Just wanting to learn.

[Nick Bradley]

I am interested in getting into real estate investing and just don’t know where to begin. I have good equity in my house that I can tap into and was thinking about starting with flipping houses to build up some cash to then be able to purchase a rental of some kind.

[Seth McGathey]

Hey Nick, do you have experience with home repair? If not, do you have trusted contractors? It is possible to start with flipping, people pull it off, but it is one of the higher risk strategies to get into real estate. So you will want to either know how to do a lot of the work or have trusted contractors. Because all you need is one thing to go wrong and now your whole flip went from big payout to big expense and you are out of the game again until you can raise enough capital. 

If I were just starting out, I would house hack. If your current house is rentable, I would rent out the extra bedrooms. If it wouldn't work like that, I would take the equity in a HELOC or cash out refi and buy a 2-4 unit property, live in one unit and rent out the others. In a perfect situation the property needs a bit of fixing up and/or could have another bedroom or unit added. You do that on the side while renting the rest. That allows you to get some of the benefits and experience of a flip without going into a full flip situation.

Hope this helps, and good luck!