Flipping will never die

From MarketWatch:

Home flipping rate hits 9-year high — and that could foretell troubles in the housing market

Home-flipping has rebounded by one key measure. But that’s doesn’t make it an easy path toward becoming rich.

Just over 49,000 single-family homes and condos were flipped in the first quarter of 2019, according to a report released this week by real-estate data firm Attom Data Solutions. These homes comprised 7.2% of all home sales nationwide during that time period, representing the highest home-flipping rate since the first quarter of 2010.

But that’s not necessarily a positive indicator of the housing market’s strength, said Todd Teta, Attom’s chief product officer. The number of homes that were flipped was actually down 8% from the previous year to a three-year low. And the number of investors engaging in home flipping has dropped 11% over the past year.

In the first quarter, homes flipped sold for a median price of $215,000. With the median purchase price standing at $155,000, the gross flipping profit was just $60,000, down $8,000 from a year earlier to a three-year low.

“While the home flipping rate is increasing, gross profits and ROI are starting to weaken,” Teta said in the report. “If investors are seeing profit margins drop, they may be acting now and selling before price increases drop even more.”

This entry was posted in Economics, Employment, National Real Estate, New Development. Bookmark the permalink.

34 Responses to Flipping will never die

  1. grim says:

    Given an economy that’s beginning to be defined my multiple-employment, side-gigs, and stagnant wages, why is anyone surprised at this? Add in aging housing stock and fully built neighborhoods, this trend will only continue.

    Isn’t it about time we retire the term flipping? It’s become a pejorative, and perhaps unnecessarily?

    As long as buyers will pay a premium for updated homes, there exists a market arbitrage opportunity that can pay a handsome profit. We’re not talking about rocket science here.

  2. TrueSue says:

    Just flipped a home in Little Silver ….

  3. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    So update on my plumbing issue. Turns out, my homeowners insurance, I did have an endorsement that covers the full replacement and the landscaping to repair.

    Excavator tried tacking on an additional $1300 onto the bill after the fact. I’m not giving it to him.

    Spent the past 5 days moving 9 cubic yards of topsoil onto my lawn by hand. Seeded Saturday, top dressed in compost and peat moss. Not sure what the odds are of establishing a lawn at this time of the year. What a friggin train wreck.

  4. Juice Box says:

    Wayne “rumor” of the day. The sprawling 99 acre campus formerly occupied by GAF and now sitting empty for the better part of this decade will become a large condo development. 1,000 + units.

  5. Juice Box says:

    re: “Excavator tried tacking on an additional $1300”

    Robbery…NJ Style, glad to hear insurance is covering..

    A small backhoe rental would have been is $289 a day, heck an entire week is $867 at Home Depot, with the extra time you could have dug a hole for a pool too.

  6. grim says:

    Wayne “rumor” of the day. The sprawling 99 acre campus formerly occupied by GAF and now sitting empty for the better part of this decade will become a large condo development. 1,000 + units.

    I think that came from me, I love to troll the Wayne anti-development faction with shit like that. I think in one of my messages I said 1,100.

  7. Libturd, seen crazy things done with ping pong balls. says:

    BRT,

    This is the ideal time to grow lawn. Especially since you did the peat moss cover trick which warms the soil even further and keeps the birds from eating the seed. Now the real trick is not to mow the new grass until it reseeds itself. Yeah, your lawn will have a mohawk that will look super stupid. Even if weeds are coming into the gaps where the seed didn’t take or if you missed some spots when spreading it. Don’t mow it. The lawn will eventually thicken and will choke out those weeds. After your first mow, spread down some basic lawn food/fertilizer (no weed killer). In October, before the first freeze, lay down the crabgrasskiller/winterizer fertilizer over the whole lawn. Most people don’t realize it, but that’s the most important fertilizing of the year. I used to run my own landscaping company when I was 12 until I left for college. I have planting grass down to a science. People who lay down sod are suckers.

