Property Ladder - New show on TLC

[Bearcata]

Frank, a high school conselor buys a 100 yr old beach house (s. california) for $550,000, plans to put in $75,000 and sell it for about for over a $150,000 profit. First of all he is a first time flipper and I remember reading a book about a woman who did this for a living and for your first time you should buy something very easy to fix. Basically, a paint and new carpet type of place. Everyone of the flippers in this series is really getting in over there heads.

This house is a small 2 bedroom, 1 bath house and he wants to raise the roof, push out part of the front by 4 ft and add a master suite. He is making major stuctural changes and Kristens shakes her head slowly amazed that he thinks he can do it for so little. Timeline is 18 weeks. He is also planning to live on site because he is renting out his townhouse while this project happens, to save money and live there with his 8 yr old daughter. Another real dumb idea.

Turns out after demo that there is termite damage and no foundation. His contrator, Arturo, hires a friend to do the foundation and it is a sloppy job. Fred then has to hire and expert to do it right. There are a lot of delays on this job partly due to the fact that Arturo, the contractor is over his head and not experienced enough to do the job right, eventually after several months Fred fires him and hires Jaime and pow the jobs goes to super speed. Untill they find and old septic field under where they are pouring the foundation for the master suite and there goes another 15,000 and more delays.

Finally, after 38 wks Fred is finished and the place looks great, but he is asking for $999,999 in a market that the average house goes for $850,000 and that is what all the realtors are pricing it at. At the open house all the customers like the house but all say that it is too expensive. No takers but after a couple of weeks someone buys the house for $1,000,000. And since Fred has 4 kids 2 in college and 2 to go he plans to flip another house. Fred ended up spending over $200,000 in renovations and had extended himself out to the max and he was lucky cause he could have lost everythiing.

[Chorita KaBoom]

There were moments in this weeks show where I thought "Fred's gonna have to sell his townhouse and live in the flip", but he managed to pull it off. I would really have a lot of doubts about an inspector who would have checked a house like that and said that there was nothing wrong with it. Also as always, Fred, who said that he really didn't have the style gene, seemed to put a lot of personal taste into the house. Ideally, if you're gonna flip a house, you want to put as little money into the house that will give you the most impact. Unfortunately, Fred had to essentially rebuild the entire house, and he hired really unqualified people to do it. I really hope that he learns from this.

[chips]

after watching last nights and the other ones they need to rename this show Only in California where else could some make all the misstakes he did and still make great money?

[Ilikai]

Not everyone has come out smelling like a rose. At least two people that I can remember hadn't sold the house by the time they wrapped filming on it. But most of these people just have the dumbest luck going for them to screw up as bad as they do and still come out smelling like a rose. Fred had good intentions, went about it almost the right way and still got screwed big time by an incompetent inspector, incompetent contractors and too small of a budget in the first place. He said the budget didnt take into consideration new cabinets and appliances. Now that was stupid on his part. But overall, this guy had bad luck slapping him upside the head.

[applesauce]

What I don't understand is why their carrying costs are so high. If they know they are going to flip the house, then why don't they get interest only loans? There is no reason to pay a $4000 (or thereabouts) mortgage each month. This is the perfect example of when an interest only loan would be of value. It would dramatically reduce the carrying costs.

Regarding this most recent episode, this poor guy did not have luck on his side. I must admit though the house did look really nice and finished in the end. Not to my taste personally but very clean with nice detail.

[RVD]

my guess is that these guys usually do interest only or neg-am loans if they can. i think they also try to put as little down as possible so that may be why the loan payments seem a little high.

this show actually gets me irked sometimes because the people are so stupid yet they make money because they are just in a lucky market.

i live in the same area as a lot of these shows (internet guys torrance is a couple miles away and fred in marina del rey is like 5 miles north)...i am in redondo beach and the only gripe that i have is that this show oversimplifies the flipping process. if you know the market around here you can make money flipping a house without doing anything...every now and then a house will come on the market that is about $20k or so underpriced so if you pick it up and then sell it for around $20k over then you have a quick $40k profit but you need to know what you're doing...

i was chuckling to see the internet duo not sell their overpriced home. $950k in torrance buys you a nice 2500 sq ft home right now...not the house they renovated...and most people with that kind of money will actually buy in redondo beach or rancho palos verdes instead.

it also looked to me like the guy was taking advantage of the older guy's money. the guy basically came to the internet asking for an investor and the old guy invested.....looks like a scam to me.

RVD.

[H2O]

Each time I watch this show I think it should be retitled "When Morons Remodel"...

[AlfredandJen]

I am so glad that everyone sees this show the same way my wife and I do!

Do the producers try extra hard to make these people look like idiots? Is it just dumb luck that the vast majority end up making more than their yearly salary in less than 4 months?

Also, we're getting tired of the "This is Flipping 101" lady just playing Monday Morning quarterback and saying "I told you so" instead of actually helping them. Its reeeeally wearing thin.

My wife and I would like to get into doing this in our neck of the woods (Alabama), but even though my wife is an architect, we're still being very cautious....this show ISNT reality.

[Bearcata]

[QUOTE=AlfredandJen]Do the producers try extra hard to make these people look like idiots?
QUOTE]

The beauty of reality tv is that producers don't have to even try to make people look like idiots they manage just fine all on their own. Then later they blame editing. The secret is to not do anything that you would be ashamed to be caught doing; the trouble is most people don't always realize how shameful their daily behaviour is until it is looked at through the lens of a camera.

As a side bar I was watching the preview for America's Next Top Model and later Tyra's talk show featuring previous contestents and one, Tiffany, who had an attitude and anger management problem didn't think she had a problem or that it was that bad until she saw herself on TV and saw how others saw she her. Only them did she realize that she did not like what she saw and then changed how she behaved. What a scary thing if that happened to all of us; well, actually, perphaps it would be a good thing if we actually did anything about it.

[Bearcata]

Well, there was supposed to be a new episode on tonight but I guess the TLC producers didn't read the TV Guide. Rats!!! Its that ditzy blonde from California.