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.
It's a wreck, but we don't shy away from things like that.
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."
♪ I'm thinking 'bout the places I been ♪
♪ I'm thinking 'bout the money I spent ♪
♪ Everybody has a story to tell ♪
Ash, what are we up to today?
We're heading to Monterey. It's near Demetree Park.
You know, it's kind of upcoming.
Oh, for sure, dude.
Monterey is a growing neighborhood of Orlando
thanks to its excellent public and private schools.
It's also close to Demetree Park,
a 25-acre recreation area that encompasses three lakes,
drawing outdoor enthusiasts and families alike.
This house hit the market today. Ah.
3,000 square foot house listed for $215,000. It's cheap.
Something's horribly wrong with this picture.
I was like, "How is this possible
that there's 3,000 square foot for sale in Orlando
in this crazy market for $215,000?" Yeah.
There's a sinkhole. There was just a triple homicide.
- Yep. - There-- What else?
I called the Realtor, and I found out the scoop.
This couple bought it, right? And they were like,
"Oh, let's renovate. Let's do our first flip together."
They're now divorced.
- So it's cursed. - Cursed.
- It's cursed. - Cursed.
It's not that it's cursed. It's just, like, some people
don't understand what they're getting into.
Well, anyone thinks they can just flip houses. It's so easy.
And then they get into the project, and they just have
no idea what they're doing, and they do it all wrong.
It's going to be a bad country song, man.
Yeah.♪ Tried to flip a house ♪
♪ Now got alimony payments ♪
That's how it goes, man.
Desperate times mean we pick up good deals.
Okay, well, here it is.
This looks crazy, huh?
Oh, this place needs some work.
There is a hole in the front of the house.
Like, I can see the inside from the outside.
Always a good sign.
So, what do you know about the property?
The house is officially listed at 3,081 square feet.
It appears to have four bedrooms and three baths
and a large living room in the front
and a bunch of other common spaces.
But the previous owners left it amid renovation,
so now the configuration could be completely different.
Is this legit a concrete roof?
That thing could survive a Cat 5 hurricane,
I mean, if the house could support it.
It looks like the carport's kind of bowing, see?
Yeah. And what are these pink softballs hanging from the tree?
- What is that? - Those are mangoes.
- Hey, guys. - Hi.
- How are you? - Hey.
We know these two. Don and Diane
are a different team that flip houses here in Orlando.
With the demand for buyers being high
and the number of zombies being scarce,
we've been running into our rivals more often than not,
especially with houses that are first day on the market.
How's it look? - It's really bad.
- Really bad? - Is it? Worse than the outside?
Yeah, it's trashed in there.
There's not enough money in this house.
It's 3,000 square feet of hell.
- Oh, really? - Oh, wow.
- That's pretty bad. - Well, then we have to see it.
Yeah, it sounds like an amusement park ride.
Come on.
Slim pickings here in the flipping world.
What is this?
There's chains running all through the roof system?
And not only that, there's, like, steel ropes.
- Steel cables? - Yeah, steel cable?
So we've got carport with a concrete roof
being held up by tension wire and chains.
Yeah.
Yeah. And, guys, where's the front door?
I don't see any front door.
Well, here's a door.
Okay.
- Woof. - Geez.
- God. - Feel like I'm in a cave.
- You must be joking. - Like a dark cave.
What happened here?
I don't even know what this room is.
Does anyone have an idea?
I knew the inside of this place might be in flux,
but I didn't think it was going to be in utter chaos.
It looks like somebody was demo'ing, rebuilding,
and squatting here all at the same time.
Maybe it gets better.
Here's the opening that you were talking about outside.
That's the fire escape.
Oh, my-- This room isn't even tall enough for Keith. Look.
Ohh! Look.
Rowr. Okay. Interesting.
Don't lean on that post.
- Oh, my God. - It's not attached to anything.
It's just, like, resting there.
Jeez. It's just holding up all of the middle of the house.
- Yeah. - With the concrete ceiling?
- Uh-huh. - Geez, this is scaring me.
And this room doesn't look any safer,
or any clearer as to what it is.
Must have been the carport. Look.
Yeah, this is, like,
probably old garage or something.
Oh, my God. It's not even, like,
set on the concrete like it's supposed to be.
Oh, my goodness. They're moving.
So if you put floors in here,
it would just be like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa."