    It’s really this simple if you follow these rules.
    If you have grubs (white/light brown areas in the spring), you must apply grub killer in the fall. It doesn’t work on the current grubs. It only kills their eggs which are incubating in the winter.
    The October feed is by far the most important and always use crabgrass killer, even if you don’t have any.
    Don’t mow your lawn too early in the spring. Let the initial growth seed (not that the seeds will grow since they don’t properly dry and you are bagging most of them) because it gives your lawn a chance to thicken and turn all the winter droppings (leaves, weeds, thatch etc) turn into much needed nitrogen.
    After your initial spring mow, spray on specratacide (if not planting seed) with the hose (bottle mixes water with concentrate). It’s $7.99 and enough for the second application you’ll apply in 14 days. At start of July, regular rotary spread weed and feed.
    Back to the October Winterizing/crabgrass killer.
    That’s it! Total out of pocket for the average home for the year is about $40. Total time, about an hour in all. With regular watering, you’ll have the thickest greenest lawn in the neighborhood. And if you are not planting grass in shade, always use pure tall fescue. Just make sure you water it daily during June and July. It grows like wildfire in the Spring and Fall even if it’s dry.

    Why people spend $200 a year on the Lawn Doctor is completely beyond me. Sadly, they follow the same regiment I listed above only they mix their fertilizers/weed killers with water since it’s the quickest way to apply it. It literally takes 5 minutes to spray an entire average size yard. It takes longer to wind up the hose.

    Speaking of, if you ever find Goodyear Orange hot water hoses for sale, by them. I can’t find them anymore and they are worth their weight in gold. I’d spend up to $100 on a 50 footer. That’s how well they are made and they are impossible to kink or break.

  8. leftwing says:

    OK, so this is not an investment in any sense of the word but I was bored…

    Took a short on BYND after the 30 up today….

    Did it through a butterfly expiring Friday…very low cost, defined risk play…I break even between $157 and 132….max at a five bagger if she closes Friday at 145.

  9. The Great Pumpkin says:

    The avg individual looks at it as reflected in the first quote, but the person in the second quote is the one that actually gets it… you can’t sit here and tell me that a lower cost area is more desirable over the expensive one. If that is the case, why is it cheaper? Fundamentals of market economics do not lie…

    “This is a poorly written piece. How about a discussion on the difference in cost of living between the south and the north east/west. Of course wages are higher in NYC, LA, Boston and other large cities. You have to spend $300k-500k for a small 600 sq ft apartment when $200k in the south will get you a nice house. A $100k job in South Carolina will definitely be easier to live on than it would in any of the big cities being compared to.”

    “Prices reflect demand, and you get what you pay for. You incorrectly assume life is the same in Manhattan v South Carolina.

    It’s like saying your money goes further in Six Flags than Disneyland – true, but meaningless.”

  10. 30 year realtor says:

    Way too many people and companies trying to renovate and resell homes. Demand for the blank canvass to renovate is soaring. Demand and price on the sale end is slipping. Bad recipe for those who got in late or still trying. Reduced prices on 6 properties today! Only one purchase in last 5 months.

  11. Bruiser says:

    Why would you put down crabgrass killer in the fall? The chemicals in the crabgrass killer stop seeds from germinating…which happens in the spring. The chemical loses effectiveness after 4-6 weeks so it isn’t going to stay in the soil for the spring thaw & sprout.

  12. PumpkinFace says:

    Fundamentals of market economics do not lie…

    You do realize you only use this line when you agree with the outcome? If an outcome exists that you do not like, you refuse to attribute it to market fundamentals… it must be manipulated in some way, but never in the former case.

  13. Blue Ribbon Teacher says:

    I have to reestablish the 1 inch organic layer that I achieved in the soil by top dressing with compost over 5 years.

