Sold a live-in flip in phoenix last spring, $341k net after holding costs, and the number that got me was how little the renovation actually drove it

Honest post, and the numbers are clean enough to learn from. The roughly $40k lift on $61k in materials plus 22 months of weekend labor is the detail worth sitting with. It is an acceptable outcome, though it is hardly the thesis of the deal. Desert Ridge adjacent in that window was close to guaranteed appreciation regardless, which raises the question of how much of your read was location instinct versus renovation conviction, and whether you would have bought the same house if the neighborhood had been flat. The thing anyone studying this should want is the $61k breakdown, specifically how much went to the roof versus the kitchen versus the bath. If the roof was $25k of that and it was purely a cost of entry item that buyers expected and did not pay up for, then the cosmetic work did most of the value work on a much smaller number.

The $40k lift on a $61k spend is actually a rough return when you frame it that way, 65 cents of value for every dollar in while the market handed you $110k for free. 22 months is long though, my carry clock would've been screaming at month ten. I target six to eight months on anything in the 200 to 300 band or the math starts bleeding.

The desert ridge pull is real and that 2022-2024 window was basically free money for anyone who just held undisturbed in that northeast phoenix corridor. I've been staring at a house I inherited in a similar situation trying to decide if I should renovate before I sell or just let the zip code do what it's going to do. Your breakdown is making me lean harder toward the lazy option.

The carry cost number reads low, gilbert comps I tracked ran $1,100 to $1,400 a month all-in through 2023.