I don't know much about property flipping, but it doesn't seem to me that this market is exactly conducive to the practice.  With all of the inventory available, how can the flippers expect to immediately sell the property at a profit?

For at least the past few years, institutional leders have been wary of the practice and they have taken steps to find out if property has changed hands within a 24-month period.  If it has, I suppose they take a good look at the appraisal.  I believe new appraisal rules also went into effect for Fannie and Freddie loans just yesterday which break the ties between the broker and the appraiser.  Seems to me, that will make the flip even more difficult.

If you are looking for investors to provide hard money for these transactions in the short term, I would be interested to know what kind of luck you are having. 

I have received a few inquiries from people purporting to  be in a pool of property investors.  They claim to be working with hard money lenders (like you?) in the short term and are in the business of reselling the properties.  One sent an inquiry within the past couple of days.  The wording of the inquiry led me to believe they were looking for a real estate agent, not a title agent.  Yet, the inquiry cam through our website.  We are a title agent, not a real astate agent.  I was baffled.   I never answered the inquiry, because I kept tripping over red flags.

The messages I have received have been worded similarly enough that I am convinced they all had their roots with some motivational speaker somewhere sucking these people into a con.

If I am wrong about this, please set me straight.  I am very interested to know how this could possibly be a good investment for anybody at this time.