“Flip” For Polluted Industrial Sites Takes Years

Some savvy investors are turning a profit by buying polluted properties, cleaning them up and selling them, but it’s a risky business and can takes years for a deal to complete. New York Times columnist Paul Sullivan explains how it works and profiles one investor who has been making a go of it. It helps that he’s an environmental engineer by training, but another more arcane profession has proven to be even more important in some of these deals: insurance archeology.