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By G. Steven Bray
Recent data from ATTOM Data Solutions, a national property data warehouse, shows that the total number of homes and condos flipped last fall reached a 3.5-year low. The total of almost 46,000 was a 12% decrease from a year earlier.
ATTOM’s senior vice-president Daren Bloomquist suggested this could indicate a cooliing housing market as home flips are quick transactions and provide almost real-time data on the state of the market. Last fall was the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year decreases for flips. Bloomquist said the last time that happened was in 2014 after mortgage rates jumped.
For some context, flips decreased for eleven consecutive quarters preceding the housing crash, so it’s unlikely this trend is indicative of an echo crash. Like 2014, the recent swoon may be a reaction to rising interest rates, and it will be interesting to see whether flipping activity picked up this winter when rates retreated.
The report contained a wealth of interesting data on home flipping. The average gain-on-sale for home flips was $63,000, a slight decrease from a year ago when it was $65,000. This represented a 42.6% return on investment, which was a 6.5 year low and was lower than the 48.1% ROI a year earlier.
Almost half of all flips in the quarter sold for less than $200k, with most of those flips having a gross ROI of 50% or better. However, the highest ROI occurered for flips with a sales price north of $5 million.
The highest rate of home flipping occurred in AZ, TN, and NV, and the highest gross returns were in PA, OH, and KY.