  14. ExEssex says:

    It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

    Poverty in America, in other words, has become endemic and ubiquitous because its systemic and structural. It’s baked into the system. It’s a feature, not a bug. And most Americans these days, I’d wager, understand this intuitively. Work hard, play by the rules, become something, someone worthy. Be a teacher, engineer, writer, coach, therapist, nurse etcetera. What do you get? You get your pension “raided” (read: stolen) by hedge funds, you get your income decimated by “investment bankers”, you get charged a fortune for the very things you yourself are involved in producing but never earn a fair share of, you get preyed on in every which way the predatory can dream up.
    But it’s a new kind of poverty too — or at least one unseen since the Weimar Republic, really. It’s the poverty of decline, degeneration, decay. It’s the poverty of a middle class becoming a new poor. It’s the reversal of an upwards trajectory — not the failure to launch. It’s people who expected to live better and better lives finding themselves in the grim, unfamiliar predicament of never being able to reach them, no matter what they do. Except maybe sell out and become one of the predators. What happens when that takes place? Something strange, something difficult, something paradoxical and backwards.

    Source:

    https://eand.co/half-of-americans-are-effectively-poor-now-what-the-c944c518db6a

  15. Libturd, still in Union, mainly on Thursdays. says:

    Bruiser. I think you are right. I mixed up the grub treatment (not prevention) with the crabgrass treatment timing. Now that I think about it, I think the Winter fertilizer was mainly to prevent root rot and give an early well rounded feed. Not just nitrogen. Thanks for the correction. I’m getting old.

  16. Libturd, still in Union, mainly on Thursdays. says:

    Left,

    Completely anecdotal, but when I was in ShopRite late last night, much of the premade frozen meat patties products were all gone. There was still a healthy stack of beyond burgers though, and they were $1 off to boot. I’ve had them and they are pretty amazing, except when compared with a burger containing meat. That valuation is completely fukced.

  17. Juice Box says:

    A flipper bought this tiny 2 br home near me for $306,000 in December and has been at it for 6 months now remodeling. They knocked down the garage and built an addition where the garage was and gutted the rest of the home. Home is on 45 mph Middletown/Lincroft road near a busy intersection and will not have a garage. I am not sure but I think they are going to fill in the in-ground pool since they cleared out all the shubs, trees etc. I cannot see a ranch going for all that much around here, back yard is nonexistent as well.

    link.

    https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Middletown-NJ/397836_rid/globalrelevanceex_sort/40.372972,-74.11357,40.371376,-74.115287_rect/18_zm/

  18. Juice Box says:

    Beyond meat – 2 burgers cost $6.99, that is expensive to be green by eliminating cow farts. Who shops like that? Well the same people that buy the stock, rich people.
    Where is the cheap option for the poor? At Walmart you can get like 3 lbs of burgers frozen for $9 bucks, 12 burgers or three meals.

    Beyond meat ship the burgers to the store frozen and then the staff put them out on the meat shelf to defrost with an expiration date of 10 days, seems a bit staged. I wonder what they must be paying in slotting fees to get this stuff near real meat, which it is in some chains but not all. They issues a warning already in the stock offering docs on placement in the meat isle so perhaps $$$. If the burgers are getting discounted already well then it is next a trip to the Tofu Isle where those sickly vegans hang out,then it’s all downhill from there.

  19. Juice Box says:

    Hummif you really need to stretch your budget, Walmart sells 8lbs of burgers for $19.83 or $0.16 / oz.

  20. leftwing says:

    “well then it is next a trip to the Tofu Isle where those sickly vegans hang out,then it’s all downhill from there.” LOL, that’s funny.

    BYND trade was a scratch off lottery ticket…cheap short term fcuk around play that expires Friday. From an investment perspective I’m still of my original opinion, which is stay away until it settles as it is wildly overvalued but everyone is leaning over the short side of the boat so it’s too crowded there.

  21. leftwing says:

    Re: flippers, market is too hot. A lot of easy money flying around financing these guys at credit card type interest rates.

    I saw a couple of those offerings…passed…that is the area I would go if I were to make an investment based on physical housing stock. Didn’t like the way the ones I saw were structured, needed more protections in the loan docs for the investors. Can’t have sh1t tied up in court if Contractor Joe misjudges the market or scope of work.

