The practice of "flipping" houses, meaning the purchase, cosmetic renovation, and re-sale of single-family residential property, was a major contributor to the speculative bubble in real estate which was brought on the 2008 financial crisis.
The practice forces ordinary families, who desire houses not as investments but as homes, into competition with wealthy speculators, many of them foreign nationals. The burden of the resulting elevated housing costs falls disproportionately upon those with lower incomes and lesser wealth. "Flippers" were also disproportionately prone to mortgage fraud.
The President should propose that the Congress enact a 55% tax on the proceeds of "house flipping," in order to discourage this unproductive, destructive, and economically destabilizing practice.