No, what they're building here is a trampoline.
It's just--Oh, God.
This is turning into a house and mysteries.
Like, what room are we in?
Who did the work? And what were they thinking?
Check out the electrical just coming out of
the, like, exterior wall horizontally over to here.
At a diagonal.
And it's tied up with a piece of rope.
And, look, there's plastic bags stuffed around the duct.
In all the years we've been doing this,
have you ever seen anything like this?
This is like an obstacle course,
but we're all going to die at the end.
Yeah.
Okay, so what's in here?
More code violations, I'm sure.
Holy cow.
Look at this wall. They're holding up
this whole ceiling section with it, and it's bowing down.
You see that bow in it? That's not supposed to be there.
They should bring the permit and code, like, new trainees here
to walk them through and be like, Be like--
"This is everything that's not code."
- Yeah. - Okay, so I think
this might be the master bathroom.
- Well, it's a big bathroom. - Yeah.
She wasn't wrong when she said 3,000 square feet of hell.
Yeah, dude. It's a nightmare.
I guess Don and Diane were right about this place.
At this point, I'm just curious
to see how much more messed up it gets.
Well, that outside's not much better than the inside.
Looks awful. At least they've already
picked out the paint colors first.
The only good thing about this house so far
is this cool avocado tree
and the mango tree over there. That's it.
Basically, we've got one of the biggest disasters
we've ever seen sandwiched between two fruit trees.
That doesn't make a very good listing.
So, what are we thinking here?
'Cause I don't even want to make an offer.
Thinking those people were right.
I want to forget I saw this place.
Is there the right price for anybody?
It's listed for $215,000.
I think we should pass on this place.
Oh. That means I don't ever have to come back here again, right?
- Yeah. - That sounds wonderful.
Let's get out of here. Yes. Please.
Captioning provided by A+E Networks
- Hello. - Oh, hi.
- Hi. - Hey. Hi.
What's happening?
We wanted to stop by and have a few words.
Oh, yeah? Come on. Sit down.
Take a seat. Yeah, take a seat.
Thank you. Well, we-- We just got a house,
and it's a big project.
It's actually the house where we saw you guys,
you know, on San Juan.
Huh? You said there was no money in it, right outside.
We looked at it, and there could be.
Exactly how much did you end up paying for?
$215,000.
- Ohh. - Oh.
Oof.$215,000.
It's 3,000 square feet, which is unique for the neighborhood.
I think the size, plan that we've already sketched out,
it could sell for a pretty good price.
What do you think the ARV is?
Probably around $425,000.
- That's a big project. - It is.
And everybody that we're working with on other jobs,
they're slammed. And wanted to see
if you had any people
to, you know, get some crews over there for us.
Yeah, we're very busy right now.
I mean, if there was something in it for us,
maybe we could somehow figure it out.
Maybe we could partner up.
What if we put in the rehab money, and we'll make
our crews available to work with you on the flip,
and then we'll all - split the profits? Split it?
Well, we'll be running the flip, so, you know,
if you're putting $100,000 in renovation
and we're already in it for $215,000,
that would be a 1/3, 2/3 split.
Yeah, that wouldn't work out, so...
Yeah, that's not going to work.
We're all going to put our time in.
We're all going to put our designs--
Yeah, but you guys came knocking on our door,
so you obviously need us because you don't have the crews.
So we have the manpower.
And if we're putting up the reno money,
we got to run the flip with you,
be equal co-owners of the property,
and help with the design.
So I don't see why that wouldn't be 50/50.
Otherwise, it's not worth it. It's-- We can't do it.
So we'll both design it
and oversee it together,
and it's a 50/50 partnership.
Let's-- Let's try it.
- Alright. - Good deal.
- Awesome. - Thank you.
So it looks like we're going to be flipping
that monstrosity after all.
I just hope working with our new partners
doesn't make this job an even bigger nightmare.
- Bye, guys. - Take care, guys.
- Thanks. - See you soon.
Bye. See you guys.
I think this deal
is going to work out really well for us.
For starters, Don and Diane are putting up nearly twice
as much money as we are, buying this property for $215,000.
But we're only putting in $110,000 for reno,
which is a super low buy-in for a house flip.
We're getting the same profit as them with only half the risk.
We're also paying interest on just the reno amount,
which will only cost about $3,800 for three months.
