Looking to purchase our second investment property

[William Tse]

Hi,

My wife and I moved into our current place about a year ago, and converted our prior primary residence into a long-term rental. We've saved up enough at this point to perhaps start looking at purchasing our next property. We haven't decided if we want to use it as a long-term rental or flip it, so would appreciate any advice on that as well.

We've been trying to read up on how to get started, but have a few questions we were hoping to get help with:

1) What are the key things to look for in identifying a specific area to purchase in? We were initially looking outside the major metropolitan areas, where it's significantly cheaper. However, our concern is that it would be difficult to find a tenant in those areas. Is that a valid concern?

2) What's the major pros and cons of long-term rental vs flipping? If we go by the BRRRR method, we're already going to buy and rehab it, then would it not make sense to just flip it at that point and cut out the need to deal with tenants, home damage/repairs, refinancing, etc.? Maybe it's a dumb question, but just trying to understand the pros and cons of each.

Thanks in advance for any advice/guidance on this!