Real estate is a hot commodity,
but around every corner,
danger lurks...
from zombie houses.
These rotting corpses aren't just ugly...
What happened?
...they're dangerous.
Whoa!
Fire. Get out of there.
And they can drag down an entire neighborhood...
It's the ugliest house on the street.
...but their days are numbered.
Here in Orlando, Florida,
taking on these monstrosities is our specialty.
Renovating the ugly stuff is what we do.
Ew. Our team tracks these filthy zombies down...
This place is a total dump, but at least this room is huge.
...and pumps new life into them...
Maybe I got heat stroke, but I'm falling in love with this place.
...flipping them into sweet homes...
- Wow. - This is amazing.
- ...that we can sell... - We are ready to go.
...for an even sweeter payday.
Here's to selling another house.
This...
is "Zombie House Flipping."
Captioning provided by A+E Networks
Ash, what are we up to today?
One of our agents told us
that she knows another agent
that was about to list a property,
and it's a total zombie, so we're getting a preview.
Man, in this market, that's really important, too,
'cause it's so hard to find houses.
The real-estate market's going crazy right now.
And in Orlando, we're one of the most competitive markets
in the entire country.
And there are over 1,500 new residents
moving here every single week.
That means houses are in high demand
and developers are gobbling properties up,
making it harder than ever to find a good zombie
that we can flip.
So, off-market.
Yes, it's off-market today, today only. Okay.
We've been able to stay competitive,
partly because of our reputation.
People know that we flip zombies,
so that helps us get the inside track on off-market deals.
But we also stepped up our business profile.
Justin and I started a new brokerage called Blueprint.
Since we have our own agents, we save money on commission.
That way, we can do more targeted marketing on the deals
that we want, and we also keep our finger
on the pulse of Orlando real estate.
We even ditched our home offices
and we rented an actual house as our new office.
It's a nice, comfortable setting for meeting clients
and coordinating all our different jobs.
I haven't done any research.
I literally jumped in the car, heading down.
And scooped us, - and here we are. - Yeah, got you guys.
When Keith saw the benefits to this approach,
he was excited to jump on board,
but Duke has decided to step back a bit,
at least for now. We'll see if that changes,
but in the meantime, it's onward and upward.
What do we know about the house?
It's in College Park, Spruce Street.
Oh, yeah. A friend of mine did a retail deal
on Spruce Street last year. Full-price offer day one.
College Park is on fire right now, too.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
College Park is a hip and affluent neighborhood
right on the edge of downtown.
It's known for great schools, really good shopping,
and there's an eclectic mix of homes there,
from large estates to smaller starter homes for families.
You get the right house in the right place in College Park,
you're talking about walk to dining and, like,
there's some really, really cool stuff here.
So is it, like, concrete block?
I think it's like under 1,000 square feet,
so it's fairly small and it's 1920s.
That's almost 100 years of potential problems, right?
But think of the charm and the character.
Let's see it before we, like, imagine charm and character.
It's like a blind date. Like, the more I'm hearing
about this, you know--
The less teeth she has.
Yeah, something like that.
- Are we here? - It's kind of cute, right?
Who cares about the house? Look at that.
It's one house away from the highway.
That's like a 40-foot wall.
But you can't even see the highway, just a wall.
Yeah, because they put a 40-foot concrete wall
up to block the highway.
Hey, my friend sold the house next door for $330,000.
We know all that matters is we can buy it for the right price
because we already know what we can sell it for.
True. Let's go.
Well, it's definitely a zombie.
It's the ugliest house on the street.
Yeah. I see some wood rot.
Soffit's peeling under there.
It needs a new fence. It has trees hanging over
that look kind of rotten right there.
It looks like it has led a hard life.
It's not all bad.
To me, the roof looks fairly new,
and I'm told there's a new A.C. unit in the attic.
- But so tiny. - Yeah.
The house is just a little over 1,000 square feet.
It has two bedrooms, which are joined
by a Jack and Jill bathroom between them.
The kitchen is galley style,
and it connects to a sunroom in the back.
There's also a separate two-car garage.
And the seller is planning to list it for 250 grand.
Why don't we go inside - and take a look? - Yeah.
'Cause I'm curious to see what it looks like
- on the inside. - Let's go.
Not bad.
Hey, guys, southern heart pine floors.
