DETROIT FREE PRESSLocal housing market blooms for buyers and sellersThe practice of flipping has been popularized by a variety of reality TV shows.RealyTrac compiles data from a variety of sources, including records from tax assessors, mortgage deeds, foreclosures and auctions.The average flip was up from $65,290 in the previous quarter, and up from $61,684 in the first quarter of 2014.More than half of the homes flipped sold for between $100,000 and $300,000.In a ranking by percent return, an average of gross profit of the home price, metro Detroit was fifth with 58.3%, it followed Baltimore, with 94.1%; Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, Fla., with 74.7%; Ocala, Fla., with 73.9% and Lakeland, Fla., with 62.5%.Other markets in the top 20 included Tampa, Pittsburgh, Memphis, Chicago, Seattle, New York, Washington, and Boston."

Real Estate is not a get rich quick thing as portrayed on TV, unless you get lucky, you build up that wealth as you expand. you can make decent money on flips but you can also lose money on flips if they are not figured right.

Jon, I would like to invite you personally to visit our country, you would be surprised how different it is from what you see and read in papers and TV!

TV software, servicing companies, First Nat Acceptance, Marc Gold has a new service that will handle all aspects including tax monitoring, title curative, foreclosure etc.  

Budget and Highend with plasma tv's, wine collers you name it.

There are times I easily put in 60 hrs a week and then there are times it is more like 10 hrs a week.Haven't heard of to many real investors that get to sit by the phone and watch TV all day and can say they make a living at real estate.

So I'm embarrassed to say this, but this morning I turned on the tv to watch sportscenter and abc was on.

We have several professional sports teams you can watch on TV, a metro area population over 1 million, and after all we are the state capitol with a lot of political power and control in running things for the state.If you're from the Bay, you can come visit the downtown / midtown area of Sacramento and almost feel right at home.

The houses sell cheap so newbies buy to fix and flip like they see on TV and over improve (which isn’t hard to do) and then can’t sell for enough to get their money out.  

It's for torture for them...one episode of the TV show hoarders illustrates that all too well.