Buy a house, or rent apartment, while flipping?

[Lisa Sluss]

Hello,

I would appreciate your input on how to allocate some cash.

First, let me preface this by saying I don’t qualify for a mortgage - my debt-to-income ratio is too high.  It’s over 50%.  So, let’s not bring a mortgage into this.

I’m trying to choose between three scenarios in which to allocate $360k cash:

1) buy a personal residence for $180k cash and use the remainder to flip a house.(living for “free”)

2) rent an apartment and invest the entire $360k in a couple of flips.

3) rent an apartment, buy a rental unit, and spend the remainder on a flip. (rental unit would earn me $1,200 per month)

My apartment rent would be approximately $1700 per month.

Thank you in advance!

Lisa