Question: Hard money lender or flipper?

[Virginia H.]

I am curious. If your goal is a quick "high" return and you had $1o,000.00 cash as a starter fund, would you attempt to be a lender or would you attempt to flip or would you take some other route in the REI realm and why?

[Robert Taylor]

If BP gave an annual (or even all time!) award for "The Most Vague and Open Ended Question Possible That Was Actually Posted", the runner up wouldn't even be in the same time zone!! You're asking a very specific question that could easily involve a massive number of variables that could be VERY important to what answer is given. 

Just for an example, here in the Milwaukee area, you can buy "homes" (like of the totally stripped in very, very low priced areas type) for well under $10k, but there's no way in he$$ you'll get them into "sellable" (i.e. what you want to "flip" a home, it has to be something at least SOMEONE would want to buy!) condition for anywhere remotely close to 10 grand, even if it sold for $1.00, which we've had city owned tax foreclosures sell for already.

Now, for me personally as I work in the $250k and up (fixed up selling price) range and my main focus now is one which selling for $1M once done would be a real "fire sale" IMO, well $10k is not much more than I'm spending on the stone and supplies (not labor, not multi function shower, not big double vanity with quartz top, etc) for just the master bathroom. 

As high as those numbers may sound, compared to say Atherton, CA or "The Platinum Triangle" in LA, my "super home" will end up costing less than the garages of many of the homes in those places!

You can certainly make moves with 10 grand though!