"Flipping" - The Good and the Bad, and the Kids

The days of "flipping" are over. When you could buy a home, do a quick fix and throw back on the market within a month and have a bidding war of buyers. While it would be crazy to attempt an investment property and expect it to sell quickly, the best way to be a flipper is to be a live-in flipper. If you can hack that kind of lifestyle.

For my family, this seems to be a good option. My husband has no money set aside for retirement and I have some in 401Ks and some small time stocks but nothing I could realistically retire on. So what are we to do? I realized that real estate is the way to go. My husband is a carpenter so buying low with a fixer upper, spending a year living in it while we fix it up and then put it back on the market means we don't have to sweat it counting the losses as each month passes. If it sells in a month, great, but if it takes a year, we stay a year. But we can upgrade each time we buy and sell so eventually we will have a great investment property to sell at retirement time and downgrade to a small home and then have the profit to live on.

Of course there are concerns. Moving of course is a nightmare. It is no picnic. The sorting, packing, unpacking. It's a lot of work. The renovations. Also a nightmare. Living through sanding, the nailguns, the painting, the gutting. It can be trying. The dust and noise can be unbearable.

One of my biggest concerns is the affect it will have on our children. It concerns me to force them to move to a new home, new neighborhood, new schools and make new friends. At the same time though I feel like it could be a good life experience. I grew up in the same town, in the same house. I do still have many friends from elementary school and I think that's phenominal and I'm lucky to have those kinds of bonds. But I think exposure to different cultures, learning how to navigate through new surroundings while they are young I think and I hope can be beneficial to make them stronger and more self-assured. I would like my children to be Worldly and not afraid to be adventerous. I'd like them to have experiences that challenge them so they can handle tough situations later and prepare them for life.

I do think have stability in high school is important so we plan to do a lot of flipping in the next 10 years and then settle down. I think in the end, you have to do what is best for you and your family. Stability is great. But having money to retire on is a necessity. Being a live-in flipper can work if you don't expect to too much too quickly.

Change is good.

Jan