How bad is the inventory shortage plaguing the national housing market? One measure of the lack of solutions is that at least some experts are looking over the horizon to the death of the Boomers. "Boomers own a majority of owner occupied homes in the U.S.," observes Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist at home search site Trulia. "As far as we are aware, they have not found the fountain of youth, so eventually we might age out of the problem."

We at Elite think our staff are pretty awesome and want to give you the pleasure to get to know them as well!

We at Elite think our staff are pretty awesome and want to give you the pleasure to get to know them as well!

Buyers frustrated by the soaring price tags attached to new homes finally got a bit of a break. Finally.

We at Elite think our staff are pretty awesome and want to give you the pleasure to get to know them as well!

We at Elite think our staff are pretty awesome and want to give you the pleasure to get to know them as well!

We at Elite think our staff are pretty awesome and want to give you the pleasure to get to know them as well!

Meet Gia...

A combination of rising home prices and a stronger labor market have helped push home-flipping numbers to their highest levels in a decade. Approximately 6.1 percent of all home sales in 2016 qualified as a "flip," defined as the purchase of a house at a market rate and the subsequent sale of the same property at a higher price due to improvements or short-term pricing gains. That figure marked a near percentage-point increase over the 5.3 percent rate recorded in 2015.