Should I Flip Houses Or Should I Buy A Multifamily Or BRRRR?

[Mike Schorah]

Half of my family works in residential construction. Flipping houses seems ideal since I worked in home improvements for 5 years, including owning a construction company as a general contractor at one point.

I never initially invested in a multifamily because, in my area, they are all in bad areas. I never seen any multifamily properties listed in good areas. I never wanted to house hack a multifamily and live in a bad area.

A goal of mine is to move to Florida. Because of this goal, I thought it would make more sense to flip houses since that type of business is easy to relocate opposed to buying a multifamily. I’ve seen multifamily properties in my market listed for months and years even. They seem more difficult to sell. I don't want to move to Florida right now because I'd have to take a salary cut which would reduce my standard of living and would reduce my opportunities (i.e. direct mail marketing) for off-market properties.

I’ve been studying and reading about flipping houses for the past year.

I currently have a W2.

I wrote off BRRRRing properties since I plan on moving to Florida which would make it more difficult to relocate opposed to flipping.

I’m ready to at least look for a property. If I flip houses, I’d like to find deals for other house flippers first before taking the risk and jumping in to flip.

Investing in a multifamily started to appeal to me when I saw a BiggerPockets forum post where someone answered that buying a multifamily is the fastest way to get out of a W2. It seems like flipping houses full-time is something that is rarely accomplished. Not sure if this is wrong. I’d prefer to be on the side of statistics.

Then, I read on the forum post where the consensus seemed to be that BRRRRing was the best way to get out of a W2.

Should I flip houses or should I buy a multifamily or BRRRR?

[Caleb Brown]

All have their perks. Flipping is used to generate capital, many people use this to go into BRRR or go into multi family. Flipping could take 1-2 years to have a track record and build a good nest egg, hardest part is starting and it's relying on the market condition. BRRR is good because you can take the capital you have and reuse over and over. Only draw back is seasoning period and waiting for the refi to be completed. But it helps you build a portfolio without having to put 20% down and wait to save up. Multi family is passive compared to the others. The perk of this is you have multi units so you can raise the rents and boost the equity through forced appreciation. Also if one unit goes vacant you still have the others to cover expenses. Only drawback is it takes longer if you only use your money since you have to save up. With your backstory I'd start in flipping or BRRR