Strategies for Flipping a Real Estate Investment Property

Fixing and flipping (fix n' flip) - this is the first thing that comes to mind when people think of flipping a real estate investment property. It is whereby you purchase a property that needs repair, finance all the repairs at your own cost and then sell it as retail property for some profit. Fix and flip is the most reliable way of generating lots of cash on a single deal. If you are not careful enough though, you can run into real trouble when you pay excess for repair or underestimate the cost that repairs will take. As such, you should account for all factors before you make any deal. You should further be conservative and smart enough during repairs, lest you end up spending all your profit.

Refinancing and leasing-option - this second option works as the first strategy but rather than resell the property to generate a profit, you can appraise it at its new value and then go ahead to restructure the financing linked to it. As such, you can be able to sell the property with a lease-option meaning the rent of the tenant should at least cover the mortgage and in case the tenant ever decides to purchase the property, it will mean you will not need to hire a realtor to market and sell the property again.

Wholesale - instead of selling the property as retail, you can think of passing it to a fellow flipper who is looking to employer the fix and flip strategy mentioned above. This way, you will have to wait until you get a lucrative deal in a good market and then turn around and flip your property to a rehabber without having to make any fixing or repairs. It will mean that you will sell the property 'as is', under the existing market value - exactly what your fellow flipper is searching for). Even though you could make a tiny profit as compared your fellow flipper, you will not incur any repair costs meaning you could walk away with several thousand dollars.

The last strategy that you can employ in investment property, although it's somewhat riskier than the rest, involves predicting your local economy. If you bump into a lucrative real estate market and make perfect timing, you can get into a contract for a condo or house under construction, or even one under planning. If all fall into place, you can wait until the end of the development and construction process, and then resell the condo or home at a retail market value for a huge profit. Important to note however is that in case the local economy backfires on you, you will be stuck with your property which without a shadow of a doubt will deflate in value.