Tampa neighborhood house-flipping hotspot

TAMPA — The housing market is improving nationally, making the practice of flipping houses a declining real estate investment strategy.

But don't tell that to house flippers in Tampa. A quarter of all single-family home sales in the city's Town 'N Country area during the last three months of 2014 qualified as flips, earning a spot nationally among the highest share of flips, according to a new report from RealtyTrac.

The 17 homes flipped in Tampa were up 35% from last year, creating an average gross profit of $55,400, or nearly 62% above the original purchase price. Statewide, the return of investment was 42%, just above the national average of 37%.

Flipping — where homes are sold within a year of original purchase — represented just 5.4% of total home sales nationwide, says RealtyTrac vice president Daren Blomquist, its lowest level since 2011. Since most of the “low-hanging fruit” has been wiped away in the last three years, flippers will need to become more selective and creative about the properties and neighborhoods they target.

“In many cases the best neighborhoods for profitable flipping in a slower-appreciating market are those that come with a higher risk because of location and condition of properties,” Blomquist says, in a release. “But (those locations) also have a bigger upside if investors are able to correctly predict the path of progress in the region.

“It appears that most investors completing flips in the fourth quarter were able to do just that.”

Although the share of flips has dropped, he added, the average gross return per flip increased slightly.

Florida flips topped 6,200 in the fourth quarter, representing 9% of total sales, and up 6% from the year before. Flippers statewide grossed $52,000 on average, below the $66,000 profit nationally.