Real estate investing and foreign exchange have become a hot topic on TV and in the media these days, but before you get caught up in the investment fervor, you need to provide honest answers to some serious questions.

First, are you willing to start spending much of your life involved in acquiring, repairing, and then selling the properties you purchase? Real estate, much more than passive investments like stocks and bonds, is a hands-on experience. You have to search for potential properties, sometimes many of them, before you find the one you are looking for. After finding a profitable home, you will need to pay off the property. Do you have arranged financing? Then you need to repair it, which will involve doing it yourself if you want maximum profit. Then you have to turn it around, which involves showing the property and dealing with potential buyers.

Next, do you really enjoy the real estate game? That’s important, because instead of just buying Wall Street paper investments, you’ll be embarking on what is essentially a second job when you start buying real estate. If you don’t enjoy it, it will eventually be like working a job you hate, but you won’t be able to quit and walk away. Once you have started the process, you must complete it or face potentially disastrous results.

If you are married, are you absolutely sure that your spouse has bought into your real estate investment dreams? This is a crucial question, because if they haven’t, moving house can be very difficult for a relationship. Make sure your communication channels are strong, because there will be a lot to talk about during the investment process, and no matter how well you think the two of you communicate, I can promise there will be disagreements. You can avoid many of those problems by having a serious discussion about the strategy you’re about to embark on, BEFORE you start!

If you answered all these difficult but essential questions with an honest yes, you can safely begin the process of becoming a home flipper. He will have ups and downs, but there is also great satisfaction in making a profit from a project in which he was personally involved. It’s certainly not for everyone, but moving house can be profitable and really enjoyable, if you approach the process in the right spirit.