Home flipping can be a part of the solution to what ails the nation’s housing market, generating new housing inventory at relatively affordable prices compared to new construction while remaining profitable for investors.
Attom, a comprehensive, nationwide real estate data firm, prepared a home-flipping report for the first quarter of 2024 that shows the typical gross profit for investors was 30.2%. This is the third time in four quarters that profits increased.
A typical flip at the national level netted $72,375 in the first quarter of this year. That’s an increase from $65,000 in the previous quarter and closer to the 2022 high of $80,000. Flips comprised 8.7% of all U.S. home sales in the first quarter, up from 7.7% in the previous quarter.
Home-flip rates are up in 77.5% of U.S. metro areas. In regions with declines in flipping, the decrease was less than 2 percentage points.
But challenges in the market remain. The total volume of flips remains below the highs of 2021, although they are in line with pre-pandemic volumes. Attom CEO Rob Barber attests to this, “The latest numbers show that investors still face an uphill climb to clear significant profits after expenses. They, like others, also face tenuous times amid a housing market boom that’s cooled down over the past year. But we now have a year’s worth of a trend showing that things have started to turn around for the flipping industry, with clear signs of increasing interest flowing into the market.”
