East Bay cities, counties set to spend millions to flip foreclosed homes

The Oakland Tribune reports:

They call it the "flip." Buy fixer-upper. Fix up. Sell. Repeat.

In better times, flipping houses spun gold for the get-rich-quick set. Now, as foreclosures flood the market and yank home values lower, few have the stomach or the credit to flip but the rich and the brave.

And, soon, your local government.

Cities and counties across the East Bay are set to become house flippers under an emergency federal program aimed at stabilizing neighborhoods hit hardest by the foreclosure epidemic. Antioch, Richmond, Oakland and Alameda and Contra Costa counties will receive a combined $24 million, much of it to buy, rehabilitate and sell foreclosed and abandoned homes. More may come when the state doles out its $145 million share of the $3.9 billion program, part of a housing recovery bill President Bush signed this summer.

The new house flippers.