Flip, or hold and rent?

[Travis Hester]

I'm new to the real estate game. I was wondering how to decide either to flip, or hold and rent a property? Is there a financial breaking point that determines this, or just personal preference? My thinking, for example, is say that you made 15k on a flip, compared to if you held and rented the property you would accumulate 15k in 2.5 years. So, if you held and rented the property for longer than 2.5 years, you would then make more money on the property than flipping it. Of course I'm not including vacancy, repair cost, etc but just trying to get opinions on if there may be a good formula that would help someone with this, or if it's just a matter of making a quick buck versus continuous steady income.