Wait a minute. Termites.
Eaten up. Ooh.
So structurally, we might have an issue.
Guys, come here, look in the bedroom.
Termites ate right through the floor here.
- Geez. - Ooh.
Oh, that's so soft.
Oh, my God. - Don't break it. - Look at all that termite poop.
Well, what I'm thinking is worse would be if the subfloor
and everything below that is--
There is no subfloor here.
So that's just straight earth down there. Yeah.
This wood's pretty gnarly looking,
but maybe it just needs a patch job.
However, if the termite damage is extensive,
this house, like our reno budget,
could become a bottomless pit.
Well, should we look around and see what else we can find?
Yeah. The bathroom.
Oh! Are they worms?
- Yeah, something. - Ew, disgusting.
I mean, it makes sense, though. We got holes in the floor
with nothing below it.
Yeah, but that doesn't explain all the filth in here.
There's no saving any of this.
All of this has got to go.
This is nasty. Okay. Looking like a haunted house.
Well, let's see the other bedroom
in this house of horrors.
Bedroom number two. Oh, not too bad.
Mostly looks like it needs cosmetic work.
Look, more termite trails.
They're heading right back out to the living room.
Hey, guys, did you check out these windows?
These are really cool. These are called four-over-ones.
That's a real vintage style.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work.
It looks like it would cost a fortune to fix it.
We're looking at 500 bucks per window.
Oh, wow.
There are five of these old windows in this room alone,
and the bedrooms have them as well.
So we're looking at definitely a few thousand dollars
in repairs right there.
Well, onto the kitchen.
Layout is terrible.
- Yeah. - This isn't even a layout.
They haphazardly dropped appliances in different places.
It's the lack of cabinets, though.
It's like, we can tear these out.
I think you have to tear them out.
The further we get into this, the less I'm seeing money.
And we got roaches.
There's one on the loose right now.
Hey, there's another one right there.
- Ew. - We haven't even seen the rest of the house.
So here's the rest of the house.
This place is getting worse.
Yeah, wow, what is up with that?
Some slope.
This was an outdoor porch at one time.
They closed it in.
Indoor laundry.
Until this part of the house falls off,
and then it's outdoor again.
Speaking of outdoors, let's go check out the backyard.
Alright. Okay.
I see a lot of wood rot. This has to be demo'd.
Let's go check out that huge garage.
This is large.
That's about the kindest thing you can say about it.
It is zoned R-2,
so you can have an additional dwelling.
I think maybe if we, like, made this a bedroom.
That could be a kitchen, bathroom right there.
It would have to have its own water heater, yeah?
Its own A.C., windows, doors,
drywall, insulation.
If we did that, this would be the gift
that keeps on giving, right? Like, forever.
Turning this garage into a guest house would be expensive,
but it's the kind of thing that could boost
the selling price of the property
and become a good revenue stream for a potential buyer.
I'd call that a win-win.
So what do you guys think?
This house has a couple big pros--
new roof, new HVAC.
Those are pros. There's a lot of cons.
I mean, windows, floors, the kitchen.
I don't even know how we're gonna solve that.
Plus, the wall.
Okay, but aside from that,
what would it cost to fix this place up?
Inside this house, I'm thinking $55,000.
And then if we do the garage, to convert
that to a living space, that's another $25,000.
- Yeah. - So I'm thinking a cool $80,000 to do both.
I have a lot of concerns
about us making money on this one.
It's College Park. It's gonna sell.
College Park is one of those areas
that's always in demand.
And if this house was turnkey, it could get a great price.
But as-is, no way.
I think the listing agent overshot the market
a little bit for developers on this one,
so if we come in with a slightly lower but reasonable offer,
I think they might jump at it and be done.
We offer $180,000, just see what happens.
And then I think our max allowable offer
is like $210,000.$210,000, yeah.
I'm in. Yeah!
- Cool. - Flip in College Park.
- Alright. We're on our way. - Let's do it.
The seller wouldn't bite on our offer
of 180 grand.
And we eventually settled on a price of $220,000--
a lot less than $250,000
but not quite as good as we had hoped.
There's still profit to be made here,
but with the price volatility of materials
and the ongoing labor shortage,
I've decided not to commit on this big,
hefty garage renovation.
Sorry, Keith.
