MIAMI–Stop (and worry) if you’ve seen this before: house flipping is back.
In what CNBC reported as a sign that house prices are near a peak, the practice of flipping houses has returned in two markets where flipping was widely practiced in the run-up to the housing crash—Miami and Las Vegas.
CNBC called the two markets the “poster children for the flip trade during the last housing boom,” adding, “they both paid dearly for it.” In this case house flipping is being defined as buying and selling a home within the same calendar year.
One difference today from the pre-crash days is that there is not significant housing inventory, noted CNBC, which reported that in the last housing bubble flipping made up 8.6% of all home sales nationally, according to data from Trulia. That share is now down to about 5% and holding steady, Trulia said, except in Las Vegas, where house flips are making up 10.4% of home sales, and Miami, where condominium construction is surging again and flipping activity has increased to 6.4% of sales from 4.7%, CNBC said.
The market with the smallest share of flips: Detroit.