Don't believe everything you see on television.

Some documentaries, news reports, other well-researched features, as well as entire cable networks, do provide educational content as worthy as that from a college or university curriculum.

However, most TV programming comes from the realm of entertainment where the emphasis is more on the rose-colored "tell" rather than true "vision."

That's especially so when it comes to investment realty TV, more specifically, programming pushing flipping, say experts who've been there, done that.

Flipping houses typically includes buying, perhaps cosmetically upgrading, and then quickly selling, within about six months or less, for what is hoped to be a hefty profit.

In today's market where double digit depreciation is, to some degree, about to replace double-digit appreciation, consumers should consider additional sources of real estate investment reality.

"It may look easy, fun, and exciting on TV," says Scott Frank, a real estate investor from Atlanta who, along with Andy Heller, also an investor from Atlanta, co-authored "Buy Even Lower: The Regular People's Guide to Real Estate Riches" (Kaplan Publishing, $18.95).

"But remember, TV is entertainment. The real world can be anything but. I've found that most of the time people who jump into flipping real estate based on TV shows and/or hearsay from friends never fully know what they are getting themselves into," Frank added.

Flipping, never for the faint of heart, isn't as easy as it may have been even a year ago, primarily because sales have slowed.

Speculators aren't sticking around for good reason.

It's the same reason today's housing market is better suited for the long term investor.

Not only are sales a shadow of what they were a year ago, home prices are beginning to fall as well, further increasing the risks inherent to flipping.

During the second quarter this year, 2.4 percent of the existing homes sold in California had been owned for six months or less, down from 3.5 percent during the second quarter in 2005, according to HomeSmartReports.com, a San Juan Capistrano, CA-based real estate sales, value and risk analyst.

That was the lowest level of flipping since the first quarter of 2003, when it was also 2.4 percent. Flipping recently peaked in California during the first quarter of 2005 when 3.8 percent of properties were sold within six months of the purchase.

As flipping has declined so have the profits -- 24.7 percent of the second quarter's flip sales in California resulted in a loss. The percentage of flippers who lost money was the highest since 25.8 percent during first quarter of 2002. A year ago only 14.4 percent of flipped sales resulted in a loss.

"A lot of people do not take into account that if you are in the business of buying and selling houses and are in an ordinary income/tax bracket, 35 percent of your gain goes to Uncle Sam and another 5 percent, depending where you are, goes to the state," says Michael Eckerman, founder and CEO of Residential Asset Management, LLC, a real estate investment company in Phoenix, AZ.

The rest can get chipped away by carrying costs including rental vacancies, fix-up costs, insurance and taxes, not to mention mortgage payment costs not covered when tenants are present -- if they are part of the equation.

Frank, Heller, Eckerman and a growing number of experts are coming out against get-rich-quick real estate investment advice spawned by a housing boom that came with a televised assist.

Here's why, according to Frank and Heller.

• Flipping takes time. Time is money, especially in a falling real estate market. To profit, it's typically necessary to purchase a home at a deep discount, but the pool of such properties is small and that means lots of searching time right out of the gate.

• Flipping is stressful. Unless you use a real estate agent (which cuts into your profits), you'll probably deal with a host of people interested in buying the property. Each day the house remains unsold, holding costs eat away at your profits. Weighing if and when to reduce the sales price or to include a real estate agent adds more stress.

• Flipping costs can get crazy. Typically, discounted homes are far from pristine. You'll often need to make some improvements in a condensed period of time and sell at a profit large enough to offset buying, fixing up and selling costs. Surreal best describes those slick and dramatic transformations depicted on television.

• Flipping can leave you holding the bag. You could get a discounted "dog" that needs more than a few coats of paint, one that's in a bad neighborhood or other poor location or one with other conditions that contributed to your discounted purchase price, and now haunts your sale.

"Everybody has this day-trading mentality. Too many look at it as a quick fix, but it's really just another wealth building strategy for the long term," said Eckerman.

He recalls his first property investment, one of the few he still owns. Purchased in Daly City, south of San Francisco in 1970 for about $40,000, the property's value now approaches $1 million.

"It's paid off, free and clear and tenants are paying $2,000 in rent. If I had sold it for $50,000 and made $10,000, would I have been able to parlay that into $1 million?" Eckerman asks.

It's could be a good time to invest in flipping, provided you learn the ropes and hedge your bets.

"Keep your regular day job. Don't just flip. Buy the houses you can afford. Flip one or two. Hold onto the others," says Eckerman.

Published: October 6, 2006

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.