We looked last week at how the instability of flip tax revenue keeps our coop’s total revenue unstable. This is significant because (a) we have little control over the health of the real estate market, and (b) flip tax revenue represents between 15% and 28% of our total revenue, depending on the year — it’s our second largest revenue line item (next to monthly maintenance, which is by far our largest).

Flip tax is a significant revenue source that we have no control over and which can vary widely from year to year. That’s very important when understanding the coop’s financial picture.

So while the management office is still struggling to produce financials from last year that our auditors will approve, and while the finance committee of our board has yet to produce an operating budget for the current fiscal year, we can already get a pretty good idea of how the year is going by looking at flip tax revenue so far. And the answer right now is: not too good.

Based on public sales records, flip tax revenue through the first half of the fiscal year is near a low point compared to the past five years:

So far, this year’s flip tax revenue is not even keeping pace with last year’s, which was the worst in while. Will the board need to raise maintenance again to make up another deficit?

The good news is that this year’s flip tax revenue is tracking closely the path of 2013 — the blue line above — which had a nice spring bump. This year may yet turn out fine.

That’s the thing about flip tax revenue: you just never know.