CityLab, January 24, 2020: The House Flippers of Pittsburgh Try a New Tactic
Protecting the access to affordable housing has never been more important in Pittsburgh. Real estate investors are buying these older homes and flipping them. Pittsburgh’s most dramatically gentrified neighborhood, Lawrenceville has transformed from a slope of working-class rowhouses to an artists’ haven for cheap rent to a sea of new condos and hip restaurants. The average home price boomed from $71,000 to $219,000 in ten years, according to Zillow.
In Pittsburgh, almost all code inspections of residential properties are instigated by a complaint. So when homeowners in prime neighborhoods receive building code citations amid a flood of offers, many suspect that cash buyers—an unlicensed and largely unregulated segment of the real estate ecosystem known for their persistence and knowledge of building codes—are behind it.
Neighborhood advocates aren’t so sure: Some think flippers have gone beyond searching for incentives and instigated a few. These investors are hunting for homeowners incentivized to sell quickly, and they want to find them before they’ve listed their homes.
