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Can you flip a house faster than cooking a turkey?

One of the things I often think about during thanksgiving is how long it takes to cook a turkey. Not just the time in the oven (usually 6 hours for a 20 pound bird), but also the time it takes to buy it, brine it, prepare it for cooking, cooking it, and finally carving it up. Think about what the average turkey costs. I'd pin the price down to between $20 and $50 for a 20 pounder. Price will often depend on quality, for the sake of argument, lets say $20 for a 20 pound bird, that will yield enough for about 20 people (a pound per person). So essentially we are cooking for $1 per person. Thats a pretty good economic deal considering how much beef and other meats cost. Now if we were flipping that turkey, I'm sure we could get at least $2 per person for the meal. But wait, what about all the prep time and cook time? Let's back up... what if we factor in the following:

Total Turkey Time

  • Buying the turkey 1 hour
  • Brining the turkey 1 hour
  • Prepping for Cook 1 hour
  • Cooking the turkey 6 hours
  • Carving and serving the turkey 1 hour
Total turkey time: 10 hours

So now our $1 meal includes 10 hours of labor. Let's go back to our estimate of 20 people served for $1 each. Now tack on a half hour of labor for each of those people. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't usually work for minimum wage, and most cooks wouldn't either. So let's say we factor in $50/hr for the cook time. Now our turkey plate special is floating around $26 per person. That seems in line with what we'd pay at a top notch restaurant. So we're not doing too bad. For the flip though, thats just breaking even. If we want to make enough to call this a flip, we are going to have to add a little bit of profit. Let's say $30/plate is our target. Well now we are talking, thats a $4 per person profit for our flip, plus our time covered. So now out initial investment of $20 is going to pay us back, pay us for our time, and give us an extra $80 in our pocket. Not bad for a turkey day flip. Thats a profit which quadruples our initial investment. Can we match that with a piece of real estate? 

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