Friday, August 16, 2013

Boost In Number Of People Flipping Houses Recorded

By Cornelius Nunev


Remember the flipping homes boom before the economic downturn hit, where a lot of people turned over run-down homes and sold them? It's making a bit of a return recently, as investors were able to grab a ton of houses for dirt cheap and now are beginning to see a bit of a payoff.

Making money on a house

Prior to the housing market imploding and a recession starting, a number of people turned to flipping properties. Definitely it was a great idea when people actually were getting houses and there was a profit to be made but since then, it hasn't been as lucrative.

A lot of people do not make money off a house. It is not an investment because a person has to pay for the house, repairs and improvements, taxes, insurance, maintenance and more. When flipping a house, an individual generally buys it for dirt cheap and fixes it up to turn a profit.

According to the Washington Post, the house flipping industry has gotten a lot more people in it. There was a 25 percent increase in the first half of the year over last year in the number of people in the industry, according to RealtyTrac.

More interest

Oddly enough, the top area for flipping properties in RealtyTrac's data is Phoenix, Ariz., one of the hardest-hit states in the real estate slump, with almost 10,000 flips. Arizona, along with Nevada, Florida and California were particularly affected, as real estate values were drastically inflated in those areas.

Areas with a lot of foreclosures were hit hard, such as Atlanta, Miami, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. These areas also saw a ton of flipping. There were 1,067 flips in Chicago this year, which is a thirty percent increase, and means the city is also getting a ton of flippers, according to the Chicago Tribune. About 100,000 properties in the nation have been flipped and sold.

Not as easy as it looks

It is not all that easy to flip houses regardless of what you may think. In fact, it could be really hard to come up with the cash to buy the house. On top of that, the houses are typically uninhabitable whenever you purchase them and need a lot of work before they can be sold to someone, according to CNBC. It is costly, so make sure you research the house to make sure it is safe first.

Auctions do not always have the very best houses, and, according to MSN, it is almost impossible to get a property that could be flipped with no cash down. You need a ton of cash on hand to get the house.

The net profit on flipping houses is not very cheap either, according to the Washington Post. The average profit per flip on RealtyTrac was $29,432, which seems good except that is only the difference between purchase price and sale price. That does not account for any flipping costs, which are ridiculously high. It is most likely not worth it unless you can do all the work in flipping the house on your own or can somehow get really cheap labor.




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