House flipping hits 10-year high

House flipping reached a 10-year high last year, as record home prices fueled investor interest.

During the year, 193,009 homes were flipped, the most since 276,067 homes in 2006 during the height of the housing boom, according to Attom Data Solutions. The real-estate information service defines “flipped” as a home bought and sold within 12 months.

Flipped homes accounted for 5.7 percent of U.S. home sales last year, up slightly from the previous year but well below the peak of 8.2 percent in 2005.

“Home flipping was hot in 2016,” said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at Attom.

In the Columbus area, flippers sold 1,600 homes last year, up 14.6 percent from the previous year but far below the 2,077 homes in 2006. Flipped homes accounted for 5.3 percent of Columbus-area sales last year.

According to Attom, the median home flipped in Columbus last year was 1,346 square feet, was built in 1974, cost $84,050 and sold for $135,000 in a process taking 173 days from purchase to sale.

Nationally, flipped homes sold for a median price of $189,900, the highest that Attom has recorded since it started tracking the data in 2000. Also a record high: the $62,624 difference between purchase and sale price.

In a handful of cities, including two in Ohio, flippers sold their homes for more than twice what they paid for them. In Pittsburgh, flipped homes sold for 130 percent above the purchase price, followed by Cleveland (116.2 percent); Philadelphia (107.1 percent) and Toledo (102 percent).

In Columbus, flipped homes sold for 60.6 percent above the purchase price. The Attom study does not include how much money flippers paid to renovate the homes.

Flipped homes played the largest role in Nevada, where 8.6 percent of sales were flips, and the smallest in Connecticut, where 2.5 percent of sales were flips.