The difference between the two is that profit from a flip is subject to self-employment income taxes in addition to the ordinary income taxes.Your situation is the sale of investment property, which is not a dealer disposition; therefore, only short term capital gains tax applies.

Employ a license electrician for all your electrical work.

@Stan Hopp, generally the rental income from investment properties is considered to be passive (you need active, earned self-employed income) - therefore it will not quality for contributions into a retirement plan.

You might be able to get in at 20%, depending on your employment status and credit score, but I think even 20% is going to be tough.Could you live in one of the units for a year?

Are you referring to candidates that you have already completed the screening process on,- credit, employment history, previous landlord etc.

When an employer adds matching funds, that free money to you!

I am currently employed at a pretty goodfull time job, live in an apartment and have a poor credit score (its building up every month though), and recently got really interested in real estate.

If you do things that an employer normally does, such as purchase materials/equipment for its employees, telling them when to work, where to work, what to do, etc., the "independent contractor" may actually be seen as a "covered worker" and you'll have to do things like pay their worker's compensation premiums and follow state employment laws, maybe even providing payroll and pay FICA taxes.Remember that lawsuit against Microsoft where its contractors/temp workers claimed that they were basically treated as employees and should therefore get the same benefits?

If you are self-employed, you can open a Roth solo 401k and then invest in a variety of investments from equities to real estate, for example.

- I'm not aware that contractors, especially ones who are not employed, are legally prohibited from doing things like this.