Top 10 Affordable Metros With the ‘Flip Factor’—Where You’ll Likely Score More for Your Fixer-Upper

Flipping fixer-uppers no longer delivers the impressive returns seen at the height of the pandemic—but a handful of affordable metros still stand out for offering sellers the promise of solid profit margins. 

The good news for house flippers is that renovated homes still attract more attention from would-be buyers online and spend less time on the market than nonupdated older homes, but this advantage has shrunk since 2021 as mortgage interest rates have climbed. 

Earlier this fall, the typical flipped house in the U.S. was bought for roughly half the market median (51.4%) and still priced about 12% below market median post-remodeling, according to the latest report on flipped homes from Realtor.com® released Thursday.

For example, in October, when the national median listing price registered at $424,000, a typical fixer-upper would cost a buyer about $216,000. After an overhaul, that home would likely sell for about $373,000.   

To see how homes perform on the market once they have been rehabilitated, researchers at Realtor.com analyzed properties 20 years old or older that had been purchased within the last two years and then relisted in October at a premium of at least 20% compared with their last sale price. Experts then used an AI tool to read the listing descriptions and confirm that recent renovations took place. Finally, the properties that were identified as flipped fixer-uppers were tagged and placed back alongside the pool of older homes for sale.

"Flipped homes in 2025 tend to ultimately sell at an 8.3% discount from their initial post-renovation listing price, a sign of demand softness and the tendency for sellers to overprice, especially compared to 2021," says Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner.

Affordable markets with standout 'flip factors'

The study shows that while remodeling a dilapidated house for resale would not net a profit exceeding the median nationally, there are 10 metros where house flippers can still cash in.

To identify those enclaves, researchers developed a metric they call the "flip factor," which is a measure of how much improvement in listing price a typical flip generates.

The national "flip factor" is about 36 percentage points, indicating how much the typical fixer-upper home moves up the market after being refurbished.

The top performing metros, however, all have a "flip factor" over 41 percentage points, meaning potentially higher profits for sellers.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Pittsburgh—the nation's most affordable housing market—tops the list with a standout "flip factor" exceeding 58 percentage points.

The typical fixer-upper in Steel City was bought for 48% of the metro's median price and relisted in October with a price tag 6% above the median. 

Using that formula, a flipper purchasing the typical fixer-upper in Pittsburgh in October would pay just $120,000, or less than half the metro's median for the month, make updates, and then relist the home for $265,000, or $15,000 above the median.  

Cleveland—another budget-friendly major housing market—boasts the second-highest "flip factor" of 46 percentage points. 

According to data analysis, the typical home in need of TLC was bought in Cleveland for roughly 46% of the city’s median list price and later relisted at approximately 92% of the median, which in October stood at $259,900.

Buffalo, NY, ranks third with a "flip factor" of 45.5 percentage points, followed by Cape Coral, FL, with 45.3 percentage points, and Birmingham, AL, rounding out the top five with 44.9 percentage points. 

Notably, in Cape Coral the median fixer-upper was relisted after a renovation at more than 5% above the metro’s median. 

Occupying the eighth spot on the list of the nation’s moderately priced housing markets with the biggest "flip factors," Chicago stands out for being the largest metro in the ranking. 

In Illinois' biggest metro by population, the median post-upgrade price jump was 42.2 percentage points, with the typical property listed at roughly 88% of the median list price, which reached nearly $365,000 in October. 

Higher returns on investment

It's important to note that Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Cleveland were among the top 10 "refuge markets" recently highlighted by Realtor.com—cost-effective destinations that posted some of the year’s strongest price gains thanks, in part, to an influx of buyers from higher-priced areas. 

"The main thing these metros have in common is affordability," says Berner. "The cost of renovating a home is basically fixed, meaning that it doesn't vary from market to market as much as the values of the homes do. Consequently, the value-add from renovating the home is basically fixed as well."

So if a flipper can start at a lower price point before investing in updates, they can add more value in terms of percentage of the median listing price in a given market.

"Roughly, putting $100,000 into renovating a $200,000 home is a better return on investment than doing the same to a $500,000 home," clarifies Berner.

Beyond affordability, these 10 metros tend to have an older housing stock. As a result, new updates stand out more compared with competing for-sale homes that have not been spiffed up.

House flippers facing challenges

However, Berner points out that while flipped fixer-uppers attract more views from online home shoppers than their unrenovated counterparts, they still face the headwinds of today's housing market. In fact, recent data shows that updated properties sold this year at a significantly larger discount compared with their asking prices than older homes that had not been upgraded, at 8.33% versus 2.9%

"Sellers of renovated homes are making the same mistake that many sellers, in general, are making in 2025: listing their home for too high of a price and having to reduce it down to a point at which it will sell," says Berner.

At the height of the pandemic in July 2021, around the time when mortgage rates were at record lows, the situation was much different: The median flipped home sold for a discount of less than 1%, while a comparable older home that was not refurbished sold at a 0.4% discount.

"Again, we see the performance of flipped homes struggling in a higher mortgage rate environment where buyers must finance the costs of the improvements to the home," says Berner.