DC ZIP Codes where house flipping is hot

WASHINGTON — House flipping reached a 10-year high last year, and the profits flipping sellers made reached a record in 2016.

Real estate data firm ATTOM Data Solutions says the number of flipped properties, or those sold twice within a 12-month period, was up 3.1 percent from 2015, and flipped properties accounted for 5.7 percent of all sales last year.

Both D.C. and Baltimore make a list of 11 metro areas where the average profit made by a flipper was at least $100,000. Flippers in Baltimore, on average, nearly doubled their money last year, with an average return on investment of 96.6 percent.

Nationwide, there were 39 ZIP codes where at least one in five home sales was a flip last year, including ZIP code 20019 in D.C., which covers the Deanwood neighborhood in Southeast D.C.

Other hot neighborhoods in Washington for flipping last year:

  • ZIP code 20032, which includes Joint Base Anacostia Bolling;
  • 20001, in Northwest D.C.’s 16th Street Heights;
  • 20018, in Northeast D.C.’s Brentwood Neighborhood;
  • 20020, which includes Southeast D.C.’s Woodland neighborhood;
  • 20017, in Northeast D.C.’s Catholic University neighborhood.

Flips accounted for at least 10 percent of all sales in those ZIP codes last year.

Other Washington neighborhoods with a high number of flips last year include NoMa, Capitol Hill, Capitol Riverfront, Bloomingdale, Le Droit Park, Cathedral Heights, Spring Valley and Tenleytown.

The best returns nationwide for flippers in 2016 were in Pittsburgh; Cleveland; Philadelphia; Toledo, Ohio; and New Orleans where investors, on average, more than doubled their money.

Jeff Clabaugh

Jeff Clabaugh has spent 20 years covering the Washington region's economy and financial markets for WTOP as part of a partnership with the Washington Business Journal, and officially joined the WTOP newsroom staff in January 2016.

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