By Peter Ortiz | realtor.com
These days everyone wants to be the next big-time real estate mogul. And why not? It entails a lifetime of partying with the Hollywood elite, flying on personal jets emblazoned with your name, putting out inspirational, ghost-written best-sellers, or maybe even getting yourself on a presidential ticket. It doesn’t sound half-bad, right?
It’s no wonder the idea of flipping—buying low, fixing up, and selling high—has become a bit of a national obsession over the past decade or two. It’s led to a dozen or so fun, fantasy-tinged reality shows (yay!). It also helped accelerate the housing crash back in those wacky days of low- or no-cost credit (boo!). But it comes with challenges. For us ordinary Americans—the other 99%—particularly those living in the country’s most expensive cities, buying just one home, or trading up to a larger one, is daunting enough. After all, prices are continuing to rise and inventories are continuing to drop.
