ATTOM’s home flipping report is the figure most people reach for when they ask whether flipping still pays. For the first quarter of 2026 it puts the typical gross profit at $66,000, up from $64,300 the quarter before.
That number is real. It is also not what lands in your account.
What does ATTOM’s $66,000 measure?
Gross flipping profit is the resale price minus the original purchase price. Nothing else comes out of it. No rehab, no loan, no agent commission.
The same report puts the typical profit margin at 25.4 percent in the first quarter of 2026, up from 24.7 percent the previous quarter and down from 29.6 percent a year earlier. That margin is the gross profit measured against the purchase price.
Those two figures together describe the shape of the typical deal. A $66,000 spread at a 25.4 percent margin means a house bought near $260,000 and sold near $326,000. Everything that happened between those two dates is missing from the headline.
What does the gross figure leave out?
Put the same purchase and resale into a flip calculator and add the costs a real project carries. This example assumes a $15,000 rehab, closing costs at 2 percent of the price, $900 a month in holding costs over six months, selling costs at 8 percent, and a loan covering the purchase and the rehab at 10 percent with 2 points, with 15 percent down.
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| Resale price | $326,000 |
| Purchase price | −$260,000 |
| Rehab budget | −$15,000 |
| Closing costs to buy (2%) | −$5,200 |
| Holding costs ($900 a month for 6 months) | −$5,400 |
| Loan points and interest | −$16,520 |
| Selling costs (8%) | −$26,080 |
| What the flip leaves | −$2,200 |
These are example figures, not a forecast for any market.
The $66,000 spread is intact. It just has seven other bills standing in front of it. Two of them are larger than most first-time flippers expect:
- Selling costs, $26,080. Agent commissions, transfer taxes and seller concessions are charged on the resale price, so they grow with the very number you worked to raise.
- The loan, $16,520. Points are charged up front on the whole loan, and interest runs every month you own the house. Neither shows up in a gross profit figure.
Holding costs are the quiet one. Taxes, insurance, utilities and loan servicing keep running whether the crew shows up or not. Six months at $900 is $5,400, and the meter does not stop for a slow permit office. There is more on that in how long it takes to flip a house.
How much rehab can a $66,000 spread carry?
Not much, which is the real finding here. Hold the purchase, the resale and the loan steady and move only the rehab budget:
| Rehab budget | What the flip leaves | Return on the cash in | |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 | +$13,850 | 21.3% | |
| $10,000 | +$3,150 | 4.8% | |
| $15,000 | −$2,200 | −3.3% | |
| $25,000 | −$12,900 | −19.3% | |
| $40,000 | −$28,950 | −42.7% |
This deal breaks even at a rehab of roughly $12,900. Above that it loses money. A $66,000 spread on a $260,000 house pays for paint, carpet, a cleanup and the costs of the transaction, and then it is gone. It does not pay for a kitchen.
That is the gap between the headline and the job. The flips producing ATTOM’s typical numbers are not the gut renovations people picture. A deal with a real scope of work needs a much wider spread than the typical one to survive.
Is flipping getting harder?
Two things moved in opposite directions, so it depends which you watch.
Returns fell hard and then steadied. Across all of 2025, ATTOM counted 297,045 flips nationwide, with a typical gross profit of $65,981 and a 25.5 percent return on investment, which the report calls the lowest rate recorded since 2008, down from 32.1 percent the prior year. The first quarter of 2026 came in at 25.4 percent, so the slide stopped roughly where it landed.
Activity went the other way. Flips were 7.4 percent of all home sales in 2025 and 8 percent of sales from January through March 2026, up from 7.2 percent the previous quarter, though still down from 8.2 percent a year earlier. More people are flipping into thinner spreads.
One detail in the Q1 2026 report is worth keeping: homes originally bought between $100,000 and $200,000 produced typical profit margins of 32 percent, well above the 25.4 percent average. Cheaper houses carry smaller selling costs and smaller loans, so the same work keeps more of its spread.
What should you check before taking a flip on?
Start from the resale price and work down, not from the purchase price and work up. The offer is an output.
- Set the resale price from sold comps, not asking prices. Everything else in the deal is measured against it. How to calculate ARV walks through picking the comps.
- Price the scope of work before you name a number. The table above is what a wrong rehab estimate does to a typical spread.
- Count the loan and the sale. Points, interest, commissions and transfer taxes are most of the difference between a gross figure and a real one. What it costs to flip a house lists them line by line.
- Run the 70% rule as a sanity check. It sets a ceiling on the offer from the resale price and the rehab. The 70% rule, worked through shows where it is generous and where it is tight.
Then put your own purchase price, rehab budget and months into the fix and flip calculator and see what the spread has left after every cost. If the answer only works at a rehab budget you have not priced yet, the deal is not ready for an offer.