I believe there are two kinds of flipping. One kind is when you take a dilapidated residence and get a great deal because it doesn’t show well or is uninhabitable. You then fix it up by making actual changes to the house to make it presentable and liveable such as fixing that giant hole in the bathroom floor.
The other kind of “flipping” is really post 2000 day trading. Buffy and Skip quit their job and buy a place that is fine to live in, but has a popcorn ceiling. They fix it up by hiring a contractor to remove the popcorn. They have the contractor also install a granite countertop, new appliances, and carpet. The escrow when they bought the place takes one to two months and the ‘fix up’ takes a couple of months. In that time period, the market is so hot that the value of the place has risen and they make a profit when they sell it. Buffy and Skip think they are geniuses, when all they really did was hold a rapidly appreciating asset for a few months in a hot market.
Eventually, the market will take care of amateur flippers the same way it took care of daytraders. No need for laws or regulations.
I wonder what the next get rich scheme will be? Maybe commodities will come back into fashion, but I doubt it. The difference between housing and commodities (or stock) is that you actually have to have money to enter that market, not like housing. Maybe the next get rich scheme won’t be about getting rich, but be about getting food.
