Foreclosures draw professional 'flippers'

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- In a sign of the times, more professional investors are looking for easy profits by buying and "flipping" foreclosed homes, the Los Angeles Times said.

Private equity groups and groups of wealthy individuals are buying properties at public auctions on courthouse steps at distressed prices, fixing them up and quickly reselling the refurbished property.

The firm ForeclosureRadar said 4,336 Southern California homes were sold at foreclosure auctions in April, compared to 884 in January 2009. And the buyers are no longer real estate amateurs using their savings or a home equity line of credit to buy a house for a quick flip.

"Right now, there's a huge opportunity with flipping houses," Rick Hudson, president of Prosperity Group Real Estate in Irvine, Calif., told the newspaper.

Home sales in the six-county Southern California region increased 7.2 percent in June and were up 2.6 percent from June 2009, MD DataQuick said, but sales fell in July after federal tax credits for first-time home buyers expired. The region's median home price was $295,000, down 1.7 percent from June.