We estimate the closing costs will be about $22,500
when we sell, which puts the total investment
at just over $351,000. But based on recent comps,
we actually think this property could be worth 450 grand,
which would net us almost $99,000.
That's nearly 50 grand for us,
which would be a 44% return on our investment,
which is great. Even better, Don and Diane are known
for doing a lot of the work themselves,
so our crews won't actually be stretched that thin.
But even though Don and Diane will be involved in everything,
we still have an equal say in the design.
So we know our money will be spent wisely.
This isn't our usual arrangement,
but it's set up to be a great payoff for us.
There are a ton of fixes we need to do to this place
to make an optimal and cohesive layout.
For starters, we're going to try to fix the previous owners'
halfhearted attempt at a fourth bedroom.
We're going to close off one of the openings.
It's going to leave just a single door.
Next, we'll get to work on the master.
We'll separate it from that bonus room
by creating a hallway,
and we'll finish up that huge closet
that separates the bedroom from the kitchen.
Then we'll expand the master bathroom
by pushing out the far wall about 4 feet,
giving plenty of room for a tub, a shower, and dual sinks.
Finally, we'll open up the living room
at the front of the house by taking down
some old, unnecessary framing and creating a huge common space
that opens directly to both the kitchen and the dining room.
This house will have some excellent flow.
Are you a little worried
about working with Don and Diane?
Yeah. I mean, typically, you know,
when you do a partnership, somebody's the money
and somebody's the work. But in this case,
we're kind of part of the money and part of the work.
But they're also very hands-on...
Yeah....which might get a bit
- too many cooks in the kitchen. - Yeah.
You think you and Don will be able
to do the building together kind of thing?
We'll see how that works out.
I don't know.3,000 square feet of hell
with a new team.
I think we're gluttons for punishment.
Yeah.
- Hey, guys! - Hey!
- It's demo day! - We're here!
- Alright. - Let's go inside
- and see the plan. - Yeah.
- Cool. - Yeah, for sure.
Partnering up with Don and Diane
is definitely something we're not used to.
But with this house and all of its awful construction,
there's plenty of stuff for everybody
to smash into oblivion.
We're going to make this an open front porch,
so that wall can come down today.
- Let's get to it. - Let's open her up.
You know we could have just unscrewed these, right?
This is how you don't demo. Whoa.
Slowly but surely, our team divide and conquer,
taking out the bad framing
and the old appliances.
Meanwhile, I'm going to town on this wall
so we can reconfigure a larger kitchen and laundry room.
This is going to take two, eh?
Okay.
Perfect.
Well, alrighty, gang.
Made some progress today.
We invented some new rooms, got rid of some old rooms.
Got a serious workout.
We'll get the demo team to clear this mess out.
Don and Diane can swing a mean hammer,
but building a house is different than tearing one down.
We've agreed on our design plan,
and we already know they're successful flippers.
So this might be the beginning of a good partnership.
Hey.
Oh, hey.
What are you doing?
Well, I opened this up a little bit.
I wanted to see what kind of trusses we had.
My team has decided to make me
the primary liaison for this flip
so that Justin and Ashlee can keep running other projects.
So I'm meeting up with Don this morning to discuss first steps,
because this house needs a lot of work.
This looks like somebody gave a hammer
and a couple of wood blocks to a Montessori class
and told them to be creative.
This is spaghetti. This is a hodgepodge.
But two structural engineers have met me out here,
confirmed it's performing in place.
We don't have to do anything to this.
Isn't "performing in place"
kind of like a metaphor for, "It hasn't fallen down yet"?
It is something that says, "It is-- It is holding,
it has held, and it is projected to continue to hold."
We're waiting for a structural engineer to come in,
because there's a lot of work to go over inside.
Okay.
Here he comes right now.
- Hi. - Hey, Sean. Good to see you.
- Keith. Good to meet you, man. - Hey, nice to meet you.
Let's go inside and really see what we have to work with here.
Okay, let's go.
Most of it's back here.
What we're doing is this is a-- this is a heavy-duty,
load-bearing wall. That's coming down
to expand the master bathroom.
We're going to do some temporary shoring
so we can put LVL beams
and rebuild a load-bearing wall and increase the bathroom.
Does that, the 2x4 wall, the top of it,
does that look like it's sagging to you?
It does. So does this beam.
and if you-- if you look at this,
you see right up through this opening.
