Real Estate Pros · August 27, 2025 · 23 min listen

High-End House Flips & Coaching with Dyan Nielsen

Show summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pro Show, host Erika interviews Dyan Nielsen, a seasoned real estate investor with over three decades of experience. Dyan shares her journey into real estate, her current focus on high-end flips in Scottsdale, Arizona, and her unique coaching program that helps aspiring investors overcome common hurdles. The conversation delves into the importance of mentorship, the challenges of balancing coaching with personal projects, and the intricacies of luxury renovations. Dyan also discusses her future plans, including an upcoming event aimed at helping individuals build wealth through real estate investing.

Key takeaways

Dyan's 'partner-free partnership' coaching model has her act as a silent partner on a student's first deal, guiding every decision without taking any profit, specifically to overcome the fear that stops new investors from ever buying their first property.
She and her business partner target about 10 high-end flips per year in a niche corridor of Scottsdale, Arizona, deliberately keeping volume low in favor of full ground-up renovations.
Most of her flips are 1960s homes untouched since the 1970s; she goes down to the studs, re-skim coats walls that aren't even being moved, and swaps all outlets for modern fixtures so the home feels like new construction.
In the Scottsdale market, backyard investment is critical because buyers expect to feel like they're on vacation outside; a student who simply poured rock over a yard instead of developing it hurt the home's resale value.
Her advice on renovation budget: only spend money where it will make the home sell faster or for more money; otherwise don't do it.
Niching down to one specific area builds relationships with hard money lenders who become more willing to lend because the investor has demonstrated focus and expertise there.
She got her real estate license 25 years ago on a mentor's advice so she could control all aspects of her transactions, though she notes a license is not required to be a successful real estate investor.
Dyan and her business partner (company name D2 Legacy) are hosting an event called Wealthy 360 on November 6-7, combining a full wealth plan with real estate investing income strategies.

In this episode

About the guest

Dyan Nielsen is a real estate investor with over three decades of experience who got her start at age 24 rehabbing a gutted property while pregnant with her first child. She now does high-end flips in Scottsdale, Arizona with a business partner, aiming for about 10 projects a year, and runs a coaching program called Flip to Freedom. She previously worked as a mortgage originator and real estate broker and owned a real estate mortgage company.

Listen to the audio

“my program actually is called a partner-free partnership. So what I do is I will partner with you on your first deal as if I was a partner. I act as if I was a partner, but I don't take any of profits.”
Dyan Nielsen

“The right time is now. It's always the right time to buy real estate. The key is what do you pay for it?”
Dyan Nielsen

“It has to feel like new construction when you walk in, even though it's a 60s house.”
Dyan Nielsen

high-end flipsScottsdale, Arizonareal estate coachingmentorshipluxury renovationfix and flipwealth buildingniche investing

Questions answered in this episode

What is Dyan Nielsen's 'partner-free partnership' coaching model?

Dyan partners with a student on their first deal as if she were a real partner, guiding every decision, but she takes none of the profits. She says this removes the fear that stops people from taking action after they've only watched training videos, and it gives them a safety net so they actually complete and profit from their first deal.

What markets does Dyan Nielsen invest in and how many flips does she do per year?

Dyan and her business partner focus on high-end flips in a specific corridor of Scottsdale, Arizona, mostly 1960s homes. Because they do full ground-up renovations rather than volume deals, their goal is about 10 properties a year.

What do people new to flipping commonly get wrong, according to Dyan?

They struggle with knowing when to buy (she says it's always the right time, the key is what you pay), and they misallocate renovation budgets, spending on things that don't help the home sell faster or for more money. She gives the example of a student who poured rock over an entire backyard instead of investing in a usable outdoor space, which hurt the home's value in the Scottsdale market.

What does a luxury renovation need in the Scottsdale market specifically?

Dyan says in Arizona, the backyard needs to feel like a vacation spot since buyers spend time outdoors there, unlike in her native Minnesota where backyards mattered less due to snow. She also emphasizes touching every surface, including re-skim coating walls that aren't being moved, swapping all outlets to modern styles, and making the home feel like new construction even though it's from the 1960s.

Why did Dyan get her real estate license, and is it necessary to invest?

A real estate broker mentor told her 25 years ago that if she was going to keep flipping, she needed her license to manage all aspects of the transactions, which was pivotal for her growth and eventually led her to own a real estate mortgage company. She clarifies that a license is not required to be a real estate investor, but it fit her particular path.

