Real estate investors looking to flip homes are increasingly heading south, according to a new report from Attom Data Solutions.
Specifically, Louisiana offers the biggest return on investment for flippers, 102.5 percent, says the report. Attom senior vice president Daren Blomquist says, "The floods in the Baton Rouge [and Lafayette areas] in 2016 damaged a lot of homes," adding to Realtor.com, "It's a little morbid, but it's an opportunity for home flippers to come in and buy those damaged homes, fix them up and resell them."
That's appealing to flippers who are seeing their profits squeezed by high home prices, which are continuing to soar. Returns are down to their lowest point in nearly four years, falling from a high of 50% in the second quarter of last year to 44.3 percent in the second quarter of this year. (Returns are the difference between the purchase and sale price of a home. They don't take into account the cost of labor and construction materials for the rehab.)