In the first quarter of 2025, flipped properties (homes bought and re-sold within a year) accounted for 2.3% of all transactions across England and Wales, the lowest proportion since Q1 2013, according to a new report by Hamptons.

In number terms, there were 7,301 flipped homes sold across England and Wales in Q1 2025, with numbers now running 27% below the 10-year average of 10,000 per quarter. The average gross profit earned on a flipped property in England and Wales was £22,000 in the first quarter of this year. While this figure has risen by £6,000 compared to properties sold last year, slower house price growth and the shift towards flipping cheaper homes have meant that gross profits have almost halved since they last peaked at £38,000 in 2022 and remain lower than they were a decade ago.

In percentage terms, the average gross profit made by an investor who flips a home has declined from 17% in Q1 2015 to 10% in Q1 2025, primarily due to weaker house price growth.

Stamp duty is increasingly one of the largest individual costs when flipping a home, and this is eating into investors’ returns, according to Hamptons, which added that in 2015, an investment property could be purchased at the same SDLT rate as a home bought by an owner-occupier, and in Q1 2015, the average SDLT bill paid by an investor was only £1,900.

Since then, stamp duty bills, as a consequence of changes to SDLT legislation, on flipped homes have risen by an average of 236%, reaching £6,375 on the initial purchase of those sold in Q1 2025. This increase meant that investors who sold in Q1 2025 saw an average (median) 21% of their gross profit go towards paying stamp duty. This is more than double the proportion in 2015 (9%).