In 2004, at the height of the house price boom, more than 60,000 homes a year were bought, done up, then sold on for a profit in England and Wales.
Spurred on by soaring house prices and TV shows like Sarah Beeny's Property Ladder, it seemed anyone could find a cheap "fixer-upper", redecorate and make tens of thousands of pounds.
But times change. Last year just 18,630 were "flipped" this way, a collapse of 69% on 2004, figures from Hamptons International show.
Aneisha Beveridge, Hamptons International head of research, said: "The art of flipping generally involves buying, renovating and selling a home, in most cases for a profit."
And when house prices aren't rising - and homes aren't selling - that's something that becomes far, far harder to do.
"Between 2000 and 2007 house prices were rising at an average annual rate of 13%, so there were plenty of opportunities for flippers to make profits," Beveridge said.
"But following the financial crash price growth has slowed, and this combined with tax changes has meant that generally it’s harder for flippers to make as much of a return as before.”
But that doesn't mean there aren't places where you can still manage the trick - with the people pulling it off selling properties for £30,150 more than they paid for them on average.
And there was even a small rise in home flipping between 2017 and 2018, with Burnley in Lancashire seeing the most homes bought and then re-sold inside 12 months.
Wolverhampton, Hyndburn in Lancashire and Hackney in London were also found to be places with a high proportion of "flipped" homes.
Overall 2.1% of homes changing hands in 2018 were bought less than a year before being sold on again.
"Flippers play an important role in the housing market by improving existing housing stock and bringing empty homes back into use," Beveridge said.
