Flipping houses in metro Atlanta and other parts of the country was once the rage. The idea: Buy a fixer-upper on the cheap, make repairs, sell it for a quick profit and move on to the next property.
Some experts argue that the practice helped send the housing market into a tailspin in the late 2000s, a period preceded by easy money from lending institutions to investors and to the buyers who purchased the properties.
Now flipping appears to be taking a back seat to renting. The online real estate marketplace Auction.com said more investors are now acquiring homes to rent rather than flip, especially in Georgia.
In November, 54 percent of investors bidding on properties in Georgia planned to rent out the homes they purchased, compared with 42 percent who planned to flip the property, Auction.com reported. In the South, 57 percent planned to rent, compared to 54 percent nationwide.
The investors locally and elsewhere are finding more profit with rents on the rise, given shortages of available houses for sale and rising home prices.
A report this week from the Atlanta Board of Realtors showed the median price of a home sold in metro Atlanta in November was $207,000, up 15.6 percent over the same month of last year.
“”Higher prices can translate to a faster and potentially more significant short-term return on investment,” Auction.com Executive Vice President Rick Sharga said in releasing the November data.
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