Instead, we'll give ourselves 55 grand
for this renovation,
and if we can finish this flip in about two months,
we anticipate another 20 grand in loan interest
and closing cost,
putting us all in at around $295,000.
If we can hit our asking price of $330,000,
that'll net us around $35,000 on this project.
This two-bed, one-bath house doesn't really have enough room
to change its layout,
but we are going to update some spaces,
starting with the bathroom.
We'll turn the closet into a dual-sink vanity,
which allows us to get rid of that single sink
and open up the space more.
We'll also ditch that dingy old tub
and put in a new tiled shower.
Then we'll open up the kitchen by knocking down the wall
between it and the living room and putting in a peninsula
with a sink and a dishwasher.
We'll put in a stove with the hood along the back wall,
framed by upper and lower cabinets,
and then close up the window to the sunroom for another wall
of cabinets and a spot for the fridge.
Whoa!
Hey, we're here! - I can see that.
Who's ready to break something, huh?
Demo day, guys. My favorite.
About to get after it.
Okay.
It's getting very hot, very dusty.
It's time to let my truck do some heavy lifting.
After all, we got a whole deck to get rid of.
Okay.
Don't pull down the whole house, okay?
Just the deck.
I'll do my best.
Here goes nothing.
Oh! There we go.
Whoa!
One more tug.
Whoo!
Oh, God, look at the foundation.
Uh-oh. That's a whole nother can of worms we might've opened.
It looks like our termite problem
is a lot worse than we thought.
They have hollowed this stuff out.
I mean, look, you can almost see through it.
It's just like sawdust.
It's mulch. That's all that is.
This is becoming less and less of a bargain by the minute,
and we just started.
Hey, what's up, guys? Hey, I'm Justin.
- Yeah, I'm Chris. - Nice to meet you, man.
- Nice to meet you. Chris. - Keith. Great to meet you.
It took a few days to get the exterminators out here
because everybody in the home-renovation arena
is busy these days,
but I'm hoping that they can debug this house
without straight bugging out our budget.
So this is how we knew.
There's really not much structural integrity left to it.
Yeah. The wood's all tore up, kind of paper thin.
Would that be dry-wood?
Dry-wood termites, yep.
Yeah, they're all around this area.
Well, they ate our back deck for lunch
and they're working on the rest of this place for dessert.
Also found turds that aren't termite turds.
Come check it out over here.
My favorite thing.
What are those?
Those are American roach droppings, my friend.
- American Roach droppings? - American roach droppings.
Just be glad they're not German roaches.
- Oh, really? - Oh, yeah.
They're, like, more organized and efficient and stuff.
And they come in numbers.
The Blitzkrieg, okay.
Alright, so we're turning to the pros.
Now what do we do?
Man, we got to put a tent over this bad boy.
And that's what I was afraid of.
Tenting a house, it's not just expensive,
it shuts down all the work on the project for days.
This house is bugging me in every way possible.
Never in my life have I hated being right this much.
This renovation's been a circus.
All we're missing is a tent.
Yeah. And now we got it.
The exterminators get to work covering our house
with an airtight tent made out of vinyl-coated nylon.
They'll fill the structure with a poisonous gas
called sulfuryl fluoride,
which is commercially known as Vikane.
The gas permeates the entire structure,
including behind walls and under floors,
and it kills all the termites and any other pests.
Meanwhile, in the garage,
they apply a localized pesticide spray
since the wood there is already exposed.
The fumigation process takes two nights,
at which point the exterminator removes the tent
and makes sure it's safe to enter.
It's time and money we didn't expect to lose,
but it's a hit our reno budget has to take.
Now that we have the bugs out of our house,
it's time to get the bugs out of our electrical system.
We have a crew from Electrical Surgeon here today
swapping out the old, outdated electrical panel,
which is the hub of all power coming into this house.
It distributes electricity to the sub-panels
and several different areas.
If a circuit gets overloaded, it shuts off or pop a breaker.
But if the system fails, it can get overheated and start a fire.
So getting a new panel
and replacing all the old raggedy wiring
is an absolute must.
Unfortunately, we hit another unexpected cost in the attic.
It turns out only half of that HVAC system is new
and the rest of it needs to be replaced.
So we have a crew here installing all new ductwork
in the attic and putting a new condenser unit
on the ground outside.
These unexpected expenses have already cost us about 10 grand,
which we didn't anticipate on spending.
