Characteristic Analysis of Flipped Homes in Upper Arlington, Ohio: Average Square Footage, Duration and Year Built

Abstract

House “flipping” is a trend that has caught the widespread attention of the public in recent years. Research papers and quality articles are currently available to potential house flippers are quite limited. There is very little scholarly research on house flipping. Many of the existing articles on the subject are low-level and not particularly useful (McLaughlin &Jobe, 2018). A study conducted by Depken, Hollans, and Swidler (2009)serves as a foundational model in academic research on information that relates to house flipping, while a corporate replication and expansion later conducted by McLaughlin andJobe(2018) further built upon their model. While both of these studies are very useful, they are difficult for the public to access, and the complexity of the information given makes them difficult for the average potential property investor to use. This paper attempts to rectify some of the current issues in the resources available to both researchers, as well as aspirational home flippers. This work includes an overview of house flipping, providing potential and current property investors with key information about issues of relevance to residential property investing today. This work then transitions to discussing a research study conducted by the authors that explore key characteristics of a home flip and explores property data in a midwestern suburb. This work reaffirms that the average flip property is smaller and older than the average non-flip home, and identifies an average ownership duration given the dataset and predetermined definition of a flip.