- Wait. - This is just a shell.
Wait, there's-- There's nothing in that?
It's just a box.
There's--It's a hollow box.
There--
Oh, my God.
It turns out one of the major cross beams
in the middle of the house is not even a beam at all.
It's basically some thin paneling put together
to "look" like a beam.
But there are blocks on it being used to support other beams.
I have no idea why somebody would do this.
I'm starting to understand why Don wanted
to get the engineers out here sooner rather than later.
Tomorrow, we're going to get this thing shored up and safe.
No, we don't want anybody getting hurt, so let us get it
- all shored up first. - Fully permitted, fully inspected.
Here's the thing. With structural engineers onboard
and a willingness to correct this and make it right,
it should be an awesome product when we're finished.
It's just, the starting point seems to keep getting worse.
Like you think you're here, and it turns out
you're like way down here. So let's get out of here.
It's getting a little warm in here for a rain jacket.
We'll keep moving it along.
The engineer showed us how to make this place safe.
So now it's time to restructure this place the right way.
And that means putting up a lot of beams to give this
3,000-square-foot beast a strong skeleton.
And framing out our new and expanded bathrooms
and our reconfigured common areas.
You don't see too many concrete roofs these days.
This could survive a Cat 5 hurricane.
This-- You don't need to tie this roof down.
Don called me over today
because he wants to discuss the roofing situation.
I've never dealt with a concrete roof before,
but if it's as sturdy as he says,
we shouldn't have any problems.
The roof is in good shape.
The problem are the skylights. They're all over the place.
There's no reason or pattern, and they're not done well.
But I'd like to find a way to keep these,
because they provide a lot of natural light into the house.
The problem we're going to have is
there's not a whole lot of skylight companies
that have expertise going through a poured concrete roof.
Yeah. Depends on like how thick
the concrete is and how big of a sleeve they have to make
- for the skylights. - Right.
A custom job like this
is probably going to be really expensive.
But it offers a lot of light in the house.
Yeah.
I'm looking across this roof.
I'm seeing like half a dozen skylights,
and no two of them are the same.
If we need custom replacements for every one,
you're talking a lot of money tacked onto our reno budget,
which we didn't expect, but we are paying for.
I guess that makes sense. Let's close them up.
- Sounds like a plan. - Good deal.
That went pretty smoothly.
Guess Don appreciates a well-thought-out argument.
Our workers get busy tearing out the old mismatched skylights.
They patch each area with wood, foam, roof seam tape,
and a waterproof liquid rubber sealant
that'll keep Florida's weather at bay.
Next up is the electrical work.
Our crew reroutes the exposed wiring through furring strips,
wall studs, and ceiling joists, keeping it tucked away
until it terminates at code-compliant junction boxes
and outlets.
We then set up a sub panel inside...
and a main panel outside,
making the system easy to control and maintain.
Hey, John. How's it looking in here?
Hey, Don. How are you, sir?
I'm thinking that may have been abandoned.
Well, we'll know shortly.
Today, we're meeting our plumber, John,
to check out the pipes in this place.
We know we're moving a lot of lines in the bathroom,
which is expensive,
because that means cutting up a lot of concrete.
The question is whether we need to replace
the main line, as well.
Oh.
Got a lot of sewage remains in there.
That looks like water hasn't gone
through that in a long time, huh?
This has been sitting for quite a while,
two, maybe three years since this place was occupied.
The good news is that you have a PVC drain line here,
not cast iron.
That's-- That's encouraging.
Cast iron pipes haven't been in common use since the '70s.
If a house has cast iron, the system might be old enough
that the whole thing needs to be replaced.
Oh, man. We have sitting water,
which means it's not draining, see it?
Yeah, yeah.
There's how many feet out?
We are 48 feet.
48 feet toward the sewer, under the street?
We got to be pretty close to the front
- of the house at this point. - Yep.
The fact that there's sitting water in this drain
means that we have to dig it out and fix that angle.
But if the bad section is outside under dirt
instead of inside under concrete,
maybe we can access it and fix it cheaply and quickly.
Alright, let's see what we got.
Right there.
We got-- We are--Is that standing water?
Yep, I think we found our issue in the outside of the home,
12 feet towards the street, our issue starts.
At the end of that 12 feet, is it good to the road?
It seems that way. I'm past that point. I'm at 20.
