Home & real estate: Flipping real estate without breaking the bank.

The leap from salaried manager at a $48 billion public company to residential real-estate entrepreneur wasn't impulsive, Galasso said. Galasso, 38, is among the growing ranks of weekend real-estate investors in the area who, encouraged by a housing market that continues to sizzle and buoyed by the success of initial deals, have decided to pursue the practice full time. Galasso is a member of the Real Estate Association of Puget Sound, or REAPS, a nonprofit real-estate education group that has tripled its membership to 900 since 2003. Often, this means looking for properties owned by motivated sellers --- owners facing real estate foreclosure or people who don't have the time or money to fix up their homes.· Signing lease-option deals in which investors rent out a property at above-market rent to a tenant who wants the right to buy the place at the end of the lease. Kerry Hemmingsen, another partner, told the 20 or so investors who came to an April 21 meeting that 1,400 foreclosures take place each month in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties combined, the majority because of divorces.

The Seattle Times: Home & real estate: Flipping real estate ... without getting burned