So going over budget is pretty darn likely.
Hopefully, we're done with all these surprises.
Man, I love College Park.
Dude, had the opportunity to buy this house years ago
and turned it down. Thought it was overpriced
at like 300 grand.
It's worth a cool $600,000 now.
That's crazy. Prices on houses just keep going up and up.
And back in 2009, everything crashed.
But that was because there was just free money everywhere.
Now the problem is we don't have enough houses.
What do you think's gonna happen next?
I don't know, man.
I think prices are gonna keep going up,
but the problem is, it's just really hard to, like,
track down good deals and being over-leveraged on cash.
- Right. - That's how people go belly-up.
Well, speaking of being over-leveraged,
I got a lot of concerns about this Spruce house.
The wood rot in the floors and on the back of the house.
Yeah. I mean...
Yikes. Now that the exterminators
got rid of the termites, we need to see
what kind of damage the termites left behind.
So we got to go under that house
and we got to know we're dealing with.
Yep.
I'm actually afraid to see what it looks like
under this house because we already know
we don't have a subfloor.
We just have a floor.
If it's not structurally sound,
there goes our bottom line right there,
both literally and figuratively.
It is so musty under here.
Alright. So I'm seeing some termite damage on the rafters,
but it's not worst-case... scenario.
What? Hang on.
Justin, I'm in the front bedroom.
Down here-- Oh, hey, buddy.
What you doing down there?
So actually, we have some good news.
Yeah? Even though the floors are totally torn up,
the rafters are actually in really pretty good shape,
surprisingly.
- That is surprising. - Yeah.
I'm gonna go try to see if I can come up through the floor
instead of having to crawl all the way out of here,
because that's gonna be a pain in the ass.
Oh, wait, I think you can get through here.
Actually, I might, but--
Yeah, look at that.
Oh Where'd you come from?
Alright. Let me see if I can fit through there.
Dude, that's legit.
The termite damage doesn't seem
like it goes much beyond what we've already seen,
so I think we've squeezed our way out of a jam.
Structurally, the house looks really sound.
I'm really surprised.
That's great. Let's go get you showered up, man.
Ugh!
I feel like Pig Pen.
Good Lord. Yeah. Ugh.
Now I know why everybody stood so far away from him.
It's a huge relief to know that we don't actually
have to redo the entire foundation of this house.
But we still need a crew to go under the sagging back
half of the house, prop it up with the jack
while they run new supporting cross beams
and tie them into the joists.
We're also patching up the siding on this ragged zombie.
Our carpenter's cutting out all the old rot
and replacing it with new slats to match the original ones.
We gave ourselves 55 grand to spend on this renovation,
and we've already spent about $19,000,
which is really double what we expected to spend by now.
And with material prices continuing to rise,
we need to figure out a way
to keep our profit from dropping too much.
Is this our usual tree-trimming crew?
I don't know. Justin hired him.
Oh, my God, it's gonna hit the guy.
Oh, my God. Watch out!
Don't fall off the roof.
Oh. Wow.
If that falls on the garage, what's gonna happen?
It'll go through the garage.
Oh, my God, Keith. Watch. Look.
Oh. Ahh! Oh.
- Wow, wow. - I thought that was gonna hit the roof.
I thought that was going straight down.
Yeah. No, I thought it was--
I didn't think the rope was gonna support that.
Yo, yo, yo. Good morning.
Hey! You made it.
What up, K.O.? Hey, buddy.
How's all this going?
Alright. I guess Justin really knew what he was doing
when he hired this crew. I thought they were gonna
give our garage an unwanted skylight.
But you know what? Turns out they're on top of their game.
Really impressive, because that was--
that's like a worst-case-scenario tree,
and they're knocking it out like it's nothing.
You know, it's like such a barbaric system,
but it works. Yeah.
A rope, a chainsaw, and a couple guys tugging.
Yeah, amazing.
Whoa!
Whoo! Oof!
Piece by piece, our expert landscape crew
takes down all the dead branches,
leaving the roof to our garage out of harm's way.
Now we can get to work on the rest of this place
without getting crushed from above.
It's time to restore these vintage windows,
so the team from Austin Historical
is here replacing all the pulleys and glass
and painting the wood frames a color called tricorn black.
