Daren Blomquist
Home flippers are playing a role in South Florida’s real estate comeback, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
Buyers are picking up distressed homes at big discounts, sprucing them up and selling them off within two years. They’re getting credit for helping the market to recover after the 2008 crash, the paper said, by improving homes – landscaping and upgrading the interior with new floors and appliances.
“When I put a house back up for sale, it usually goes very quickly,” Bruno Duarte, a 34-year-old former stock broker, told the Sentinel.
The tri-county region is the most profitable in the U.S. for flipping homes, a recent report by Irvine, Calif.-based Realty Trac said. Flippers earned an average 37 percent in gross profit, the report said.
Flippers often pay cash for run-down properties, RealtyTrac’s Daren Blomquist told the Sentinel.
“There will always be some bad players, but overall, flippers seem like they’re filling a necessary gap in the market,” he said. [Sun-Sentinel] –Emily Schmall