Home flipping — the practice of quickly buying and reselling properties, often from distressed owners — is driving up home prices and reducing affordability in New York City neighborhoods with significant Black populations, according to a new analysis from the Pratt Center for Community Development.
Some 10,000 homes were flipped in the five boroughs from 2021 to 2025, with the highest rates of activity in disproportionately Black sections of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan, according to the community planning group, an affiliate of Brooklyn-based Pratt Institute.
Critics of the practice contend that real estate investors target cost-burdened lower-income and senior owners — sometimes using deceptive practices — and make minimum repairs before quickly selling or “flipping” properties at huge profits for themselves, not the original owner.
“Our latest community-engaged research publication shows that home flipping continues to drive up home prices in neighborhoods of color,” Alexa Kasdan, executive director of Pratt Center for Community Development, said in a statement.
The report lands amid increased attention to affordability issues across New York City. It calls attention to the Pratt Center's earlier research tying home flipping to population declines among Black city residents — and continued need for legislation to stem the practice.
“This contributes to New York City’s record-high housing costs, growing racialized wealth inequality, and loss of Black residents,” the report says. “In a moment of renewed political momentum to tackle the affordability crisis, there is both urgent need and opportunity to enact policies that curb corporate speculation on New York City’s small homes.”
Real estate interests have opposed legislative efforts to clampdown on home flipping, contending quick resales are a legitimate business practice.
The New York State Association of Realtors said in a memorandum to state lawmakers that efforts to discourage quick resales, including by raising transfer taxes on such transactions, were misguided, would drastically curtail investment in aged properties, and would do nothing to boost the supply of affordable housing.
Rates for home flipping were highest in neighborhoods in Central Brooklyn, Southeast Queens, the Northeast Bronx and the North Shore of Staten Island, according to the report. In Jamaica, Queens, as many as 30% of the one- to three-unit properties sold during the studied time period were flipped, compared with 4.3% citywide.
In areas with the highest rates of home flipping, 47% of the population is Black, compared to 20% citywide, and just 10% in areas with the lowest rates of home flipping, according to the report.
And in areas with the highest rates of home flipping, the price of flipped homes was generally higher than non-flipped homes, the analysis found. The median price home flippers paid to buy a property during the time period studied was $470,000, and the median price they resold the property for was $770,000, a 64% markup. Meanwhile, the median price of homes that weren’t flipped in those areas was $660,000.
The report builds on a similar 2024 study by the Pratt Center focused on 2019 to 2023, during which the researchers found 11,688 homes were flipped, primarily in neighborhoods of color and disproportionately in majority-Black neighborhoods.
The researchers also called attention to the End Predatory Home Flipping Act, first introduced in Albany in 2021, which would create an up to 65% tax on one- to three-unit homes that were sold less than two years after they were last purchased.
“Wealthy investors are buying up New Yorkers’ homes, superficially renovating them, and quickly selling them for huge profits,” state Sen. Julia Salazar, a democratic socialist who sponsors the bill, said in a statement.
“This is a toxic practice that is driving up the cost of homes and rent, particularly in neighborhoods of color like East New York and Cypress Hills,” Salazar said. “Everyday New Yorkers cannot compete with corporate investors.”