Unfortunately, the labor cost on the specialty restoration
is more expensive than it used to be--
a couple grand, actually, more than we thought it would be.
And with the plumbing, the hits keep coming.
The plumbers are having to redo the lines in the house,
under the house,
and even the main line out to the street,
which we were hoping was still in good shape.
Flipping this property is getting flippin' expensive.
Some of these numbers are scaring me, man.
We had surprise termite tenting, surprise floors.
The fence was 4 grand.
The tree.
And $7,000 for the windows.
That's $22,000 above what we anticipated.
We said we're going to sell it for $330,000.
You take 1.5% for closing costs,
6% for Realtor fees,
well, that's 21, 22--
that's like 25 grand.
If we spend $297,000 and we sell it for $330,000,
you're talking about an $8,000 profit.
Dude, I don't get out of bed for $8,000 on a renovation.
The cost overruns on this house
are starting to kill us,
and we still got a long way to go.
If we don't want to lose our shirts on this deal,
we got to find somewhere we can save some money ASAP.
Let's go take a look at what they got going on, alright?
Yeah. Come on, babe.
Windows getting done.
Yeah, dude, look, these are double-hung windows,
so both parts are supposed to, like, articulate,
but we have air conditioning now,
so you don't need, like, convection to go through,
so we're leaving the top half of the windows fixed.
Saves us a bunch of money, but we get to preserve
the historic windows.
We could try helping with the windows.
I mean, how hard could that be?
No. Don't answer that.
I'm kidding. It's super hard.
Yeah. You want to go outside?
There's got to be something we can do out there.
Check it out. Watch that step.
That's, like, spring-loaded trap-door stuff.
Ugh, it feels weird coming out of this house
without a deck, dude.
We can't build a huge deck.
Lumber's a fortune right now.
We just need to build a functional transition
to the backyard.
That's it. We can help build a deck.
That's how - we'll save money. - We can.
I mean, building a deck, that's like, what?
That's like Lincoln Logs or something, right?
I got a pile of lumber at my house.
You know what I call it nowadays?
What? My 401[k].
We can tap into my 401 if you want.
This is value add. This is gonna get us more money.
Whatever we spend on the deck, we'll get that back.
Keith has a point.
If we can use the lumber that I have left over in my pile
and he helps out with the labor cost,
then we could add this deck,
which would add to the resale value
and kind of make up for going over budget on the house.
I'm down. Let's go draw it up.
Alright. That's awesome. Let's do it.
All of our internal systems are good to go,
so it's time to close up all these holes
with some patchwork and some new drywall.
And with a fresh blank canvas, it's time to prime and paint.
We've selected a fresh white
called Drift of Mist.
Bright, neutral colors like this
can make a small space seem larger,
which can boost interest from potential buyers.
On the outside, we decided to cover the mustard yellow
with a nice, neutral light gray...
complemented with a white satin trim finish.
It's a classic look that everyone can appreciate.
Alright. Time to unload some wood.
Courtesy of Justin's lumber yard.
You want to just lay the wood down
and kind of map it like that?
Yeah, yeah, sure. Okay.
Helping out on this deck build
is not just a great way to save money,
it's actually some really fun work.
As a builder, there's nothing I like more than pitching in
on a good construction project.
The problem we got is that to get into that garage,
the further out we build it,
the harder it's going to be to kind of crab your car
over there to get into the other garage door.
So I'm thinking maybe eight feet might be about right?
Okay, yeah.
Thanks to Justin donating his lumber pile to the effort,
we just saved a truckload of money on materials.
Let me know if you need anything else.
Now it's time to earn a little bit of sweat equity.
Keith. Hey!
I called my contractor friend Bill
to come lead the project. He always cuts me a great deal,
but, hey, it's even better this time
because I'm part of the labor force.
What do we do first, get the concrete going
and get the posts in the ground?
Get the posts cut,
cut them in half, and get the concrete out.
- Well, let's get going. - Alright.
We take the 4x4 posts, put them in the ground.
We add the concrete compound
and then we add water to harden the concrete compound.
From there, we level the 4x4 posts in the hole.
Once the concrete hardens, we cut the posts off
all equally at the right height.
With the help of one of Bill's guys,
the deck starts coming together in no time.
Meanwhile, I decided it was a pretty good time
to get our landscaping team to put some plants in the ground.
We're surrounding the house with azalea bushes.