  22. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    That seems like the perfect new house for Pumps when the Ping Pongers show up across the street. He loves a turnkey highway house.

    A flipper bought this tiny 2 br home near me for $306,000 in December and has been at it for 6 months now remodeling. They knocked down the garage and built an addition where the garage was and gutted the rest of the home. Home is on 45 mph Middletown/Lincroft road near a busy intersection and will not have a garage. I am not sure but I think they are going to fill in the in-ground pool since they cleared out all the shubs, trees etc. I cannot see a ranch going for all that much around here, back yard is nonexistent as well. Oh, wait a minute. I forgot he is askeered of leaving Passaic County.

    link.

    https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Middletown-NJ/397836_rid/globalrelevanceex_sort/40.372972,-74.11357,40.371376,-74.115287_rect/18_zm/

  23. The Great Pumpkin says:

    I hope one day they are able to lock up Norcross and Sweeney. I despise Norcross…

    Again, Murphy is the only politician in N.J. to take on Norcross. No one has had the balls to go after him…not one. Not Christie, not corzine,…. nobody.

    “I have more faith in the governor’s position than the Norcross/Sweeney scheme.

    The Governor feels the law doesn’t go far enough and Norcross and his facilitator Sweeney are doing everything they can to stop the investigation of Norcross probable illegal subsidies (aided & abetted by Sweeney).”

    https://patch.com/new-jersey/wayne/s/gqryj/nj-gov-phil-murphys-first-veto-override?utm_source=alert-breakingnews&utm_medium=email&utm_term=weather&utm_campaign=alert

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  25. Libturd, can't say I didn't warn you. says:

    Murphy deserves everything he has coming to him. He is a liar, a terrible politician and those tooth!

  26. Libturd, seen crazy things done with ping pong balls. says:

    You do know, just like Trump said he would reveal his taxes, Murphy said he would disclose his dark money donors once elected. Fukc him and fukc Trump. Two lying egoists cut from the same cloth.

  27. Libturd, seen crazy things done with ping pong balls. says:

    You do know Murphy’s kids go to private school.

  28. The Great Pumpkin says:

    We need to get Norcross out of here. It gives southern politicians too much power. How much money have we dumped into AC and Camden when that should have been poured into north jersey infrastructure. Get Norcross out of here!

    Finally someone took him on…that’s all I can say.

  29. The Great Pumpkin says:

    How much has he cost taxpayers with healthcare?

    The guy is good at playing the game…

  30. Libturd, seen crazy things done with ping pong balls. says:

    Listen Dorkus Malorkus.

    Norcross is to Sweeney as the NJEA is to Murphy.

    Which relationship got the benefits and pensions oversized?

  31. ExEssex says:

    Education? Not the key anymore….

    Taken with this story line, I embraced education as both a philanthropic cause and a civic mission. I co-founded the League of Education Voters, a nonprofit dedicated to improving public education. I joined Bill Gates, Alice Walton, and Paul Allen in giving more than $1 million each to an effort to pass a ballot measure that established Washington State’s first charter schools. All told, I have devoted countless hours and millions of dollars to the simple idea that if we improved our schools—if we modernized our curricula and our teaching methods, substantially increased school funding, rooted out bad teachers, and opened enough charter schools—American children, especially those in low-income and working-class communities, would start learning again. Graduation rates and wages would increase, poverty and inequality would decrease, and public commitment to democracy would be restored.

    But after decades of organizing and giving, I have come to the uncomfortable conclusion that I was wrong. And I hate being wrong.

    Read: Education reform and the failure to fix inequality in America

    What I’ve realized, decades late, is that educationism is tragically misguided. American workers are struggling in large part because they are underpaid—and they are underpaid because 40 years of trickle-down policies have rigged the economy in favor of wealthy people like me. Americans are more highly educated than ever before, but despite that, and despite nearly record-low unemployment, most American workers—at all levels of educational attainment—have seen little if any wage growth since 2000.

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