Updated September 2026 with FLYP's current project figures.
The short version
If a pre-sale renovation program cannot answer all ten of these questions in writing, in plain language, before your seller signs anything, do not put your name next to it. Every one of these questions has a documentable answer. A program that gets slippery on interest, on what gets recorded against title, or on who is actually holding the contractor license is telling you something useful.
This is written for Washington listing agents who are getting pitched by concierge programs, "renovate now, pay at closing" lenders and renovation marketplaces during listing appointment season. FLYP is one of the companies in that category, so treat this as an interested party handing you the questions we think you should ask us. Our answers are below each question, including the parts that do not flatter us.
Nothing here is legal advice. Run anything about your own duties or your file documentation past your designated broker or an attorney.
1. Who is the licensed contractor of record?
Ask for the business name and the Washington contractor registration number of the entity that will pull permits and sign the construction contract. Not the brand name on the pitch deck. The legal entity.
Then verify it yourself. L&I's Verify tool lets you confirm an active contractor registration and an active, paid-to-date workers' compensation account covering any employees, and see safety or construction citations and lawsuits against their bond. Washington also requires contractors to get a surety bond or an assignment of savings and purchase a general liability insurance policy as part of registration.
FLYP's answer: FLYP CO. plans, funds and manages the project. The construction work is performed by Green State Restoration, LLC, a licensed and insured Washington general contractor, and Green State is the contractor of record. Two entities, and you should look up the one holding the license.
Be skeptical of any program that will not name the builder, or that says the contractor is "assigned later from our vetted network." If the contractor is unknown at signing, your client cannot vet them and neither can you.
2. Who carries the warranty, for how long, and is it written?
A marketplace that merely introduces your seller to a contractor may carry no warranty obligation at all. Ask who your client calls in month eight when a tile floor moves, and ask to see that in the contract rather than on a web page.
FLYP's answer: a one-year written workmanship warranty on the work performed.
3. Is the price fixed, and what triggers a change order?
"Estimate" and "fixed contract price" are different animals, and the difference lands on your client at closing. Ask whether the number in the proposal is the number that gets repaid, and ask what happens when a wall opens up and there is knob and tube behind it.
FLYP's answer: the price on the signed estimate is fixed. Every scope change is a signed change order before that work is done. Change orders your client signs do increase the payoff amount, so scope discipline during the project is real money.
4. Is there interest, when does it start, and at what rate?
This is the question most often answered with a cheerful non-answer. "No payments until closing" is not a statement about interest at all. Get the start trigger, the rate, and whether the rate is monthly or annual, in writing.
FLYP's answer: no interest during the renovation and none for six months after the work is finished. If the home has not closed by then, the balance accrues 1.5% per month. Paying the balance off early stops the interest. That is a real cost on a listing that sits, and it should be part of your pricing conversation, not a surprise in month seven.
5. When is the balance due regardless of whether the home sells?
Every one of these programs has an outside date. Find it. A program with no stated maturity has one anyway, buried somewhere.
FLYP's answer: ten months after the work is finished, the balance is due directly, whether or not the home has sold. A failed sale does not cancel the balance, and no program in this category should tell your client otherwise.
6. What is recorded against the property, when is it signed, and when is it released?
Your client is granting a security interest in their home. Ask what instrument gets recorded, who notarizes it, where it sits in priority relative to the existing mortgage, and how quickly it gets released after payoff so it does not gum up escrow.
FLYP's answer: the balance is secured by a deed of trust recorded against the property. Your client signs it in front of an independent notary before work starts, and it is released within ten business days of payoff. The county recording fee is part of what gets repaid at closing.
If a program cannot tell you what gets recorded, assume something does and keep asking.
7. How is Washington sales tax handled in the quote?
This one separates the local operators from the out-of-state pitch. In Washington, construction labor is taxable. DOR's construction guidance is explicit that for custom construction, prime contractors must collect retail sales tax from the landowner on the gross contract price, without deduction of costs incurred, and billing invoices must separately state the sales tax. The taxable amount is broad, covering labor, materials, profit, permits, fees and subcontractor charges, and retail construction services are sourced to the location where the construction takes place, so the rate follows the job site.
Practical translation: a proposal that shows a construction number with no sales tax line is understating what your client repays. Ask whether tax is included or added.
