buy land and put a metal building on it, or flip a house?

[Aaron Griffin]

Hello BiggerPockets Community, 

I have been saving my money for a couple years and I have about 80k cash to work with and 50k credit. I don't qualify for conventional financing due to being self employed. 

I work in the hail repair industry, and am looking at purchasing a property in "hail country" as a home base. Ideally a duplex or something I can do a house hack. I've looked at markets like Dallas, Austin, but everything seems too expensive. I actually live in Denver, but it seems impossible to get anything cheap enough here. Now I'm looking at places like Little Rock AR, Shrieveport LA, Tulsa OK, smaller places near an airport.  

Anyway, I am looking at doing my first house flip, or purchasing a property to rent out and cashflow. I would like to keep acquiring properties every 1-2 years depending how much commissions I earn.  

I've been looking at a lot of older houses in the 30-40k range or cheaper. Something built 1950s or later. I have some construction background so minor repairs aren't a problem but I'll need to hire contractors for anything huge. 

So when I'm looking at some of these older houses, I can get something and rent it out for like 800-1000 a month, but at that rate it would take several years to ROI on a 50k investment. So... is it even worth it to pursue this strategy?

I've been seeing some pretty nice metal buildings advertised on facebook for like 40k-60k. I was thinking if I could get land + permits+ foundation and building for 100k and rent that out as commercial flex space I might see a better return than buying a $30k cheap house and renting it for $600-800 per month... Is that realistic? 

I've already read most of the BP guides. What would your advice be for someone just starting out considering these options?