Full transcript

Dyan Nielsen (00:00)

one thing that I have learned and the one really big missing link because I had a lot of students that come to me that have went and paid a lot of money for other real estate coaching programs, but they never did a deal. They spent all this money watching videos and going to trainings and being taught how to be a real estate investor. But then they never, they never bought a deal.

and they come to me because

my program actually is called a partner-free partnership. So what I do is I will partner with you on your first deal as if I was a partner. I act as if I was a partner, but I don’t take any of profits. So I’m kind of like a silent partner holding your hand through the whole process to make sure you’re successful, but I don’t take any of the profits.

So that’s where my program is different.

Erika (02:27)

Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pro Show. I’m your host, Erika and today I’m excited to be joined by Dyan Nielsen. She’s been crushing it in the investing space for over a decade. Dyan, it’s awesome to have you on the show.

Dyan Nielsen (02:43)

Thank you. I’m excited to be here and it’s actually over three decades.

Erika (02:48)

goodness. Well, our listeners are going to love all the experience that you have to offer. And I know I’m really pumped up about it. So let’s jump on in Dyan for our audience who doesn’t know you yet. Give us the rundown. How did you get started in investing?

Dyan Nielsen (03:08)

Absolutely, you know, I am kind of I stumbled into it when I was just 24 years old and ⁓ bought a property that needed complete rehab. mean, it needed to be gutted down to the studs. There was nothing left but a frame and I knew nothing. I knew nothing. We knew nothing. I was pregnant with our first child and my now ex-husband and I bought this property.

And we just, had no fear. You know, when you’re young, you have no fear. You just dive in and you do. And we completely rehabbed that property and sold it within six months. And I was hooked. That was it. I knew that I wanted to be in the real estate space. And from that moment forward, I actually was also became a mortgage originator, a real estate broker and kept fixing and flipping. And that really just

became a way of life.

Erika (04:08)

Yeah, that’s really cool. Well, yeah, you said three decades. that all checks out. Dyan, what is your main focus these days and which markets are you operating in?

Dyan Nielsen (04:20)

Sure. I mainly, mainly in the Scottsdale, Arizona. That’s where we do our personal fix and flips. I have a business partner and we predominantly have an area that we work ourself and we do, our goal this year is to do 10. And again, we don’t do a lot of properties per year because we do high end flips.

that we reimagine from the ground up. And so our goal is about 10 a year. And then the rest of my time is really spent working with my students. I have a program, Flip to Freedom, where I help people to find their freedom through real estate investing and teach them how to flip to freedom.

Erika (05:14)

It’s awesome, Dyan. And with your program, do you have any exciting stories to share for how it’s changed people and what they’ve learned from it?

Dyan Nielsen (06:12)

Absolutely. have, you know, I started working, you know, coaching and working with students about 10 years ago. So over that time, I’ve had literally ⁓ many students who have quit their jobs and are that’s that then just become real estate investors. I’ve worked with a lot of single moms because I was a single mom and I’ve worked with a lot of single moms and helping them to, you know, get

get to a point where they can take care of their families through real estate investing. And currently, I have several students that are kind of in the process now of getting their projects done and getting them sold as well.

Erika (07:01)

That’s exciting. And when it comes to the coaching, Dyan, what would you say is like the biggest hurdle people have where like the coaching really helps them level up?

Dyan Nielsen (07:13)

Absolutely. You know,

and they come to me because

most programs, they just teach you the concepts, right?

here’s what you do, here’s what you look out for. But then when it comes time to take action and buy that first property, people get froze. Like, is this the right one? I don’t know. Am I analyzing this correctly? I really know what I’m doing? And if you don’t have that person to hold your hand through that first project to make sure it’s successful, you don’t take action. So that’s where my program is different.

I get people into action and I get them into action because I get them, I get

I take away the fear of taking action because they get the partner free partnership so they know that they have a safety net to make sure that they’re not going to make any mistakes.

Erika (08:49)

That’s really cool. I haven’t heard of something like that before, Dyan. Would you say that it’s, you know, the way you work with them, that it’s a more gradual process for them to become more independent with their deals? Or is that like that first deal is, you know, that the springboard for the rest of their deals independently?

Dyan Nielsen (09:10)

Absolutely, absolutely. Once you walk somebody through one complete deal and you’re basically there, just like I said, is their safety net to make sure that they’re making the right choices. That gives them the confidence that they can do this on their own. And there are other programs out there where you can partner with the trainer or the coach and they will make the decisions with you or for you.

then you split the profits in that deal with them, right? So in a lot of cases, you pay $30,000 for a program and then they will split the deal with you. So they’ll coach you. But then when you sell that property, you have to give them half the profit, right? And I looked at this and said, that’s not what I want to do. I want to legitimately help people without taking their profits.

