primary residence vs. investment property?

You shouldn't do that if you plan on selling the house within a year. It will look bad and they can generally tell. I know of a lot of people who had done that - but they all retain their houses for 5 years of more. And it is a felony so it is very risky. You are better off just doing it as an investment property. It is a pain, but worth it.

and I suspect that this happens with some frequency.

Of course, after the 1st time you do it there will be consequences beyond the suit for mortgage fraud [lying on your application] that you dodged.

Your credit report won't include that house you flipped as a place where you lived. But, the mortgage issued and then quickly paid off on the house you didn't live in will show. So the next loan officer will KNOW that you flipped the last one.

Now, if you try to lie on this one, you're up against it. Suppose you do and he seems to accept the lie and everything goes on swimmingly. Except that 10 weeks down the road, the mortgage officer swings by your new place and sees that it is for sale (again). Now he knows you committed fraud.

So what does he do?

He could be honest and report you to the lender and/or the district attorney. Or he could forget about it. Or [please fill in the blank here].

***

Is the mortgage officer the only one who looks over the paperwork? No. There's the underwriter who packages up a group of new loans into a 10 million dollar group that will be sold.

There's also the potential buyers of that 10 million dollar group. They too have compliance officers and detail checkers. And they may have computerized record searches for people who've just recently flipped a mortgage [buyers pay cash up front for loans and do not like payoffs too early as they don't earn their money back.]

As for being charged with mortgage fraud .. it is a felony. You probably don't want to be convicted of it. The fine will take all of your profit from the last several deals and you'll not get another mortgage for years ... assuming you don't go to jail.

Does this help?

Put simply, it is fraud and you could land yourself in jail. You would also get your lender and your realtor in a world of trouble also....it could be a career-ender for them.

Don't go there!

it has to be your address that you get your mail at.

You can lie but if you get caught you might get sued by the mortgage company.