Flipping Homes in the Luxury Market?

According to a new report by Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac, between July and September of this year, 32,993 homes around the country were flipped. That figure marks a 13 percent decline from the 37,871 house flips recorded for the same three months in 2012. The term refers to the process of buying a home, renovating it and then subsequently selling it again within six months, RealtyTrac explains.

Though flipping has been popular in California, Texas has never been a hot flipping market. And between the third quarters of 2012 and 2013, the rate of flipping declined. All told, 240 homes were flipped during the third quarter of 2013 — marking a 45 percent decline from the 437 homes that were flipped over the same three months in 2012.

From a bigger-picture perspective, the house flipping industry has taken some interesting turns. RealtyTrac reports that a total of 968 homes priced at $750,000 and above were flipped during the third quarter of 2013 — marking a 34 percent jump from the number of homes in this price range that were flipped a year ago. Take a look at these statistics:

Flips on homes priced between $1 million and $2 million increased 42 percent on a year-over-year basis. Flips on homes priced between $2 million and $5 million was up 350 percent.

“Increasing home prices over the past 18 months, combined with decreasing foreclosures, have created a market less favorable to the high quantity of middle- to low-end bread-and-butter flips that we saw late last year and early this year,” explains RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist. “But the sharp rise in high-end flipping indicates there is still good money to be made for flippers willing and able to take on the additional risk of buying and rehabbing more expensive homes. With that higher risk also comes the potential for higher reward.”

Source: San Antonio Business Journal