ATTOM: Home Flipping Activity Dips, but Profits Up in Q2

(Image courtesy of ATTOM; Breakout image courtesy of Ksenia Chernaya/pexels.com)

ATTOM, Irvine, Calif., released its second-quarter 2024 U.S. Home Flipping Report, finding that 79,540 single-family homes and condos were flipped in the quarter.

That represents 7.5% of all home sales nationwide through the quarter, down from 8.7% of all sales in the first quarter. It’s also a little below the year-over-year level of 7.9%.

However, while slightly fewer houses were flipped, the money that could be made from doing so continued to tick up. Investors typically earned a 30.4% profit nationwide before expenses on homes sold during the period.

Return on investment was up slightly from Q1 and from the low point of about 25% hit in Q1 2023.

However, the typical profit margin on homes flipped during the second quarter is still about 25 percentage points below peaks hit in 2016.

Gross profits were at about $73,500, down from the high of about $81,000 hit in 2022, but up from $70,000 in Q1 2024.

“The spring home-buying season of 2024 brought another sign of hope for home flippers that the rebound in fortunes that began for them last year was more than just a temporary thing,” said Rob Barber, CEO for ATTOM. “It’s not as if profits have shot through the roof and investors are riding a new wave of good times. Far from it, as they continue to struggle to benefit from the broader market boom. But the second-quarter numbers did show another step in the right direction.”

Sixty-three percent of all homes flipped in Q2 had been purchased by investors with cash–fairly flat from 62.6% in Q1 2024. That metric stood at 60.4% in Q2 2023.

The average time to flip nationwide increased from 164 days in Q1 to 166 days. However, that’s down from the average of 178 days hit in Q2 2023.