161 Days of Carry Costs $14,567. Houston's Typical Flip Grossed $12,210.

By Steve Waller · October 5, 2026

Two numbers from two reports, and they do not line up

ATTOM's Q2 2026 flipping report puts the typical US home flip at 161 days from purchase to resale, down four days from 165 in the first quarter. HAR's most recent monthly update has a Houston single-family home that sold in August sitting on the market 54 days, against 52 a year earlier.

Those are two different clocks, and the gap between them is the part of a flip almost nobody underwrites. Fifty-four days is the listing clock. It starts the day the sign goes in the yard. One hundred and sixty-one days is your clock. It starts the day you take title. The 107 days in between are acquisition closing, demolition, permits, trades, punch list, photographs, and the stretch between going live and going pending.

You pay interest on all 161 of them.

What 161 days costs on a real Houston project

Take HAR's August Houston median of $330,000 as the after-repair value and run ACP's purchase test on it. At a 75% advance against ARV, with $45,000 of repairs and $12,000 of closing costs, the arithmetic is $247,500 less $45,000 less $12,000, so the maximum supportable purchase price is $190,500. At 70% it is $174,000. Total project cost at the 75% number is $235,500, which sits under the $247,500 cap.

Now price the hold on that $235,500. ACP does not publish rates and nothing here is a quote - use the rate on your own term sheet. The useful way to carry the number in your head is per point of rate: on $235,500, every one percent of annual interest is $196.25 a month.

The three carry lines, with the figures behind each:

• Interest. At 10% as an illustration, $1,962.50 a month. At 12%, $2,355.
• Insurance. TDI's preliminary statewide average Texas homeowners premium for 2025 is $3,506, which is $292.17 a month. A vacant renovation policy costs more than that, not less, so treat it as a floor.
• Taxes. At a 2.2% combined rate on the $190,500 basis, $349.25 a month. Harris County's own portion alone went to 67 cents per $100 of taxable value this year, up 7.6%, and the county is one line on a bill that also carries the school district, the city and any MUD.

Add $150 a month for utilities, lawn and dumpsters and the non-interest carry is $791.42 a month before a dollar of interest.

Over ATTOM's 161 days - 5.29 months - that comes to:

• At 10%: $10,381 of interest plus $4,186 of everything else. $14,567 total, or $90 a day.
• At 12%: $12,457 plus $4,186. $16,643 total.
• The 107 days before the sign goes in the yard, on their own: $9,681 at 10%, $11,061 at 12%.
• One extra month, anywhere in the project: $2,754 at 10%, $3,101 at 12%.

The carry is now larger than the market's average spread

This is the line that should decide your next offer. ATTOM has the typical Houston-area flip grossing 3.7% over its purchase price last quarter - the thinnest of any large Texas metro bar San Antonio, which lost 0.3%. On a $330,000 exit, 3.7% is $12,210.

The 161-day carry at 10% is $14,567. That is 4.4% of ARV against a market-average gross spread of 3.7%.

Read that plainly. On the average Houston flip, at the average national hold, the cost of simply owning the house for the duration is larger than the entire gross spread the market produced - before rehab, before the 7% of sale price that selling costs run, before a single surprise behind a wall. The deals that worked last quarter were not the ones that found a better rate or a faster crew. They were the ones bought low enough that the carry had somewhere to come from.

Why the hold is not getting shorter

Nothing in the current Houston data suggests the 161 days compresses from here.

• Supply is deep. HAR's August update has 38,947 active single-family listings, up 0.5% in a year, and 5.3 months of inventory. Across all property types, 60,390 active listings.
• Demand is thinner than supply. August single-family sales were 7,100, down 11.5% year over year, with pending sales down 3.5% and total dollar volume down 8.8% to $3.5 billion.
• Your exit buyer's budget is shrinking weekly. Freddie Mac's survey printed 7.28% on the thirty-year on 1 October, up 25 basis points in a week and up from 6.34% a year ago. The ten-year Treasury closed Friday at 5.28% on the Treasury's daily par yield curve, against 5.17% the Friday before and 4.79% at the start of September.
• The median already moved. HAR's August median was $330,000, down 1.5% in a year, with days on market up from 52 to 54.

A house that takes longer to sell, into a buyer pool whose payment buys less every week, is a hold assumption that wants padding, not trimming.

The one structural support, and it is on the new-build side

August's Census New Residential Construction release is still the governing data: total permits 1,394,000 at an annual rate with single-family at 878,000; starts 1,275,000; and completions 1,128,000, down 27.1% from 1,548,000 a year earlier. Fewer finished houses arriving is the only thing in the data working in favour of a resale exit twelve months out.

Against it, BLS's net inputs to new residential construction index stands at 164.801 for August, up 1.15% on the month and 7.8% over twelve months. Your rehab budget is the one line inflating faster than the house. September's reading comes with PPI on 15 October.

Put the hold in the offer

The formula does not change. ARV times 70 to 75 percent, less repairs, less closing costs. What changes is what you are honest about inside it.

• Underwrite 161 days, not 54. If your model holds the property for three months, it is missing roughly $4,800 of carry at 10% on a project this size. Use ATTOM's national hold as the default and make the crew prove a shorter one.
• Carry the per-day number. Ninety dollars a day on a $235,500 project at 10%. A two-week permit delay is $1,260. A contractor who disappears for a month is $2,754.
• Take the carry off the purchase price, not out of the profit. $14,567 of carry against a $190,500 maximum purchase means the price that actually works is closer to $175,900 - and that is the number to offer, not the one the seller wants to hear.
• Repair estimates are the second lever and they are moving. At 7.8% annual input inflation, a budget quoted in the spring is low by autumn. Pad it or re-bid it.
• If you hold paper maturing this quarter, earlier is cheaper than later. The ten-year has risen every week since the Fed last met. A refinance pencilled on a September curve is already stale.

On a 3.7% average gross margin, the purchase price is not one input among thirty. It is the only line in the deal that forgives anything, and the carry is what you are asking it to forgive.

On the calendar this week

• Today. ISM Services PMI for September, 10am ET. Watch its prices index - manufacturing's jumped to 77.9% in September, and services is the larger share of the economy.
• Tuesday. Treasury auctions a new three-year note.
• Wednesday. Treasury reopens the ten-year, and the minutes of the 15-16 September FOMC meeting land at 2pm ET.
• Thursday. Treasury reopens the thirty-year bond. Freddie Mac's survey and weekly claims before the open.
• Later this week. HAR's September monthly update is due, which will be the first read on whether 54 days on market held through the autumn.

A soft ten-year or thirty-year auction at these levels pushes the thirty-year mortgage through 7.28%, and the September minutes land between the two.

Sources

• ATTOM - Q2 2026 U.S. Home Flipping Report
• HAR - Monthly Housing Update and MLS Sales Activity (August 2026)
• U.S. Treasury - Daily Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates
• FRED - 10-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate (DGS10)
• Freddie Mac - Primary Mortgage Market Survey
• Texas Department of Insurance - Texas homeowners insurance market overview
• U.S. Census Bureau - New Residential Construction, August 2026
• BLS - Producer Price Index, inputs to new residential construction
• HAR - Harris County's Property Tax Hike Is Here

Market data is from public sources and is provided for information only. Nothing here is an offer of credit, a rate quote, or investment advice. Financing is subject to underwriting, lender approval, appraisal or valuation, title, insurance, property eligibility and program availability.

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