ATTOM Data Solutions’ newly released 2020 Year-End U.S. Home Flipping Report revealed that both home flipping sales and home flipping profit margins declined across the U.S. in 2020, with just 241,630 single family homes and condos flipped. That number was down 13.1 percent from 2019 to the lowest point since 2016.

According to ATTOM’s latest home flipping analysis, the number of homes flipped in 2020 represented 5.9 percent of all home sales in the nation during the year. That rate was down from 6.3 percent in 2019 to the same percentage seen in 2018. Those declines marked the first time since 2014 that both the number of homes flipped and flips as a percent of all home sales decreased annually.

The year-end analysis also showed that while home flipping activity declined, gross profits and profit margins shifted in opposite directions, with profits rising in 2020 but profit margins dipping, marking the third straight year of declining ROIs.

ATTOM’s new home flipping report noted that flips in 2020 typically generated a gross profit of $66,300 nationwide, up 6.6 percent from $62,188 in 2019 to the highest point since at least 2005. That profit of $66,300 translated into just a 40.5 percent ROI compared to the original acquisition price, down from 41.5 percent in 2019 and from 46.4 percent in 2018. The report also noted the 2020 ROI was off more than 10 percentage points from peaks over the past decade in 2016 and 2017, standing at the lowest point since 2011.