The New Face of House Flipping

Home flippers have their groove back, but this time around most of them are pros who are savvy enough to buy the right properties and turn them over quickly.

Nationally, the number of flipped homes rose 19 percent to 197,784 in 2009, according to RealtyTrac. Flipping has been encouraged by a Federal Housing Authority one-year rule change, which allows FHA borrowers to buy foreclosed homes from owners who have held title for less than 90 days.

Many of the today’s flippers are wealthy foreign investors from countries like Israel, Germany, and Spain. In many cases, they bid without ever seeing the properties, relying on services that checks titles and send drivers to properties to relay photos and descriptions via mobile phone to bidders.

Source: BusinessWeek, Prashant Gopal (03/31/2010)