House Flipping: Not So Common in Austin, Texas

While a look at reality television might make it seem like house flipping for profit is all the rage, Austin has one of the lowest rates of house flipping in the nation, according to Austin Housing Market Research by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. At only 3.4 percent of home sales, a “booming residential real estate market and extremely low inventory levels” are the causes for the low percentage of home flips, according to an Austin Business Journal article on the research. According to the article, “rising home prices and a stronger labor market have helped push home-flipping numbers to their highest levels in a decade” – in other parts of the country – where, in total, about six percent of all 2016 home sales were home flips. The lack of housing inventory in Austin contributed to the low percentage, as the real estate climate has made it challenging to find underpriced homes that can be rehabbed and then sold for profit.