Some people look at our red brick and see green.
A new report from Realtor.com shows St. Louis is one of the top markets for house flipping in the entire country.
Our status is based on investment home sales in the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, and St. Louis earned the number one slot with 18.8 percent of sales in the area being investment property sales. Coming in second place was Birmingham, Alabama (17.3 percent) and third was Miami, Florida (17 percent).
So then where are all of these newly rehabbed, bright, beautiful, subway-tiled homes? As Realtor.com points out, these sales are not all just HGTV-worthy “flipped” homes. Many of these property sales come from out-of-state investors looking to buy cheap buildings, bring them up to code and then use them as rental properties.
“Landlords tend to look for lower-end properties in the northern part of St. Louis County,” the report states. “Particularly Ferguson, Missouri; known for the 2014 riots; Hazelwood, Missouri; and Glasgow Village, Missouri.”
The report quotes an expert who says that future landlords look to buy a move-in ready, single-family rental for around $30,000 and then lease it out to Section 8 tenants for around $800 a month.
The reports makes it seem like St. Louis is actually the best place for potential slumlords to go property shopping, not the number one place for Ty Pennington to rehab a man cave with a nautical theme. Bummer.
To find out more about the methods used to determine this ranking or to find out more about other cities that made the list, see the report at Realtor.com.
Email the author at [email protected]
