In the lead-up to Halloween, Candywriter does a number of things to spice things up on BitLife. For one, NPC avatars will typically be wearing Halloween masks. More haunted houses than usual will also be available through both real estate brokers in the Shopping menu. And when it comes to the weekly challenges, you can expect at least one spooky-themed challenge to pop up on or around the 31st of October. This year is not an exception.
The Phantom Flipper Challenge may seem on the outset to be yet another one of those house-flipping challenges that Candywriter used to churn out on a fairly frequent basis back in the day. And it may also seem similar to past Halloween challenges (or October challenges) that you may have completed in past years. But mistake it not — this is a Halloween challenge with a twist, and we are giving you fair warning. Candywriter considers this a Medium difficulty challenge, but personally, we feel that it sort of borders on Hard at some points.
So if you need help with the Phantom Flipper Challenge and haven’t completed it yet, please keep reading, as we’ve got everything you need to know about this year’s Halloween-themed challenge and how to finish it with as little rework possible.
The Easy Part — Creating a Character and Becoming an Exorcist
Creating a character for the BitLife Phantom Flipper Challenge is, without a doubt, the easiest part, as you don’t need to be of a certain gender or from a certain location or have a certain set of stats in order to become an Exorcist. This is also a job that won’t automatically reject you if you have a criminal record, as we found out when our test character spent a year in juvie for fighting back against a school bully and still got hired after graduating from high school.
Probably the hardest part of this aspect of the Phantom Flipper Challenge is coming across Exorcist openings in the job market. As is often the case in these challenges, the job you need to complete the requirement will appear much fewer times in the Jobs menu, so you should certainly expect a fair deal of quitting and restarting. But this is one of the few jobs you can get straight out of high school, so take advantage of this so that you can finish the challenge before your character gets too old. (There is actually a chance of that happening if you don’t follow the later steps in this guide!)
Being an Exorcist is a Dangerous Profession
The next requirements in the Phantom Flipper Challenge are to exorcise at least 15 spirits and to live in at least ten haunted properties. The latter requirement is easy to complete and can be done organically, as you will naturally be fixing and flipping several properties as you go along, and all of them need to be haunted so that you can drive the spookies away.
But the former requirement may test your patience, even if you will likely become better and more effective than the “paid exorcist” option at some point — that latter option costs $250, and you should avoid using it until you’ve exorcised 15 spirits on your own.
There is a benefit to paying a few hundreds for an exorcist after you, as an exorcist in your own right, complete the “15 exorcisms” task — that eliminates the risk of getting injured. And what a risk it is — not only do failed exorcisms eat away at your Happiness. They could also result in the spirit fighting back and injuring you.
Very seldom are such injuries fatal, but if you want to avoid getting killed on duty due to one supernatural attack too many, the best thing to do is to keep your Health up by going to the gym, taking up martial arts, and meditating, among other choices in the Mind and Body menu.
The House-Flipping Mechanic Has Been Calibrated
As it’s been a while since we’ve controlled a character that makes their living by fixing and flipping properties, or tried to complete a BitLife challenge that requires us to do so, this appears to have been quietly nerfed some time back. Previously, it was very easy to make a ton of money through this method — buy a house that’s in poor condition, use the third or second most expensive option in the drop-down box when renovating, sell it at a handsome profit.
Now, it seems that choosing the most expensive renovating option no longer automatically restores a house to 100 percent — it still does in most cases, but if the house’s Condition bar is red or orange, don’t expect the Condition to immediately become perfect even if you pay top dollar on your first renovation.
What this means to you in the context of the Phantom Flipper Challenge is that this challenge may require more patience than usual — you may need to sell more houses at a profit before you reach the $5 million profit goal. But there’s another twist to keep in mind when trying to complete this task, and it’s very important to keep in mind if you’re trying to complete the challenge sooner rather than later.
You Need to Flip the Properties While They’re Still Haunted
Yes, that is correct — when trying to make $5 million worth of profit from haunted house-flipping, the operative word here is haunted. That means there has to be at least one spirit on the property when you’re trying to sell it at a profit, otherwise it will not count toward the five million dollars you need to earn in order to complete the task. This seems to be the main difference between the Phantom Flipper Challenge and previous challenges that required exorcising spirits and flipping houses — it’s no longer as easy as exorcising all the spirits and selling the house at a huge profit.
That said, you can still do this — exorcise all spirits and flip the house — in order to earn enough money to afford a mansion or two. But once your bank balance is at around $4-5 million or more, that’s when you can start focusing on this part of the challenge. Take note that it won’t be easy — people will be much less likely to bite if they know the house is haunted, and the Hauntedness bar doesn’t seem to change even if you get rid of all the spirits except one or two that aren’t too malevolent.
We cannot stress this enough — the operative word is “haunted,” and if the house doesn’t have any ghosts, specters, banshees, or whatnot in it at the time of sale, it won’t count toward the $5 million.
You Need to Actually Live in the Mansion for the Requirement to Be Checked
Last, but not the least is the requirement that you live in a haunted mansion. This is one of those tasks where past experience doesn’t count — you need to be living in the mansion for the check mark to be there, and if you sell your haunted mansion, that requirement is automatically unchecked. But if you have enough money in the bank to get approved for two mortgages on mansions or similar properties while trying to complete the $5 million profit requirement, you can get rid of all spirits except one (as noted above) for each of the houses, renovate until Condition is at 100 percent or close to it, then sell one of those properties, but not both.
Also worth keeping in mind for this final requirement is the fact that Mansions are not the only house type that would qualify you for task completion. Palaces and Castles also count under the Mansion category, as it seems, so if you don’t see the Mansion option pop up too often while shopping for houses, you can buy a Palace or a Castle (preferably on a mortgage) and you’ll still be counted as owning a mansion.
Just as we had cautioned, this is not an easy challenge to complete. And your reward stays the same — a new hat or piece of eyewear. But if it’s the thrill of the chase and a high degree of difficulty you’re looking for, the Phantom Flipper Challenge certainly ups the ante on the similar challenges before it.