In the spring, they'll have beautiful blooms
full of pink, red, and purple,
but they remain evergreen year-round,
so there's always going to be a vibrant pop of color
against the gray backdrop of the house.
The outer perimeter of the deck is also framed
with its own row of azaleas.
And finally, the surface of the deck
is completed using the last of Justin's lumber
to create the perfect outdoor retreat.
Today, we're redoing the floors of this house,
patching all the holes in the old floor
to turn it into the new subfloor
this place needs.
Then we're laying new boards on top to act as the main floor.
And finally, we're covering it all
with a French vanilla-colored engineered hardwood
to give a beautiful uniform look throughout the entire house.
And now it's time to tackle that bathroom.
It's the only one, so we're going with an elegant classic
that everybody loves--
white 3x12 subway tiles.
And on the floor, a patterned tile
called Monte Carlo Green
to add some color and liven this place up.
Then we install our new vanity
and top it off with some white quartz.
Our pristine bathroom is really starting to shine.
Even though we saved a couple grand on our deck build,
the unexpected renovations have still pushed us
over our official renovation budget.
We anticipated spending around 55 grand on this flip,
but so far, we've already topped $65,000
and we still have another $15,000 or $20,000 left to go.
The good news is the market's continued to climb,
and we can still make a decent profit
if we raise our asking price from $330,000 to $350,000,
which is supported by comps in the area,
even for a house as small as this one.
So that's the stove, right?
No, this is the dishwasher.
- Hello! - Hi!
Oh, it's so good to see you.
Oh, my gosh, it's been forever.
Today, I invited my friend Mia over
to check out the Spruce house.
We're all getting very nervous about making any money
on this flip, but Mia's been in the market
for a starter home just like this for a good while,
and I think this could be the perfect house
at a very good price.
They're busy doing that, so let's go this way.
Okay. Remember, this has two bedrooms.
This is one.
Okay. I like the windows.
So many windows. Look at this floor.
This is an engineered wood in French oak and whitewashed.
Okay. Yeah, it's just a little small.
It's 1920s. - These houses are small. - Okay.
I'm kind of surprised about Mia calling out that one negative
so quickly.
I honestly thought she'd fall in love with this starter home.
But, hey, I'm a salesperson. I'm sure I can win her over.
This floor is the old floor, but it's getting covered up.
Oh, this is-- Why didn't you keep this?
This is beautiful.
Oh, I know, it's gorgeous,
but the problem is it was patchy everywhere,
damage that couldn't be filled, unfortunately.
We tried.
Well, what caused the damage?
Wood rot, and then there was some termite issues.
We had the whole place tented. Everything's gone.
It comes with a warranty for five years.
Okay. Yeah.
So gorgeous deck.
- Isn't this amazing? - Yeah, this is nice.
New fence. We incorporated
that old tree stump into the fence line.
Pretty cool, huh? Yeah.
And then this cool, amazing two-car garage.
So you're just gonna leave the garage as is?
You're not gonna, like, build it out or anything?
No, you'll have to do that yourself.
How much was it again?
$350,000. Okay, $350,000.
With the beautiful sounds of cars just rushing by.
It's like a little murmur.
You can't tell it's a freeway near there.
I mean, there's some really nice stuff about the house.
I just-- Yeah.
Okay. So I guess I'm not selling this house today.
I mean, our reno has been amazing,
but maybe Keith is right. I mean, between the size,
the termite damage, the noise,
boy, oh, boy, like, we might not be able to sell this
for the price that we want.
We could really be in trouble.
Now that we've gotten some real-world feedback
from a potential buyer, which wasn't great,
we've realized we really have to step up our game
and make this kitchen a true showpiece.
Our team is assembling and installing
these white Shaker cabinets with glass fronts and a pantry
to make this a very welcoming place to cook, eat,
and hang out.
We chose Calcatta gold quartz countertops,
which are engineered from ground quartz and polyester resin
to make sure they aren't porous and will resist stains,
keeping them gleaming for decades to come.
And then it's time for the appliances.
Our stainless-steel fridge and our front-control
glass-top stove are modern beauties
and really add to this gorgeous room.
Cool, man. Looks good.
Place is finally starting to look like a house
and not a jobsite.
So we got the appliances in.
The fridge and the range and the dishwasher in
and the micro.
