What makes a property a long term investment?

[Nicholas Estevez]

I know it's a preference to either flip houses or keep them long term. I've talked to a couple of real estate agents and loan officers who have flipped before and they prefer flipping. They rather make the 40k on the flip that year than the 6k let's say in cash flow. They say they do 4 or 5 flips that are good (hypothetically speaking) and then buy a house all cash and that's their investment property long term. I guess seeing it like that makes sense, but feel like that's the long route if the end goal is to live off of cash flow when you retire. I'm only 22 and trying to gain as much knowledge as I can. I will be purchasing my first house a year from now and I'm trying to see my options past that. I would like to get some more advice from anyone who has experience or some examples are why its better to sell that keep long term.