Because the only way that somebody’s going to have the confidence to do it again is if they’re doing it, they get to see the rewards of the money at the end of that deal to be able to say, OK, I can do this. I can do this. But they need the safety net. Just watching videos on how to analyze a property, how to buy a property, where to find a property isn’t enough to give somebody the confidence to go out and actually put their name on a purchase agreement and buy one.

Erika (11:11)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And Dyan, with your coaching, do you find that there’s a lot of similar misconceptions or struggles that people have when they’re new to the game?

Dyan Nielsen (11:23)

Absolutely, absolutely. Some of those would be kind of what we talked about a little while ago, which is ⁓ when’s the right time to buy? Right? They go, they get a program, they read up on how to be a real estate investor, and then they start hearing from everybody around them, now is not the time, don’t buy real estate now. They don’t know when is the right time. And as we talked about, the right time is now.

always the right time to buy real estate. The key is what do you pay for it? And knowing in each market, whether the market’s up, down, sideways, what do you pay for that real estate? So knowing when to buy, knowing what to buy. And then I think where I see a lot of people I work with really struggle is where to put the money in the deal. Where do you put the money? Where are you gonna get them?

the money in return and I see too many people that don’t have the mentorship put the money in the wrong places in the deal. Put money where they shouldn’t. If it doesn’t make it sell faster or sell for more money, don’t do it. That’s the baseline of it. But then knowing, I put the money, I got $10,000 to spend, do I put it in the backyard or do I build a fence?

What do I do with that? What’s gonna give me the biggest return? And I think that’s one of the big things that people really, really struggle with.

Erika (12:56)

Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Dyan, with running your coaching and helping people with their first deal and doing your own flips, how do you balance it all? You got any tips for people?

Dyan Nielsen (13:08)

Well, for me, I look at it and I tell my kids to it. This is a lifestyle. It’s not a job. I love what I do. And it really is. It really is kind of a lifestyle. I’ve never looked at this as as a job or something I have to do. I wake up every morning excited to, you know, reimagine a new property and to, you know, help the help the students that I work with. So.

It’s a lot, but it’s so worth it. It’s so worth it.

Erika (13:44)

Yeah, let’s talk some more about the different flips that you’ve done. It’s so cool how you re-imagine properties from the ground up. Can you talk more about what your process is like with that?

Dyan Nielsen (14:02)

Like I said, I have kind of a little corridor area that I work in. And one thing I will tell people is find your niche area, find your niche area and work that area. Keep working that area and just stay focused on that area. Cause that is so, so important.

It helps you. You’re going to get people wanting the hard money lenders are going to lend more to you if they know that you’re niching down and you’re working in a specific area. So that’s really, really important. And we go in and we look at properties that are completely, completely outdated or just in disarray. We don’t do just the, it needs some paint and flooring and we put it back on the market. We go in.

And we literally touch everything.

Most of the homes that we do are 1960s because we’re in, we’re in scot area of Scottsdale where these homes are mainly the 1960s and most of them haven’t been touched since the 1970s. So you can imagine the colors throughout the entire house. Right. And it can be anywhere from just taking it.

completely usually, I we’re in, in a lot of cases, we’re down to the studs in a lot of these homes, just getting some of the old stuff out and getting the new stuff out or new stuff in. Plus part of it is if you really want to work in the high end market in old homes like this, you have to go in and you have to be able to look at that home and go, what do I need to add or change to give this home a while so that I can get.

what is top of the market in this area. And usually that is adding bathrooms, adding bedrooms. ⁓ Different parts of the country are different too. Here in Arizona, one of the most important things is a backyard where when you walk out in that backyard, you feel like you’re on vacation. That is huge here. Now I’m originally from Minnesota. That didn’t matter there.

So, because most of the time it’s under snow. backyards weren’t so important. But here you have to put a significant amount of money into the backyard to make sure it feels like they’re on vacation. everything, literally everything gets touched. Even the walls that you’re not moving get touched. Everything gets, you know, re-skim coated with the sheetrock so that the paint is smooth as glass.

It has to feel like new construction when you walk in, even though it’s a 60s house.

Erika (17:29)

Yeah, yeah, that’s really interesting. Do you feel like there’s certain things that people might miss when they’re doing a luxury build? like you talked about how in your market that you need to do that the outdoor work is really important, the yard. But in general, do you feel like there’s like certain key components to doing a luxury renovation?

