Slapstick moments in a home flipper’s real-life adventures

WITH all of its personal anecdotes, “Flipping Confidential” reads more like “Flipping True Confessions.” Its author, Kirsten Kemp, knows how to hold an audience. She hosts “Property Ladder” on the Learning Channel.

Some readers will appreciate the personal examples, and others may wish the author would just cut to the chase. The latter can jump ahead to Chapter 11. However, skipping that far ahead would be a shame, because this how-to real estate book -- unlike most -- is well-written and sometimes downright funny. Such as Kemp’s description of her husband’s impulsive test drive of a newly installed Jacuzzi on open house day, which sent water pouring through the kitchen’s recessed lights downstairs.

Besides having a sense of humor and the willingness to take a risk, Kemp follows some ground rules for doing business.

First of all, find an undervalued property, subject it to a thorough inspection, buy it and be ready to start work immediately.

She emphasizes the importance of integrity in business and working relationships, meticulous bookkeeping and close stewardship of the property being renovated. That may mean being on the renovation site until the wee hours of the morning.

Keys to success are building a trustworthy staff, maintaining an efficient work timeline, reining in high-design impulses and not succumbing to avarice or vanity.

Sounds simple, but Kemp has talents the reader may lack. According to the book jacket, she is a real estate agent and owns a design company. And fortunately for Kemp, she is in the Santa Barbara market, where she has found it is hard to go wrong in renovating real estate. Sure, there are regulations on growth and an activist California Coastal Commission, but there’s a wall of mountains to the east and an ocean to the west. Sprawl is not so much of an option.

That said, most readers may not enjoy quite the same success as Kemp, but they can certainly expect to encounter some of the same disasters she willingly discusses in this book. For example, cabinets that don’t arrive on time, a countertop that is 4 inches too deep or an effort to hang curtains at the last minute with bubblegum because the hardware is missing.

Her no-nonsense advice includes keeping a prioritized chart for the crew of what’s been accomplished and what’s still needed, tips on staging the finished home and, most interesting, the psychology of pricing the home for sale.

Her knowledge of the relationships between realty agents and buyers is particularly enlightening. Agents and buyers usually pounce on a home the first week it is listed. If a home is overpriced to begin with, that momentum may be lost. Reducing the price later, Kemp says, creates doubts in the minds of buyers and agents. They may think that either the house is flawed or -- sensing a dearth of interest -- hold out for a greater price reduction. First impressions are extremely important, Kemp writes.

The book’s greatest appeal is to the inexperienced layman debating the merits of (or dreaming of) dipping into the real estate fixer-upper market. As such, this is an entertaining read.

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maggie.barnett@latimes.com