patrick.net

Seaside, we rather liked the area. There are two shopping centers within walking distance with grocery stores and restaurants and a bus that can take you to the metro in 20 minutes. (Granted, you can hear the bus brakes!) It's 10 minutes away from route 495. Not the greatest location in the world, of course, when it comes to real estate my motto is: compromise, compromise, compromise!

Bap33 says

the REwhore flippers are the ones that pushed for the removal of the time between sales that FHA used to want to see. They got their wish, so now they can flip to FHA buyers.

Sounds good and plays to the typical emotions vented on this site, i.e. "we hate all agents, etc." The real reason for changing FHA rules is that HUD (FHA) has an incredible amount of foreclosed homes in their inventory, a fact that for some reason isn't getting much play in the mainstream media. Buying a HUD home in the past has been a very cumbersome process which has driven most savvy investors away. HUD has made some half hearted moves to correct this perception and this is one of them. If you are an investor, you don't need HUD, they need YOU. Dealing with bank owned properties (provided you have cash) is far better than HUD. The real estate market will not recover until the millions of foreclosed properties are off the books. Contrary to the emotions on this site, investors are not the enemy and neither are their agents.

OnTheFence says

So the question I have for this board is the flipper bought at $280K and is listing at $424K, a 51% profit on his investment.
The guy has put in:
New appliances
New hardwood
New Carpet
Granite Counter tops
New Paint
I’m going to guess (PLEASE correct me) that they put $35,000 into the home to satisfy all the upgrades and work done.
Total commitment: $315K, listed at $424K, profit of 34%.

The profit an investor makes is either supported by the market or it isn't. True market value is defined by a seller able to sell and a willing and able buyer agreeing to buy. If the buyer is satisfied with the purchase price, it shouldn’t matter to anyone the amount of profit the seller makes. Keep in mind that along with the time, money invested, etc. there is a great deal of risk involved for the investor. During the renovation, these homes are vacant and are susceptible to vandalism, etc. During the investor’s ownership of the property, there are numerous economic situations that might occur that would have a direct impact on the ability to sell (terrorist attack, stock market crash, interest rate increases, etc.).