(This is the first in a multi-part series over the next few weeks.)

I recommend you stop while you’re monetarily ahead if your attitude about real estate investing is similar to how you felt tumbling down the stairs Christmas morning. Get out now before you blow serious money and time. Like any form of investing, success is contingent on a studious and disciplined approach. I don’t want to begin this series with a negative vibe talking down to you; I merely hope to discourage the dreamers. The Housing Bubble is full of stories of folks who watched a late night infomercial, decided a fortune awaited and ran out the door seeking riches with no-money-down “strategies”. About the only people who made out in those deals were the producers and performers on the infomercials.

So I’ll begin this series about real estate “flipping” by explaining what it is NOT. Flipping is NOT buying a home, holding it and hoping to sell for profit in the future. That’s called speculation or gambling and it’s how a lot of so-called investors lost their shirts during the boom. For those who did actually succeed in making money by “buying low, selling high” banking a net profit as a result of market value appreciation, that’s called good fortune or luck. And many times those same “investors” didn’t actually make as much money as they thought because they didn’t account properly for taxes and holding costs, which is a mistake even seasoned, bona fide real estate investors occasionally make when local market dynamics throw them a curve. (I’ll cover a down market in later posts.)