Flipping houses has proved to be a profitable market for those that know what they’re doing. As we move into 2022 it is important to know where the best market for flipping houses is. Atlanta remains a great market for investors and more specifically, DeKalb county. 9.9% of the house sales in DeKalb last year were flips with the typical resell price being approximately $207,000.
The coronavirus housing market brought many surprises, including this: As home prices spiked, the share of houses bought and then quickly resold by investors fell in 2020.
Flips made up just 5.9 percent of all home sales nationally in 2020, down from 6.3 percent in 2019, according to ATTOM Data Solutions. It was the first time since 2014 that flipping activity had decreased.
“Last year was a banner year for the U.S. housing market, with the apparent exception of the home-flipping business,” says Todd Teta, chief product officer at ATTOM.
However, a few markets — including Memphis, suburban Washington, D.C., and suburban Atlanta — saw intense flipping activity in 2020. And hard money lenders — the financiers who bankroll flippers — are aggressively marketing their services to real estate investors.
“We’re all out there trying to unlock the hidden value in homes around the country,” says Michael Bourque, chief executive of LendingHome, a lender that specializes in loans to investors. “Roughly two-thirds of the housing stock in this country is 30 years or older. It just creates a massive opportunity for investors to create move-in ready homes.”
Flipping activity is always a double-edged sword. In a housing market characterized by an intense shortage of inventory, flippers might elbow out some buyers. On the other hand, many of the homes bought by investors are lower-value properties in need of major renovation.
The numbers in many metro areas support the notion that flippers are buying homes that might otherwise be unmarketable. In Detroit, flippers paid a median of $50,000 for homes last year, then resold for a typical price of $98,950, according to ATTOM Data Solutions. In Dayton, Ohio, the typical pre-flip purchase price was $60,000.
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