The easiest way to flip a house is to buy it at a low point in the housing market and sell it at a high point. Since the housing market is sour right now, there is no easy way to flip.

Flipping simply means buying houses and reselling them quickly and for a profit. This happens more when there is a tight supply of homes and individual prices begin to escalate. Any one who can get the money to buy a home will profit and many people have. More than 2.2 million people used the equity in their home to buy additional property in 2004. That is twice as many as did it 10 years earlier.

When markets start to go down, only the real pro flippers continue to buy. They know how to spot and buy homes on the cheap. They, also, have ready supplies of cash to buy with. They keep in touch with lenders and agents so that they can be alerted to bargain properties. They steer clear of homes that have all of their equity financed, because there isn’t enough wiggle room in the price for a good profit. If mortgage rates are high, they will offer some type of owner financing to move their homes more quickly.

There are other ways to make money in a cool market, but they all entail a lot of work. You can rehab a house or become a landlord. Both of these take more time and expense that flipping ever would. Be sure to know all of the cost you could run into in advance of purchasing. There are worksheets to help in the book, “Secure Your Financial Future Investing In Real Estate”(Dearborn, 2003) by Martin Stone and Spencer Strauss.

And while you’re in the bookstore, consider investing in some of these other helpful guides before you invest far greater sums in property. “The Beginner’s Guide to Real Estate Investing,” (John Wiley & Sons, 2004), by Gary W. Eldred, describes 27 ways to find or create below-market deals (example: Find a “cranky” landlord who is desperate to sell), while “Flipping Properties: Generate Instant Cash Profits in Real Estate,” (Kaplan Publishing, 2001), by William Bronchick and Robert Dahlstrom, provides basic but solid advice. And for the “flip” side of flipping, I heartily recommend “What No One Ever Tells You about Investing in Real Estate” (Kaplan Publishing, 2004) by Robert J. Hill. A compilation of 101 war stories from real-life investors, the book focuses mostly on landlords.

Anyone can make money from real estate. Follow the guide in this article and look at some of the resources given and you will be on your way.