But as I suspected, the counter still isn't fixed.
Did you hear about what happened with the countertop?
Uh, no. This is supposed to be beveled,
like from this corner back to there... Uh-huh.
...and the bevel was in here.
Oops. So that corner was sticking out.
Oh, no bueno.
So, yeah, we had to get a whole different slab cut.
Well, if it went smoothly,
it wouldn't be this house.
For sure. Maybe we can get some of this trash out of here.
Yeah, absolutely, man.
We're about a week away
from when we want to do our open house,
so it's time to get things done.
Granite in, garbage out.
Oh
Dude, that was a rat!
It ran in the garage.
I think it's behind the screens.
- Oh, come on. - I'm trying to scare it out for you.
You're trying to scare it my direction.
I know, there's a rat in there.
I know, I know.
This is crazy. We've already eradicated,
what, roaches and termites.
I'm not about to let another pest move in.
Oh, my God.
Bro, we're gonna get attacked by this rat, dude.
Well, wait, wait, hold on,
why don't we just put a trap in here?
You got a trap?
I do, actually.
It's in my truck. Okay.
Let's go get a trap.
Hopefully, we can get rid of this pest
without spending any more money
on a high-priced exterminator.
We'll bait a trap, and we'll see
if some of Marley's kibbles do the trick.
The crew fixed their mistake and brought in a new slab
of quartz that fits perfectly over top of the cabinet.
Now the kitchen is really shaping up.
And more good news--
We caught the rat.
Oh, is that that big old mean rat?
Oh, that's a fat one.
Well, I got woods behind my house, dude,
I'll just let it out. I'll let it go.
Yeah?
We're going to go find you a new home
that we don't have to sell.
This is looking great.
I love the color door you picked, Justin.
Thanks.
And the black windows-- so good.
Nah, it looks great. We're almost done, you know.
We're just a couple of days from open house.
The property's coming together great,
except for one problem I haven't been able to fix,
and I don't think I'm going to be able to hide.
Well, the deck is looking good.
Yeah. Yeah.
Paint color looks great.
Are these guys putting in the garage doors?
Uh...
Well, I mean...
What it is, is those garage doors,
because they were built in the third century A.D.
or whatever, they're not standard-size openings,
so they have to be custom made.
We'll have them before the open house, yeah?
No, actually. Uh...
You guys expect me to sell this house
without a complete garage?
I mean, there's-- you know, there's--
So let me get this straight. We went from a living space
to now it's not even a two-car garage.
Now it's just, like, a carport or an old shed with no doors.
I was calling everybody. I just couldn't find one.
Sounds like we're super prepared
for the open house coming up.
I guess we have to tell people
that the doors are still coming
and just hope that they don't think
we're a bunch of amateurs.
Our open house is coming up in two days,
so it's time for the finishing touches on our bathroom,
which includes bright, chrome fixtures
and also a very sleek,
frame-less glass enclosure for the shower.
Finally, we're at my favorite step-- staging.
Joseph from Systematic Home Staging
is setting up gorgeous furnishings
that'll make every room look amazing.
Buyers can now really envision living here in style.
- There you go. - There we go.
It looks so good.
Have a great open house.
- Thank you. - Very good, thank you.
Hey, guys.
'Sup, dude? Hey.
Excited for the open house?
I'm really excited. You know, I've been anxious
about this house the whole time.
I mean, the small size, the bugs, the highway next door.
I just hope our hard work wasn't all for nothing.
I think at the price point, people are going
to oversee the freeway, so... And the size will actually
be a plus for the right buyer,
I think. We'll see.
Compared to how we found it,
we gave this house some serious curb appeal.
This place was, like, tooth plaque yellow.
It definitely was.
But it looks a million times better now.
The color you chose, it just looks unbelievable.
Like, those black windows are just so on point.
- For sure. - I mean, now it looks so modern,
even though it still retains all the character.
It's amazing. Let's go inside.
- Yeah, absolutely. - Let's go.
- Check it out! - Wow.
It looks like a home.
Yeah, remember what it looked like before?
- Yeah. - It was very dark,
and there were holes everywhere.
Like a termite playground, you know?
Yeah, without a doubt, the floors actually
- make the house. - They look awesome.
They're so bright and modern.
Makes it feel more spacious, I think.
This bedroom looks fantastic.
