Goldman Sachs is getting into the fix-and-flip loan game

Goldman Sachs is getting into the house-flipping loan business. The Wall Street giant is buying Genesis Capital, a lender to investors that buy, fix and flip single-family properties.

Genesis issued $1 billion in loans last year, up from $50 million in 2013, the Wall Street Journal reported.

House flipping is on the rise as the residential market continues to recover from the subprime mortgage crisis. Last year, borrowers took out $40 billion in fix-and-flip loans, the most since 2006.

“A lot more new home flippers are coming out of the woodwork,” Alex Sifakis of JWB Real Estate Capital told the Journal. They “have seen the (TV) shows.”

Big institutions are taking note. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase both extended credit lines to fix-and-flip lenders. And last year, the Japanese investment bank Nomura securitized $126 million in loans issued by California-based LendingHome.  [WSJ] — Konrad Putzier