Buying and flipping houses or rental properties...which is more profitable?

intresting ...there was a poster on here who was in the military and told me he did this for a living I forgot his name but he sounded like he knew what he was talking about

the whole buying selling houses game is ? up right now............at least in my area

a few years ago everybody was buying houses and flipping them because the prices were down and everything was rolling

now people are charging 200k for a house that's barely worth 100k and if you do buy the house once the price drops you're ?

it's alot of ? that goes into that and right now is tough time to be trying to flip houses

car sales are even down so how do you think house sales will be

the only increase in car sales was when they were doing the cash for clunkers but that was a set up

how do you give somebody a brand new car who can't even afford a new car just trade in thier hooptie

okay I'm getting off course right now but the economy is ? up and it might be rough

sionb55 wrote: »

The BEST route to take is w/ investment/rental properties, not only do u have a nice cushion under u, ur getting paid every month by tenants, & over time u can always resell it back for w/e u want. Plus its less risky b/c if u have a proportionate amount of tenants u KNOW ur mortgage and costs are covered. Housing prices can increase in the very long term & if u have income being generated all the better. In this environment u can buy apartment buildings w/ 10-20 units in them at bargains, why would want to flip a house wen u can take ur current salary & combine it w/ a cashflow producing property & increase ur salary 3 fold & buy even more properties till ur a millionaire ? Long term investing is always better than short term flipping ESPECIALLY in real estate. The only time flipping is good is if ur the real estate developer & have money to buy out whole properties bust them down & turn them into condos in that case its great business. If I had to create a tier list flipping would be at the bottom, rental properties would be mid tier w/ the more high end commercial properties being high tier & real estate development would be at the highest tier.

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I don't disagree with this in principal but there are way too many variables involved for me to say flipping is not better than long term rental properties. I got caught out there with both and I did quite well with both. Rental properties can be just as risky. First, there is no guarantee that you can find suitable and consistent tenants, there is the issue of repairs, vacancies, and still due mortgages and taxes. I was fortunate because I flipped a few during a good time in the market. I no longer have my rental dips because I had vacancy issues that made me have to get rid of them. I ending up selling them and I was able to pay off my debt and keep a little change. So overall, I did not do too bad. But if I do get into the rental game again, I will more than likely go the joint venture route, it was too much of a headache to go it alone.

Sect 8 is good money though. You just have to deal with tenants tearing up your ? . I had a 2 unit that I put on the Section 8 list and I always had to do mad repairs to get it up to standard when they moved out. But you couldn't beat the guaranteed check coming in every month well over market rate.

I got in the real estate business just around the crash in 2008. Had to short sale my house and everything. All in all I learned alot. If I had the money and credit (I'll get in back). I would just cop a bunch of houses now and sit on them until the values goes up. But that might take a few years. Of before you even think about flipping or renting make sure you have 6 month rent in advance for a rainy day. Cause you never know.

Also alot of ? goes into a house. Gas, oil, electricity. So you gotta be sitting on bread. But I'm looking at the values of houses now in Long Island NY and if I had 100,000 in cash I would try to buy up a couple houses on foreclosure, fix them up, rent them out and they flip them when the market turns around.