House flipping is a term that’s come to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but the basic idea is pretty simple: buy a property, fix it up, and sell it for a profit.

While house flipping is mostly viewed as a neutral term, it’s also got some negative connotations, as “flippers” are seen by some as to blame for some of the excesses in the recent boom in property values from 2002-2006. Other negative connotations are that house flippers are just looking to make a quick profit, willing to cut all sorts of corners, or that they’re naive investors who belive that fixing-n-flipping is a piece of cake and very easy to do.

House flipping has become much more prominent in recent years due to a variety of televised shows such as “Flip that House”, “Flip This House”, “Property Ladder”, and others. While they do show the ups and downs of house flipping, most gloss over some of the more difficult aspects, which has contributed to the false idea of many that house flipping is an easy way to quickly make a ton of money (often more than $100,000 in profits per property).

The reality is that house flipping is risky, capital-intensive, tons of work (especially if you do some of the work yourself), and nowhere near as profitable as many shows and seminars would lead you to believe. That’s not to say that some people don’t consistently make a very good living from flipping houses (they do, even in down markets), just that it’s like any job, with all the unavoidable headaches, risks, and potential pitfalls, as well as rewards.