House flipping now at a 10-year low as buying and renovation costs soar

Gone are the days of buyers purchasing a property, doing it up and putting it back on the market for a profit, according to new research from Hamptons.

Why is flipping becoming less popular?

This, says Hamptons, is partly the result of successive rises to stamp duty tax over the last decade, which have eaten into the returns of flipping a property.

But as well as changes to stamp duty, higher construction costs after the pandemic and invasion of Ukraine have also contributed to the trend, with materials like timber and steel rising by almost 80 per cent in 2021, according to RICS.

“The surcharge was not primarily intended to penalise ‘house flipping’; its primary aim was to support first time buyers,” explains Aneisha Beveridge, Head of Research at Hamptons.

“But stamp duty is only part of the challenge.

Falling house prices across many Southern markets have squeezed returns further, while the cost of materials and labour have risen sharply since the pandemic.

“Even before factoring in stamp duty, refurbishment budgets now stretch much further than they once did, pushing profit margins to their thinnest levels in over a decade.”
Flipping is less profitable than it once was
In London, flipping profits have reduced by 64.5 per cent since 2015, with the average gross profit falling from £100,570 to just £35,720 in 2025.

This drop has become steeper in recent years, with gross profits falling by 45.8 per cent year-on-year, down from £65,950 in 2024.

This is one of the biggest reductions in the country, where profits have fallen by an average of 55.1 per cent (-25.3 per cent year-on-year).

Only the South West and South East have seen bigger drops, at -80.3 per cent and -78.4 per cent respectively.

In the South West, which had the sharpest fall in profitability, stamp duty had absorbed 71 per cent of the average gross profit in the region by 2025, leaving limited scope for investors to generate meaningful returns.

Cheaper properties, the data shows, tend to be more profitable.

In 2025, 88.8 per cent of flipped properties were bought for less than £350,000.

Stamp duty bills average around £6,000 per flipped property in the region, meaning that the tax accounts for just 26 per cent of average gross profit, compared to 45.6 per cent and £30,000 in London.

Where are most flips happening in London?

Since 2015, the percentage of flipped properties has fallen in every London borough except the City of London, where it has remained the same at 0 per cent.

The proportion of flipped properties has fallen most in Waltham Forest , which was something of a flipping hotspot in 2015 and 2016, when 4.8 and 5.9 per cent of all properties were sold within 12 months.

In 2025, by contrast, this number had fallen to just one per cent.

This is followed by Newham, Haringey, Brent and Croydon, which also had above-average numbers of flips in 2015 and 2016.

Now, the percentage of flipped properties in these boroughs hovers just over one per cent, with 1.5 per cent in Croydon.

Some of the capital’s most expensive areas, like Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, have also seen the number of flipped properties drop.

In Westminster, 3.3 per cent of all property transactions in 2016 were flips, down to 0.4 per cent in 2025.

In Kensington and Chelsea, likewise, the percentage of flipped properties fell from three per cent in 2015 to one per cent in 2025.

Recently, these boroughs have also seen house prices tumble .

In contrast, areas where the number of flips has consistently been lower have seen smaller reductions.

The City of London, for example, had no properties bought and sold within a 12-month period in 2015, and this remained the same in 2025.

Hammersmith and Fulham, Havering, Islington and Hillingdon also saw smaller numbers of flips in 2015 — between 1.1 and 1.6 per cent — and the proportion in 2025 remained low: between 0.1 per cent in Islington and 1.1 per cent in Hammersmith and Fulham.

In 2025, The City of London saw the smallest percentage of flips, at 0 per cent, followed by Islington (0.1 per cent), Tower Hamlets (0.3 per cent), Westminster (0.4 per cent) and Richmond-upon-Thames (0.4 per cent).

She adds: “Unless a flip is supported by strong underlying house price growth, turning a profit is becoming increasingly difficult.

That said, investing in relatively cheaper property in an area where house price growth is strong can still yield solid returns.”