Florida Cities Popular for Home-Flipping

RealtyTrac released its Midyear 2013 Home Flipping Report. In the first half of 2013, the nation had 136,184 single family home flips – defined as a home resale in less than six months – up 19 percent from a year ago and 74 percent from the first half of 2011.

Florida had 17,707 single-family home flips over the same timeframe, or roughly 13 percent of all U.S. flips. RealtyTrac found the average sale price to be $121,243, the average purchase discount to be 16 percent, and gross profit to be 25 percent ($30,861).

Nationwide, real estate investors made an average gross profit of $18,391 on single family home flips in the first half of the year – a 9 percent gross return on the initial purchase price. That’s up 246 percent from an average of $5,321 in the first half of 2012 and an average loss of $13,206 in 2011.

U.S. investors purchased flipped homes at a discount of 5 percent below estimated market value and sold them at a premium of 1 percent above estimated market value.

“While flipping continues to be profitable in most markets, particularly those where the home price recovery is still nascent and a recent rebound in foreclosure activity allows investors to find distressed inventory at a discount, home flipping is tapering off in markets where fewer of those distressed bargains are available,” says Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “Out of the 100 markets we analyzed for the report, 32 had declining flipping numbers, including perennial flipping hot spots like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Southern California and Atlanta. Still, flipping was on the rise in more than two-thirds of the markets, including New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago and several Florida metros.”

Metro areas

RealtyTrac listed the top 15 metro areas nationwide for single-family property flips in the first half of 2013, and Florida cities took over half the spots, with Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach the No. 1 U.S. city for flips.

1. Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach. Average purchase price: $62,826. Gross profit: 82%
3. Palm Coast. Average purchase price: $127,896. Gross profit: 34%
5. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater. Average purchase price: $102,193. Gross profit: 23%
6. Port St. Lucie. Average purchase price: $105,824. Gross profit: 17%
7. Cape Coral-Fort Myers. Average purchase price: $134,644. Gross profit: 17%
8. Jacksonville. Average purchase price: $133,968. Gross profit: 16%
15. Orlando-Kissimmee. Average purchase price: $141,192. Gross profit: 10%

The complete report is posted on RealtyTrac’s website.

© 2013 Florida Realtors®