British Columbia readies new rules to tackle 'shadow flipping'

Vancouver

BRITISH Columbia pledged on Friday to crack down on real estate contract assignments - dubbed "shadow flipping" by local media - in a new effort to help cool down red hot housing markets, particularly in the Vancouver area.

Shadow flipping is where a party agrees to buy a property for a set price, but before the sale closes, they resell the contract to a third party for a higher price, taking the difference between the original and new selling price as profit.