ATTOM's second-quarter flipping report came out at the start of the month and Texas looks rough. 8,389 flips, and the typical gross return was 2.8%. A year ago it was 6.5%. Gross profit went from about $18,100 a flip to about $8,100.

And that's gross. Take out the loan, taxes, insurance and selling costs and plenty of those didn't make money at all.

The metro numbers are worse in places. San Antonio came in at negative 0.3%, an actual loss, and the worst big metro in the country. Dallas 1.8%. Austin 2.8%. Houston 3.7%. Dallas also had one of the highest flip rates of any big metro, so lots of people are doing it there with almost nothing left over.

Nationally it's still 21.5% gross. So Texas isn't a bad place to flip because flipping is broken. Texas is where people are paying too much going in.

What I'm seeing in the files that still work is pretty consistent. The buy is set off after-repair value, not off the asking price. Something like ARV times 70 to 75%, minus repairs, minus closing costs, and that's the number, whatever the seller wants. The repair budget assumes the worst version of what's behind the walls. And the hold is planned at five or six months, not three, because the national median from purchase to resale is still running about 161 days.

Nationally the cheaper houses did the best. The $100,000 to $200,000 band ran about 28% gross, and the bottom end under $50,000 lost money on average. My guess is Texas follows the same shape, but I haven't seen the state broken out by price.

So the question for the Texas folks here: are you still finding deals that work under $200,000, or has everything pushed you up into the $300s where the margin is thinner?

I wrote up the full report on my website, which you can find through my profile, and you can sign up there to get new reports by email.