I enjoy watching the show Flip this House and regularly Tivo it. After flipping properties I think a lot of the stuff they do is very unrealistic and staged for TV. Some of the featured flippers are better then others.
Armando Montelongo is my least favorite and seems to be extremely rude to all his trades. I can’t believe he gets any of them back. It seems like he has switched to selling mostly his flipping products versus making the TV show anymore. Armando works, or used to work in, San Antonio, TX.
Paul and Than seem to run a quality company. They’ve done rehabs of all sizes it seems. They are from New Haven, CT.
Rudy Martinez is from Los Angeles (my area) and seems a bit arrogant but overall I think he does quality work.
Peter and Brian seem to do a decent job. They seem to do a lot of additions. Brian seems to run a quality job site and Peter seems on the annoying side.
The Property Ladder, which I don’t think they make anymore, is my favorite though. They almost always feature new flippers which makes for good TV. Somehow most of the time these investors end up to double their budget and still end up profitable. So they must screen the deals and make sure they only film investors who picked up something on the cheap side.
Overall, I think these shows paint a bad picture of the industry. They make everything look so easy. In reality you need to do two things to be successful. Pick up and incredible deal and have the cash flow to finish the project. Of course, you need to do a good rehab and sell it, but if you buy it right you have a lot of room in these areas. But the TV shows don’t really talk about how the person found the deal which is the hardest part.
Steve -
One thing to keep in mind about Property Ladder is that most of the episodes were filmed in 2003-2006 in California, where most flippers COULD double their budgets and still make a profit…
J
J Scott´s last blog ..Staging #2: Pictures