The professional flipping companies will probably continue to do fine, because they focus on buying and improving the most distressed properties.

“Flip This House” has started doing “flip forward” updates on what happened to their old flippers. Most of them are from far enough back in the boom that they did make money, but the updates finally tell the truth about their profits. In the original episodes, they just took the realtor’s proposed selling price and subtracted the purchase and renovation costs. They didn’t take into account carrying costs, realtor commissions, closing costs, etc. The updates acknowledge these costs when calculating the final results.

A few of the flips flopped. This is sometimes papered over by the flippers, who declare that they “fell in love” with the flip house and decided to keep it to live in themselves. I did see one admit that “the market changed,” so they put it out as a rental. They haven’t shown anyone getting foreclosed, but I doubt someone in that situation would put their face on TV for an update show.