Real estate investing is discussed widely online, but much of what’s written assumes a shared understanding that many readers do not actually have.
One example is something commonly referred to as a slow flip.
Depending on where you encounter the term, it can mean very different things. In some contexts, it describes buying a home, living in it, making improvements over time, and selling later. In other contexts, particularly in certain U.S. investing circles, it refers to buying undervalued residential properties and reselling them using long-term financing, without renovations or repairs.
Because the same words are used to describe different activities, the underlying mechanics often become unclear.
For Canadians, that lack of clarity is amplified. Most material is written from a U.S. perspective and assumes domestic investors. When a Canadian buyer is involved, questions about legal structure, taxation, financing, enforcement, and liability arise quickly, even when the transaction itself appears simple on the surface.
Over time, I’ve had many conversations with Canadians who were curious about this approach and wanted to understand how it actually works in practice. The questions tend to be practical rather than promotional: how purchases are structured, how money moves, where are the risks, and which decisions matter most early on.
What became clear is that many explanations jump straight into tactics without first establishing boundaries. They describe parts of the process without explaining how those parts fit together, or what assumptions the approach depends on. As a result, readers are left trying to reconcile fragments rather than evaluating a coherent system.
To address that, I put together an orientation that explains how I think about slow flips at a structural level. The goal is not to teach execution or optimize outcomes, but to clarify what this approach is, what it is not, and how the major pieces relate to one another when the investor is based in Canada and the properties are in the United States.
That orientation is designed to stand on its own. It is meant to help readers decide whether this way of thinking aligns with how they approach risk, time, and decision-making, before they go any further.
You can read that orientation here.
My intent in doing this has been simple: to offer a clearer way of thinking about a topic that is often explained in pieces, and to let people opt in or out based on understanding rather than momentum.