There are a lot of different strategies out there and if you are looking to create quick cash then the best thing to do is to either wholesale a property or renovate a property. I love wholesaling because it is a quick easy business. You find deals, you flip them to other investors across the country and you can make between $10 and $15,000 on each deal. Many deals will make more than that but count on between $10 and $15,000 for most deals, Quick in Quick out. And you don’t have to purchase the property or do any rehab. You don’t have to do any work. It’s great when you don’t have a lot of time and you don’t want to manage a property.

The downside to it is you have to find a lot of deals. You have to bring in a lot of leads so that you find those deals. You want to do at least one deal every month. You have to be a student of marketing and you have to be marketing all the time. Some of you may say that that just does not interest you. Wholesaling is great cash flow. You are going to have to put some of that cash flow back into your marketing. It doesn’t take your own cash or credit to do this business and you don’t need your own cash or credit to buy properties. But hey this is a business. You have to put some money into your business to make something happen there.

Some are going to say that it just doesn’t work for me. Either I don’t have money for marketing, I don’t have the time, I don’t know how, or I don’t like talking to sellers. Then what you may want to consider doing is renovating properties. Frankly this is where I started in this business. I was a rehabber first. And I was buying my properties from wholesalers. The advantage to that is you don’t have to put all that money into marketing. You’re going to put it only into the houses that you buy and you can buy properties with none of your own cash or credit by learning how to do creative financing. You do a rehab on a property, sell it and have large amounts of cash coming in all the time. The difference between rehabbing and wholesaling is in wholesale there are smaller amounts of money coming in more consistently. Rehabbing you will have a larger amount of money coming in periodically throughout the year and you are getting rewarded for the extra work that you are doing. You don’t have to do the marketing, you work with a wholesaler. Get on their list. Pick up a deal from them. It’s a great service that wholesalers offer. Pick up the deal and then do the renovation, and resell it. These are two ways to get cash on a regular basis.

Some people come to me and say "you know what, I really have is too much cash right now. What I’m really looking for is building wealth for the future". Then your rentals and your lease options are your best strategy. In fact, I tell them that everybody eventually should get into rentals and lease options because that is what is going to bring you long term equity. That’s what is going to give you passive income. Keep in mind that it’s all future income. I advise people who are looking for cash flow today and want to get into rentals that a rental unit on the front end is going to give you $100-150 per month cash flow. That’s not necessarily net because you also have to remember you will have vacancies. You will have maintenance and repair and that will eat up that little bit of cash flow you did receive. What you are really looking for with rental properties is to build future wealth. The property is going to continue to appreciate while the tenant is paying down the mortgage and that difference is going to be your equity over time. What I predict with the prices is that they will start to go up in 2009 and 2010. Now is a great time to purchase rental properties and get ready for that blast of appreciation that I think we are going to see for the rest of this decade. You have to be financially ready to take on rentals. The worst time to take on rentals is when you don’t have a lot of disposable cash yourself. What will happen is you will take on the rental and if you don’t rent it out and end up with a vacancy you may not be able to afford the mortgage payment. Or if all of a sudden there is some unexpected expense like a hot water tank blow, or a brand new air conditioner needed and you’re not prepared for the expense then it can be overwhelming for you. Make sure that you do get into rentals at some point in your career but don’t get into rentals until it is the right time for you. Don’t look at rentals and lease options as if they are going to be providing you with significant cash flow today. Rentals will give you cash flow into the future, equity in the future.

If you need cash flow today then I would look at either wholesales and/or renovations. Those are the best ways to go. Then whether you want to do a lot of marketing and do a lot of deals and not actually have to do the renovation. Are you looking to find property easily or let a wholesaler find them for you? Are you are going to rehab them and make larger amounts of money? And always the best exit strategy is to blend them all together. In other words, do a little bit of everything. Do some rehabs. Do wholesaling. If you are wholesaling you are going to get a lot of great deals and you are just going to pick and choose the best deal for you. Then go looking for your rentals and lease options after you have your cash flow.