Five of the top 10 cities for turning a profit from flipping houses are in Florida, according to RealtyTrac’s latest foreclosure report.
The foreclosure data provider picked the top 25 municipalities nationwide in which a seller’s rate of return is the highest from flipping a single-family home, defined as purchasing a property and selling it within 90 days. The data are based on the flipper’s gross profit, which is the difference between the average purchased price and the home’s flipped sale price later on. Investors are expected to have even better luck with flipping homes this year.
Flippers earned an average $64,976 in Orlando, or 63 percent gross profit, the report said. The next best markets for flipping were Las Vegas (53 percent), Phoenix (44 percent), Tampa (43 percent) and Memphis (42 percent). In Miami, flipped homes were purchased for $138,064 and sold for $189,291, netting investors 37 percent gross profit.
Florida is ripe for flipping because of the wide gap between foreclosure sales and regular sales, which makes a flip of a foreclosed home more profitable, and because housing prices are quickly rising, according to RealtyTrac economist Jake Adger.
The most single-family flips last year happened in Phoenix, with 10,589, RealtyTrac noted. —Emily Schmall