RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for real estate data, released its midyear 2013 Home Flipping Report which showed that 136,184 single-family homes were flipped in the first half of 2013. This is up 19 percent from a year ago and up 74 percent from the first half of 2011.

Flipping describes a home purchased and subsequently sold again within six months. Real estate investors who flipped homes in the first half of the year purchased those homes at a discount of five percent below estimated market value on average and sold them at a premium of one percent above estimated market value on average.

The report also showed that investors made an average gross profit of $18,391 on single-family home flips in the first half of the year, a nine percent gross return on the initial purchase price. That was up 246 percent from an average gross return of $5,321 in the first half of 2012 and average loss of -$13, 206 in the first half of 2011.

“While flipping continues to be profitable in most markets, particularly those where the home price recovery is still nascent and a recent rebound in foreclosure activity allows investors to find distressed inventory at a discount, home flipping is tapering off in markets where fewer of those distressed bargains are available,’ said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac. “Out of the 100 markets we analyzed for the report, 32 had declining flipping numbers, including perennial flipping hot spots like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Southern California and Atlanta. Still flipping was on the rise in more than two-thirds of the markets, including New York, Washington D.C., Chicago and several Florida metros.”