hope Ann was moving back to Fort Smith to start nursing school at UAFS. By the following fall, they had moved in together and were engaged. On December 28, 2018, Aaron and Hope Ann were married.
From there, the story gets interesting. The couple are both registered nurses, both working in long-term care facilities, Aaron as nursing supervisor and Hope Ann as the director of nursing. Hope Ann also works as an RN aesthetics injector. Both are in administrator school to become administrators at their respective long-term care facilities, and both are also in nurse practitioner school, with a goal to specialize in family practice and medical aesthetics.
If all that doesn’t sound harrowing enough to make a normal person’s schedule filled to bursting, the Harrises have a side hustle that really gets their hands dirty: They flip houses.
From pretty much day one, the couple have enjoyed building things together—both out of necessity as well as the fact that they just like being creative. “When we were in nursing school, working full time and on a budget, there were things we couldn’t afford, so we built them,” explains Hope Ann. “We built benches for our dining room table, built a desk for our office/guest room, and built a backdrop cross for our wedding. Our first house together needed a new covered deck badly, so we built a ten-by-twenty covered front porch.”
Naturally, it takes more than just skills with power tools to become a house flipper. It takes drive, determination, time, and planning and organizational skills—all of which the Harrises have as a team. But house flipping, while an amazing way to build wealth when it’s done right, wasn’t always on their radar. “We always knew we weren’t meant to work the eight-to-five, W2 job forever. We’ve always wanted to be our own bosses because we’ve both watched people work their entire life away for someone else,” says Hope Ann. “Flipping honestly fell into our lap by accident. We purchased a home to invest in as a rental and got so far into renovating it that we realized it was no longer a good investment for a rental. So, we flipped it. Our goal is to retire young and live off our real estate investments. Originally, we didn’t have the liquid cash for down payments required, and we didn’t really want to ask for help getting started. So, we talked with a few bankers and came across a construction loan we utilize to remodel with nothing down, as long as we stay within eighty-five percent of appraised value for our loan. Flipping houses has helped us build up necessary cash for building our rental portfolio, and we will continue to remodel houses because we enjoy the final product. Nothing beats seeing the buyers’ faces light up at the transformation.”
Since the couple began investing in real estate April 2020, they’ve flipped and sold two commercial properties and are currently remodeling their third property in Sallisaw. They also remodeled their personal home in September 2020 and have one rental in Sallisaw that they completely remodeled. They’re now under contract on a set of duplexes with an open lot in Muldrow that they plan to remodel and keep as long-term rentals, with a few acres in Sallisaw that they plan to build duplexes on and keep long-term for rental properties.
There was, of course, a learning curve. “It doesn’t happen overnight,” Hope Ann says. “Knowledge comes with time and experience. Through each milestone, we’ve gained so much knowledge. Between hanging sheetrock, running new electric, repairing floor joists, and laying flooring, we have learned as we go, asked for help, and taken a lot of advice from people with experience!”
Still, with timelines that run from sixty to ninety days from start to finish, there is one thing that is always a challenge: time. “There’s never enough of it,” Hope Ann admits. “Our work ethic is relentless. We grind everyday between our jobs, schoolwork, gym time, and real estate investments. We get so focused on setting ourselves up for success in the future that we have to remind ourselves of the importance of taking a breather, living in the present, and spending time with friends and family. If you’re not living for now, then the future isn’t worth working for.”
Naturally, with all the homes they’ve worked on, there are some stories. “Hope Ann was tearing out paneling at one of the properties, and hundreds of dead roaches started falling out of the paneling!” recalls Aaron. “We were very grateful that they were dead at least, but stranger things happen every day.”
Adds Hope Ann, “The first house we flipped was our worst one. We didn’t have processes in place to check on electrical, plumbing, and HVAC. Of course, there is always an inspection done, but any house flipper knows you must dig deeper than a basic home inspection. We ended up replacing all the electrical and plumbing. We put our heads down and worked through it and made a positive learning experience from a bad situation.” At the end of the day, however, it’s all about the finished result. “Our favorite part is seeing everything come together and knowing that we did it together, with our hands,” says Hope Ann.
Interestingly enough, working together has actually strengthened them as a couple. “Things never go as planned, and we’ve learned that whenever we run until a wall, we will climb over it or find a way around it,” says Aaron. “It’s not the end of the world. As long as we stick together, we can get through it. We’ve learned how to overcome adversity together! Hope Ann and I both have a strong work ethic, and we are each other’s motivation. We have a ongoing joke that our marriage made it through hanging sheetrock. But if anything, it has brought us closer because we’ve had to rely on and support one another during our renovations because it’s just us two renovating.”
While they may not have much spare time, the Harrises do have some favorite ways of stealing time for themselves. “We enjoy entertaining, going to the gym, driving around in our ’68 Mustang ‘Eleanor,’ and going on vacation,” says Aaron. “Family is very important to us, so we love any time we get to spend time with our family.”
From the time they sign the papers to the day they pound their last nail, Aaron and Hope Ann put all of themselves into every project, making the region even more beautiful, one house at a time.
