The Steps: Your First Five Years as a Solo House Flipper

TLDR
Start with your primary residence, flip a couple of houses, hold one, and repeat. The Bubba Hicks story shows why the source says not to overcomplicate that path.

Table of Contents

Step One: Primary Residence First

Everybody should flip their personal house first.

This is the safest starting point in the lesson.

The lesson gives two low-down-payment examples: 3.5% with an FHA-insured loan or 5% with a conventional loan. You buy a house that’s livable today, occupy it as your home, and improve it while you live there. You MIY (manage it yourself, act as your own GC) and may do some DIY work as you’re comfortable.

In the source’s plan, you own it for at least a year instead of treating it like a fast flip. You have time to learn and correct mistakes. That one-year step is the course plan, not a universal loan rule. Confirm the occupancy, renovation, and resale terms of the actual loan before you buy.

All those people online saying “rent and invest the difference” assume you will consistently invest the difference. I would rather lock it up in a forced savings account called a house. That’s the primary residence flip.

The source says that after five years, the home may have built equity that gives you more options. That is the course’s long-hold example, not a promised return.

You can also do a house hack: buy a duplex, live in one unit, rent out the other. Your tenant helps cover the mortgage while you renovate your side. Even better math.

Step Two: Flip a Couple Houses

Once you’ve gone through the primary residence, you have skills. Now you do a couple investment flips.

For these you’ll use hard money, cash, or a private money partner.

Do a couple deals. Get through problems. Build your contractor relationships. Learn the market. Each deal you do, you get meaningfully better. The skills compound.

Start with a couple and keep gaining skills.

Step Three: Hold One

After a couple successful flips, hold one instead of selling it.

Here’s the simple version: instead of selling to a retail buyer, you refinance the short-term debt or cash into a long-term fixed-rate mortgage. DSCR lenders are one option. You put a renter in and move on.

You now have a rental. The rent helps pay the mortgage while you work on the next deal. Over a long hold, the rent may help reduce the debt.

That’s the hold strategy. Nothing complicated about it.

The Simple Rule

From there, it’s this:

If I have the money, I hold. If I need the money, I flip.

The goal is to own as many rentals as you can. Rentals can produce income and build wealth. Flipping can produce cash flow when you need it.

You might also wholesale a deal here and there. My rule is that I only wholesale a house I would have bought myself. If the buyer falls through, I still need to be willing and able to close it.

How many flips versus holds depends on what you need. In my example, somebody targeting $200,000 to $250,000 per year might flip four to six houses and hold fewer rentals. I am more focused on accumulating rentals, so I hold more and flip less. You have to choose what you want.

The Bubba Hicks Story

Early in my career I went on an appointment to buy a house. I am changing the seller’s name, but it was something like Bubba Hicks. The man owned 50 houses with no mortgages on any of them.

I was expecting to meet a sophisticated investor. I showed up and there was an HVAC van in the driveway. I found Bubba, and Bubba was an HVAC technician.

I didn’t get the deal because I sucked. But afterward I asked him how he did it.

“About 30, 40 years ago,” he said, “my neighbor wanted to sell his house. I went to the bank and asked them for the money. They gave it to me. I put a renter in. Used the rent money to pay the mortgage. Another neighbor wanted to sell. Same thing. Did that 48 more times. After 30 years, all my mortgages were paid.”

That’s it. That’s the whole system.

Everyone makes this game complex. Grab assets, put tenants in to help pay for them, and learn the flipping skills that can produce cash when you need it.

The source also points to a construction-company or other operating-company role as a way to earn current income around the work. That setup has to be real, documented, allowed by the lender, and reviewed for licensing and tax issues.

Bubba didn’t need a complicated system. He kept buying assets, putting tenants in them, and letting the tenants pay the mortgages. Flipping is how you build the skills and produce cash when you need it.

Key Concept
The goal is to accumulate rentals. Flipping builds the skill and produces the cash that keeps you in the game.