FLYP's answer: Washington sales tax is added on top of the fixed contract price and is part of the payoff at closing, along with any signed change orders and the recording fee. We would rather you see the tax on the page than discover it on the settlement statement.
8. What happens if the home sells for less than projected?
Ask it bluntly and listen for hedging. The honest answer, for every program in this category, is that the homeowner absorbs the difference.
FLYP's answer: your client can lose money or equity. The market can move between the listing appointment and the closing date, a renovated home can sell for less than projected, and interest can accrue if it takes a while. Across the 12 homes that had a projected after-renovation value in our underwriting files as of September 2026, out of 16 homes underwritten in total, the projected lift over as-is value had a median of 27% and a range of 1% to 89%, and the projected dollars added had a median of $190,000 and a range of $10,000 to $500,000. Those are projections made during underwriting, not sale results, several of our files projected almost no lift at all, and no FLYP home has sold yet.
We also require a minimum 1.30x coverage ratio before we will take a project. That means projected net proceeds, the projected after-renovation value less selling costs and less the balance of every senior lien, divided by the maximum amount that could ever become payable to FLYP. It is an underwriting safety margin for the seller and for us, not a return and not a promise about the sale.
For what a given scope tends to recoup, send your seller to third party data rather than to any program's marketing. Zonda's Cost vs. Value report is a reasonable starting point, though its resale figures are determined in part through surveys of real estate professionals rather than from recorded sales, and results vary by house, by neighborhood and by finish level.
9. Does any money flow between the program and me or my brokerage?
Under Washington's brokerage relationships statute, brokers have written disclosure obligations, including any terms of compensation offered by a party or a real estate firm to a real estate firm representing another party. Referral arrangements with vendors raise their own questions with your designated broker, and they change how your recommendation looks if the file is ever reviewed.
FLYP's answer: no money passes between FLYP and real estate agents. No referral fees, no commission split, no marketing stipend, in either direction. FLYP is not a brokerage, not a lender, not an iBuyer and not a flipper. We take no share of the sale. Our margin is a normal general contractor margin built into the fixed price, and there is no separate program fee.
10. Where is the plain-language summary of what my client is signing?
Ask for one document that states the payoff components, the interest trigger, the maturity date and the security instrument in language a seller can read without you. FLYP's is at how the process works.
How to document the recommendation in your file
Note that unless otherwise agreed, the statute says a broker has no duty to conduct an independent inspection of the property, conduct an independent investigation of either party's financial condition, or independently verify the accuracy or completeness of any statement made by either party. That is not a license to hand a seller a brochure and look away. The cleanest posture is to be a conduit, not a guarantor.
- Present more than one path. A pay-at-closing renovation, a paid remodel, and selling as-is are three different answers, and the right one depends on the client.
- Give the seller the program's own written terms and keep a copy in the file, dated.
- Write down that you advised the seller to have a CPA or an attorney review anything recorded against title before signing.
- Keep your own estimate of as-is value and post-renovation value separate from the program's projection, and tell the seller which is which.
- Put the interest start date and the maturity date on your listing timeline, not just in the contract.
When a pay-at-closing renovation is the wrong recommendation
Say so early. It is the wrong call when the seller has cash or cheap access to equity and would rather pay for the work outright, when the house needs structural or systems work that will not show up in price, when the seller needs to be out in three weeks, when the equity cushion is thin enough that a soft market erases it, or when the seller simply will not tolerate a deed of trust against the home. In those cases, a conventional remodel the owner funds, or an as-is sale, is the better client outcome even though it is worse for us.
The bottom line
Ten questions, all of them answerable in writing: contractor of record, warranty, fixed price and change orders, interest trigger and rate, the outside due date, what gets recorded, sales tax, what happens on a low sale, whether money flows to you, and where the plain-language summary lives. Any program that gets vague on interest, on the recorded instrument or on who holds the license has told you enough. Present more than one path, keep the written terms in your file, and tell the seller to run anything recorded against title past a CPA or an attorney.
If your seller is weighing this against other funding, our comparisons against HELOCs and cash buyers lay out the tradeoffs, and the FAQ covers the mechanics. If you have a listing appointment where the house needs work the seller cannot fund, start here and we will tell you honestly whether it pencils.
