Flip this House - on A&E

[Bearcata]

Again repeats. At least they showed the New Haven, Conneticut crew.

[Google]

 

[jguitar]

Have the CT guys done more than one episode? Their website lists I believe 5 houses being filmed.

[Bearcata]

Originally Posted by jguitar

Have the CT guys done more than one episode?

They have filmed at least 4 maybe 5 episodes but only broadcast one and that was played again last night.

[Bearcata]

Originally Posted by jguitar

Have the CT guys done more than one episode? Their website lists I believe 5 houses being filmed.

June 9 there will be a new episode of the Conneticut crew.

[Bearcata]

I caught this by accident but A&E are showing a new Atlanta episode tonight. I will have to watch my tape later. Angie and Harrison are still partners with that investor Pete. There is one scene where they are discussing the flooring in the house they are redoing. First of all there are old pine floors and they want wood throughout, yet because part of the house is on a concrete slab they will have to put in a new subfloor. The floor contractor said is would be impossible to match the old pine floor with the new oak and it will terrible. Best to just put in a new hardwood floor over everything. That would eliminate the conrete slab/new subfloor problem. Angie and Harrison are all over this saying that it is too expensive and who cares it doesn't matter. Pete and his project manager are for it. Later Angie and Harrison are alone and complaining that she knows the market and what sells and Harrison acts as if he is an experienced general contractor. I wonder when that happened. What 8 episodes or so ago Harrison was doing his first project with absolutely no previous experience. What a bunch of BS all that was. As a buyer looking for a house I would want all the floors to match. I would notice it, cause I would be paying for it for the next 30 yrs and I do not want to fix the buyers mistakes. I think Angie and Harrison think buyers are stupid and they are acting so much like Armondo that I just want to spit at them the greedy dogs.

[helpmeturnitoff]

I didn't like Angie's comment about how they should renovate from a business standpoint and not from a "we would live in this house" standpoint. I understand they're in the business to make a profit but how can they stand behind their work if they wouldn't want to live there themselves?

And some of the 'problems' they run up against - don't they look at the houses before buying them? Don't they use home inspectors to let them know what's wrong first? Most of the problems (like the rotted supports) should have been spotted before they bought the house. The other problems (such as ceiling heights) should be well known beforehand if they're experienced or hiring experienced contractors - it's not like the by-laws & building regulations change that frequently.

[Bearcata]

I finally watched the entire show and I too wondered about them not having a home inspector finding the rotted support columns in the basement. I also found it very strange that they replaced metal columns with wood.

After all that bitching about the floor it only cost $4,600. Angie spent $6,000 on concrete counters in the kitchen and $1,663 on 4 high end ceiling fans. Concrete counters and fancy ceiling fans are not going to do me any good if my floor is sagging cause of rotted basement columns or if my roof sags. The way Brian and Harrison acted as if how dare the city inspectors try to stop them from working and it's gonna cost them money to do the roof right, really disgusted me. I don't understand why Peter, Brian and Harrison bitch so much about problems. One thing Kirsten always says is to use a home inspector and to budget about 10% to 20% of your budget for unforseen problems. I get the impression that Angie and Peter are rushing and buying properties without having them inspected and not taking into account prior leaks, breakages and the fact that they are buying houses that are 60 or 70 yrs old.
What I also don't understand is that you are supposed to take the worst house in the best neighborhood and improve it to make the best profit. Flip This House seems to take a crappy house in a crappy neighborhood and over improve it. Unless you live in a area like LA or Washington Metro area where housing is hard to find and people are willing to buy an old house tear it down and build new, building in transitional areas and overimproving the house is not a good idea.

Initially, the house was bought for $140,000 and the initial budget was $75,000 because they were addding an addtion to the house to make a bigger kitchen and master suite. The house went from 1450 sf to 1930 sf. Angie wanted $325,000 for the house. The numbers at the end also made no sense. The budget went from $75,000 to $95,000 with $6,000 in overages. Potential profit $84,000. Huh that didn't make any sense.

What drives me nuts is that Angie and Harrison really represent themselves as these highly experienced flippers/experts and what I saw on this show was a real callus attitude of don't spent a lot of money on the strutural problems like the rotted support columns and new header board for the roof, just make it look pretty (except lets not even match the hardwood floors) and sell it quick and walk away from the job with a lot of money. I highly suspect that if the City of Atlanta Inspectors were not there they would have not bothered with replacing the basement supports or the support beam in the roof.

[Tivoer]

$140,000 + $95,000 + $6000 = $241,000.

$325,000 - $241,000 = $84,000.

[Allie]

Anybody else see this in the newspaper:

According to the AP, Atlanta businessman Sam Leccima is under investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State's office for securities fraud.

It also says that authorities and legal filings claim that Leccima did a series of scams that included faking the home renovations shown on the cable TV show and claiming to have sold houses he never owned.

Leccima doesn't have a real estate license. His was revoked by the Georgia Real Estate Commission in 2005. The panel ruled he "does not bear a good reputation for honesty, trustworthiness, integrity, and competence."

Apparently all the episodes in which he was on have been pulled by the show from reruns and the Internet.

[Bearcata]

Originally Posted by Allie

Anybody else see this in the newspaper:

According to the AP, Atlanta businessman Sam Leccima is under investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State's office for securities fraud.

It also says that authorities and legal filings claim that Leccima did a series of scams that included faking the home renovations shown on the cable TV show and claiming to have sold houses he never owned.

Leccima doesn't have a real estate license. His was revoked by the Georgia Real Estate Commission in 2005. The panel ruled he "does not bear a good reputation for honesty, trustworthiness, integrity, and competence."

Apparently all the episodes in which he was on have been pulled by the show from reruns and the Internet.

Thanks for the news Allie. I had read all the Atlanta Fox News blogs but its nice to see this made the newspapers.

I wonder how this will affect the show and other so-called reality shows that involve home improvement.