Do you guys remember the hole that was there?
Oh, it's so soft.
Yeah. Now we're all good.
Let's see how the bathroom came out.
Wow. Doesn't this lookamazing?
Do you remember, there was that old,
disgusting closet there with all the worms?
Eww!
I'm glad we tore that out and made room
for this double vanity.
So much better.
And honestly, this bathroom feels so much more spacious now.
Way better.
This second bedroom is really nice.
This is a huge improvement over what it used to be.
So charming.
Here, guys, look at the kitchen now.
This is a way nicer kitchen than I ever imagined
we'd cram in here.
Do you remember, it was kind of an opening here?
The original layout of this kitchen was trash.
And now this feels like a kitchen you can actually
host in. Yeah.
And what I'm so happy about with the layout
is that we've built this peninsula.
We pulled it much further away from the back cabinets
than the original wall was,
and it overhangs so you can actually use it to dine on.
Okay, so have a look at the sun room now.
Yeah!
Remember how bad it was before?
This was arguably the worst room in the house, right?
But we rescued it and managed to keep it from
just falling off the back of the house.
This back use of space is good.
Yeah. So, let's check out the new deck.
Yeah.
- Alright! - It's cleaned up back here.
We didn't have to do much, but what we did
made a difference.
And unfortunately, we didn't get the doors,
Keith, for the garage, but it's okay.
I'll still be able to sell it.
Speaking of selling it, wish me luck.
- Alright. See you, Ash. - Take care.
Bye, guys.
This flip was a slog,
and if we were stuck selling it at $330,000,
we would barely break even.
But with the beautiful work we've done
and the recent comps in the area,
we think our new price of $350,000
will be right on point.
Hi. How are you? Hi.
Welcome to my open house.
Oh, wow.
- Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.
This is really cute. I love this.
It's a 2-1, 1,100 square feet,
and we're listing it for 350.
That sounds great.
I love the black on the windows.
The trim and the molding look amazing.
I love these floors, the color.
I do, too. - It really makes the room pop.
They're engineered - hardwood. - Super durable, right?
I got three pups.
Scratch resistant. Perfect.
This is our open-plan kitchen.
It's absolutely gorgeous.
Definitely a great entertainment space.
I can make some cocktails and serve them up here.
The cabinets all the way up to the ceiling-- I love that.
And here we have the primary bedroom.
Wow. It's actually a really good size.
And then we have a Jack and Jill bathroom,
which is over here.
Oh, wow, I love this double vanity.
Look at the rain head shower. You're going to love that.
I love how you did the tile. I think this is
my favorite room so far.
This is the other bedroom.
Oh, this is super cute.
It would be perfect for a home office.
Lots of natural light.
Here we have the sun room. Oh, my gosh, it's huge.
Oh, my God. - Look at this.
Woman #2: This is amazing.
This would be my new coffee space.
So here we have the backyard.
Oh, wow. My dogs are going to love this.
What a cool deck. What a great spot to entertain.
There's a two-car garage, but you could actually
convert this to livable space.
Mother-in-law suites, okay.
How about a man cave?
How about no. Sold!
Sold, perfect!
I absolutely love it. I would like to
put in an offer, as well.
Alright. Let's go talk about it.
The open house went even better than I hoped.
Within a few days, we got a full-price offer
for $350,000,
and that really saved our hides on this one.
We spent more than we wanted to on the purchase,
paying $220,000.
Then, we spent way more than we wanted to
on the flip itself, with reno costs
topping 83 grand, and interest and closing costs
hitting just over 21.
That's an all-in cost of $325,050,
leaving a profit of $24,950.
It's not as big a margin as we were hoping for,
but it's money in the bank, and with the way investors
are scarfing up properties these days,
it's a win we're glad to have.
Here's to selling another house. Full price.
- Hey, hey, hey. - What's up, dude?
To celebrate, I brought a gift.
I was trying to figure out the best way to celebrate
finishing the Spruce House.
I thought after, like, such a stressful job,
we could all use a bit of a laugh.
- It's chocolate? - Yeah.
It looks like a cockroach.
You know how we had the pest problem?
- So chocolate-covered bugs! - Look at that.
That's disgusting. Nasty.
Okay, that is not how I saw this joke playing out.
Look at him, he's gobbling it down.
This one tastes like cricket.
Delicious.