Newbie has a Question, Rehab or Rent??

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Hello All,

I have been lurking for awhile trying to soak everything up. I am on my second real estate investment book and plan on searching for a property very soon. Not going to sit on the fence long.

To my question.

I am wondering if rehabbing is going to see it's down fall soon. When I first started thinking about investing, I was thinking about doing rehab's. Now I am not sure. I kinda have done a rehab, me and my ex-wife bought her parents house, for well below market. Put 6K in it for updates and when we divorced sold it for a 100k profit split 55/45. I now own another home, my new wife owns a rental. I am now thinking it might be better to do rentals, because of the changes in economy. I think pretty soon it is going to be harder for people to obtain loans and rates are going to go up. I have 10K of my own money and can get my parents to probably loan me 10K to 25K more. So are we seeing the end of rehabs or do we still have time.

I am tired of working for other people, I am 31 and wish to have finacial independence. My area is starting to grow. It is a small city but more and more larger companies are moving in. Costco, BestBuy etc... Areas 7 to 10 years ago thst were farms are now homes and shopping centers. So I think rehab might still be viable here or the next City over, thats 1 hour away. I was also thinking about doing a combo of the 2, rehab and rents. How ever mom ever viligeant took notice of an article in the paper saying flipping homes are not the way to go anymore. I personally did not see the article so I am not sure exactly what it said.

Thanks for reading this far. Any advice from you experienced rehabber's and not so experienced I look forward to reading your comments. So all of that in simple form, is: to rehab or not to rehab and rent instead.

Thank you,
Jason