Investors saw record prices but thinnest home‑flipping margins since 2008
Home flippers ended 2025 with far less cushion than during the pandemic boom. Rising acquisition costs and stubbornly high prices pushed gross returns on US flips back toward Great Recession levels, according to ATTOM’s year‑end U.S. Home Flipping Report.
Flipped properties made up 7.4% of all home sales, with 297,045 single‑family homes and condos resold within 12 months of purchase. That's the lowest annual volume since 2020.
The typical flipped home generated a gross profit of $65,981, ATTOM found. That was based on a median purchase price of $259,019 and a resale price of $325,000.
On paper, that worked out to a 25.5% gross return on investment (ROI), down from 32.1% in 2024 and the weakest showing since 2008.
Those figures excluded rehab, financing and carrying costs. Seasoned investors often estimated those at 20–33% of a property’s after‑repair value, meaning true net returns were likely much slimmer than the headline ROI suggested.
“Competition for homes remains strong in many markets due to constrained supply,” said Rob Barber, CEO of ATTOM.
“With prices staying elevated, investors are finding it harder to secure deals that deliver strong returns.”
Shifts in where and how flips got done
Home‑flipping’s share of sales fell year‑over‑year in about two‑thirds of the 215 metros ATTOM tracked.
Salisbury, Maryland, Tallahassee, Florida, Lafayette and Evansville, Indiana, and Warner Robins, Georgia, posted the steepest declines in flip rates.
By contrast, Binghamton, New York, Boulder and Greeley, Colorado, Lexington, Kentucky, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, saw the biggest increases.
“Flippers are having to get more creative to maintain profitability,” Barber said.
“That could include taking on older homes, as the median flipped property in 2025 was built in 1978, the oldest since we began tracking, along with tighter cost control and more disciplined renovation strategies.”
More than a third (37.7%) of 2025 flips were acquired with financing, up from 36.9% in 2024.
San Diego, California, Lincoln, Nebraska, Des Moines, Iowa, Seattle, Washington, and Manchester, New Hampshire, posted the highest shares of financed flips, while markets such as St. Cloud, Minnesota, and Utica, New York, remained overwhelmingly cash‑driven.
Margins compressed even where volume held up
Profit margins fell in 70% of the metros analyzed, with some eye‑catching swings.
Ocala, Florida, for example, saw typical gross ROI drop from a reported 492.5% in 2024 to 124.1% in 2025.
Similar double‑digit drops appeared in Salisbury, Spartanburg, South Carolina, Erie, Pennsylvania, and Little Rock, Arkansas.
Among larger metros with at least 1 million residents, Louisville, Oklahoma City, Rochester, Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati recorded some of the sharpest annual margin declines.
Nationally, flips still sold relatively quickly: the average project took 163 days from purchase to resale, only one day longer than 2024 and nearly two weeks faster than in 2020.
FHA‑backed buyers took a modestly larger slice of flipped inventory, accounting for 11.3% of flipped purchases, up from 10.7% the year before, with Yuma, Arizona, and several Southern and California markets leading that segment.
In Georgia, counties including Cobb, Clayton, Houston, Rockdale and Bibb all saw flips representing roughly 16–20% of local sales, underscoring how concentrated investor activity had become even as national volumes dipped.
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