Atlanta still high in home-flipping

Arizona 1,737

Georgia 1,420

Tennessee 1,307

Colorado 1,248

Ohio 1,107

Michigan 1,015

Washington 1,015

North Carolina 1,013

Source: RealtyTrac

A flip is defined as a transaction involving a home that was sold within the past 12 months.

Metro Atlanta continues to be a top U.S. market for house-flipping, according to a new report, as the past few years of rebounding prices created opportunities for quick profit.

Among top metro areas, Atlanta had the third-highest number of homes flipped during the second quarter, according to RealtyTrac, a California-based real estate research firm.

“Atlanta is still a hot spot for flippers,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at RealtyTrac. “But the share of homes being flipped is coming down.”

RealtyTrac counts as a flip any sale of a home “where a previous sale on the same property had occurred within the last 12 months.”

Flippers are now seeing fewer opportunities for a fast turnaround, since the improved economy and a stronger housing market means less “distressed inventory.”

During the housing bust, hundreds of thousands of homes in metro Atlanta hit the market after foreclosures or through “short sales,” in which a lender agrees to let a homeowner pay off his or her mortgage with whatever price the house could bring.

Such sales crushed average prices. But after the crisis passed prices rebounded sharply, creating new opportunities for flippers. Lately price growth has slowed, trimming the potential profit of short-time investors.

Roughly 5.5 percent of metro sales in the second quarter were flips. That is well below the peak of 16.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006, he said.

“This is a good sign that the housing market is moving in the direction of a sustainable recovery rather than repeating the irrational exuberance that lead to the last housing bubble,” Blomquist said.

Statewide, 5.3 percent of home sales in the past quarter were flips, according to RealtyTrac. More than 40 percent of the sale price of an average Georgia flip was profit:$53,201. That is less than the national average, but it is a better-than-average return on investment.