Dyan Nielsen (17:51)

There’s, yes, I am noticing with just some of the people that I’m working with when, so for example, my students, I go in, right, and I’ll look at one of their projects and find the things that they’ve missed that they need to correct before it goes on the market. And it’s little things. A lot of times it’s little things, but what people don’t realize is those little things can really hinder what you get for the home.

For example, you go in and if you don’t swap out all the outlets to new, fresh, clean, modern style outlets, just little things like that can make a huge difference. I had one person I was working with and they had a beautiful, huge backyard and they just poured rock over the whole yard and just left it rock.

that you can’t do that. You cannot do that here in this market. Again, that’s market specific. There are certain areas that have certain things. ⁓ You really do have to touch everything. You have to walk in and it has to look and feel and smell like a new construction home if you really want to get to top of the market.

Erika (19:09)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And Dyan, with all the flips that you’ve done over the years, was there ever a project that got a little hairy? Maybe you had to completely pivot what you were doing.

Dyan Nielsen (19:23)

⁓ there’s always projects where you pivot in some way, right? For example, I have one I’m working on right now that we were going to do an addition. And then the timeline, we looked at the timeline and went, you know what? It’s, it’s just timeline wise, not going to make sense to do the addition. So I had to pivot and I had to figure out a different location in the house. Excuse me.

a different location in the house to put the laundry room. Just little things like that. Like, okay, since we’re not doing the addition, now this isn’t going to fit here. Where, where can I make it work where it’s not going to take away from the value of this home? So you get, you get a lot of little things like that, where you think you’re going to go one direction and then you get in, you go for whatever reason, we’re not going to go this direction anymore. And how do we quickly pivot, get it done so we can get to market.

Erika (20:18)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Dyan, as I’m sure you know, relationships are so important in this industry for you personally. Was there anything along your journey, maybe a networking group, a mentor, some relationship that made all the difference for you?

Dyan Nielsen (20:37)

I think we all have people we meet throughout ⁓ our lives. I think one of the things for me that was pivotal really wasn’t so much on the investing side because again, I started doing this before there was people teaching you how to do it. ⁓ So I learned as I grew, but I did have somebody that ⁓ was a real estate broker.

who basically came to me and said, if you’re gonna keep doing what you’re doing, you have to have your real estate license. And this was 25 years ago. You have to have your real estate license and you’re gonna go get it. And sent me to go get my real estate license so that I could ⁓ manage all aspects of the transactions. So that was really kind of pivotal for me. Just having that control and just…

getting that push, right? Cause I’m like, Oh, I don’t need to do that. And he’s like, no, you need to do that if you want to grow this and you want to learn. And that, that definitely made a huge difference for me. Now, do you need to have a real estate license to be a real estate investor? Absolutely not. My path was different. I was going in a different direction when it comes to real estate investing, because I wanted to, to, to grow it to a different level. And I actually grew it to a,

a really different level and I owned a real estate mortgage company for a long time as well.

Erika (22:10)

Yeah. Dyan, what would you say is next on the future? You got your coaching program, which is so awesome. You’re doing your flips. What’s next?

Dyan Nielsen (22:22)

So we, my business partner and I, our company is D2 Legacy. It’s Dawn and Dyan, D2 Legacy. And that is our real estate investing company. And she also has a wealth management company. She’s financial planner. And her and I are, doing an event in November, November 6th and 7th. That’s called the Wealthy 360. And that’s really kind of what’s next and what we’re planning for. And we’re really excited to,

to that event. People are going to come in and they’re not only going to get an entire wealth plan done for them, but they are going to learn from me on how to gain income through real estate investing.

Erika (23:10)

That’s really awesome. Dyan, it was so awesome having you on the show today. If someone wants to connect with you, learn more about what you’re doing, or they need coaching help, how should they reach out to you?

Dyan Nielsen (23:23)

Absolutely. ⁓ can call me, my phone number. ⁓ Well, I’m trying to think, would that be the easiest way? Actually, probably the email is the easiest way. So let’s do that. The email, can call me at Dyan. It’s dyan at dyanneilsen.com. D-Y-A-N-N-I-E-L-S-E-N.com. So dianne dyanneilsen.com.

Erika (23:51)

Great. Dyan, thank you so much for dropping all this knowledge today and helping others with their own success.

Dyan Nielsen (23:58)

Thank you for having me.

Erika (24:01)

And for everyone listening, if you got value from this episode, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pro Show. We’ve got more episodes lined up with operators like Dyan who are out there building incredible real estate businesses. We’ll see you on the next episode.