Housing market investors have pushed the share of flips, or properties sold twice in 12 months, to its highest level in a decade.
Home flippers, who buy homes as a speculative bet on short-term price appreciation, accounted for 6.1 percent of U.S. home sales in 2016, according to Trulia, which defines a flip as a property sold twice in a 12-month period in arm’s-length transactions. That’s the highest share since 2006, when flips accounted for 7.3 percent of sales.
Flipping has made a strong comeback in cities that were battered by the foreclosure crisis. That includes Las Vegas, where 10.5 percent of 2016’s sales were flips, the highest in the country, as well as Tampa, Fla., and Fresno, Calif. Eleven metropolitan areas, including Memphis, Tenn., and Atlanta, had flip rates that reached 17-year highs, according to the Trulia data.
READ MORE: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-25/americans-are-flipping-houses-like-it-s-2006
