I've long ago lost count of how many times I've walked into a prospective seller's house and been smacked in the face with an overwhelming thought: "How can people live like this?"

You know the ones I'm talking about. Cracked window panes that haven't been replaced in a decade. Walls yellowed with years of cigarette smoke. The unmistakable reek of dog poop or cat urine hitting you the moment the door opens. Furniture covered in cat fur and pet dander. Dirty dishes piled high. Clutter strewn about like a tornado touched down inside. Every surface coated with dust thick enough to leave fingerprints.

These houses represent future profit.

Here's what new investors struggle to understand: retail buyers want pretty houses with zero DIY projects waiting. But investors? We want the ugly houses. We crave the deferred maintenance. We need something that needs work. When you lump all that ugliness into a category called "deferred maintenance," you can rename it "opportunity." The gap between what a property is worth now and what it will be worth after renovation is where profit lives. That gap is widest when the property is at its ugliest.

The ugliness is your competitive advantage. It keeps retail buyers and their pre-approved mortgages away. Without those problems, you'd be in a bidding war that erases any potential profit. That overwhelming smell when you walk in? That's the smell of other investors walking away and leaving the deal for you. Those stained carpets and damaged walls? That's your profit margin made visible.

Learn to love the ugly. Your bank account will thank you.

Resist posting before-and-after pictures on social media before you sell the house. Your end buyers really don't want to think about how gross it actually was.

Save those dramatic transformations for your investor audience. Let your retail buyers fall in love with the finished product without the mental image of what came before.