My Experiences Flipping Houses in the Real Estate Market

Like many of you, we watched all the infomercials on making money through buying and selling real estate. They make it sound so easy and lucrative that it's hard to resist, so we decided to at least investigating the claims a little further.

We did our homework and researched the claims and the companies, talked to folks in the business, and even went to a few seminars. When we felt we were ready to take the plunge, we jumped in with both feet and sent our money off for the books and CD's and "how to" manuals.

In the past five years, we've bought three pieces of property with a specific intent in mind each time.

The first purchase was a small 2 bedroom one bath brick house with fenced in back yard, about 20 years old, in a small town. The intent was to fix up a few minor things and turn it into rental property.

The second purchase was a huge parcel of land in a rural area with two houses one on side of the road and 40 acres of raw land and a barn on the other side. The intent was to refurbish the existing houses and flip them right away, and then build a new home for ourselves on the 40 acres across the road.

The third purchase was a 3 bedroom one bath brick house with a barn in a rural area on 10 acres of land. The intent was to refurbish and flip immediately.

I mentioned our intent when we bought these properties because the grass looks really green and profitable until you hop the fence and buy the "grass" ... then reality sets in when you see all the brown spots and weeds.

Renovating houses is hard dirty work ... and location does matter ... so do your homework and check everything twice before you sign on the dotted line to buy any kind of property.

We bought our first piece of investment property about six months after purchasing the "how to get rich in real estate" propaganda. It was a small 2 bedroom one bath brick house, about 20 years old, and needed a little TLC. We did all of the repairs ourselves, which saved us a bundle. We rented it out for 2 years and learned the hard way that we were not meant to be landlords. We made about $18k profit when everything was said and done. Not bad for our first attempt to be real estate tycoons.