Okay, wait, what's that? What was that?
- Oh. - Oh, there's the cast.
- There's the cast. - So it meets up with cast iron.
It's screwed, right?[ Chuckles ] Yeah.
We're replacing all the way to the street.
I mean, that's-- The cast iron
looks pretty grody on the inside.
And we know the main drain that's--
Oh, there's a rat. There's a rat. There's a rat.
- Oh, my God, look at that. - Hey.
There's a rat. Oh, man.
Oh, my God. We got a sewer rat.
- That's so crazy. - Oh, he's gone.
Go chase it. There-- Oh, there it is.
- Yeah. - Oh, he's crawling out.
I think the rest of the rat family's in there, honestly.
So it turns out Don was wrong when he said
this place hadn't been occupied for two or three years.
Now we have to evict some vermin, in addition
to replacing the entire plumbing system of this house.
Every day here, it's something new.
Our crew gets to work
getting all the kinks and rats out of our plumbing.
We're removing the old combination
of cast iron and plastic drainpipes.
So we can get a clean start
with reliable and rodent-free modern PVC.
Then we create pathways through the floors
so we can run pipes to all the bathrooms.
We're 1/3 of the way through this 3-month flip,
and the work has been a bit slow but steady.
Of the 110 grand we budgeted for renovation,
we've spent about $43,000,
but that includes electrical work and a new HVAC system.
So far, we've seen eye to eye with Don and Diane
pretty well on how to spend the money.
Hopefully that continues,
especially if the money starts to get tight.
Wait a minute.
This got uncovered since the last time I was here.
This is brick.
This must have been some kind of a--
almost like a courtyard porch.
And there's a slope to it, too.
So this was probably outside.
They built right on an old patio.
Don and I were happy to see the new pipes
the plumbers put in.
But what the demo team cleared out exposed a problem.
They tore out the laminate floor in the kitchen and dining room.
And now we can see it was just covering
some poorly laid bricks.
This craggy surface is way too unstable to build on.
This is getting more and more expensive.
- It's all through here. - By the minute.
Over here, this is brick.
And this goes up to here, right?
Holy cow-- So, wait a minute.
What are we talking about?
Keith, 1/3 of this floor's got to come up now.
We're going to have to pour an enormous amount of concrete.
I mean, I don't even know how they're going to get in here,
'cause we're going to get rid of the Dumpster
in the driveway, get a truck. We're going to need a pump,
because we can't wheelbarrow-- I mean, this is--
No, you're not gonna wheelbarrow this.
I think with a pump and everything,
we're in for a couple of grand at least.
Oh, my God.
This is why house flipping
is way harder than people think it is,
'cause you wind up with one problem,
and it just cascades into all kinds of other stuff.
We're now talking 5 or 6 grand at a minimum
to rectify this.
Wow. Easily.
While we book a concrete crew
to replace the old brick floors inside,
we found a point of agreement with Don and Diane outside.
These prison-quality cinder blocks
should be covered with stucco.
First, we apply a latex bonding agent evenly over the surface.
Then we cover this blue glue with the stucco mix.
It only takes about 1/2 inch
applied in two layers, a scratch coat,
and a finish coat to give this place a smooth, clean facade.
- Hello? - Hello?
- Logan with Mapei. - Hey. Keith.
- Keith? - Hi. Ashlee. Nice to meet you.
We've poured some new concrete floors
where the bricks used to be, and they look great.
But some of the old concrete floors aren't as nice.
We're having trouble deciding how to fix them.
- Good to meet you. - Nice to meet you.
So we invited Logan from Mapei
to see what solutions he can offer.
We have a slope going down to this corner.
It's all coming down this way.
- I gotcha. - So we're talking about
some way to level it.
Without spending a fortune, 'cause we've already
spent a fortune, so...
We have self-levelers that's really fluid,
and it flows really well.
It goes out, and it flattens itself, essentially.
Move it around, smooth it, and then you just walk away.
And within a few hours, it's dry, and you can set your tile.
That's amazing. - Oh, great, great. We like that.
Self-leveling concrete is an elegant solution.
It has a lot of polymers which are glue-like molecules
that hold it together even in its more fluid form.
And the short drying time will help us
keep moving on this flip.
But we have other problems besides uneven floors.
Over here will be the kitchen,
and we had to rip out an uneven brick floor
and put down concrete just a couple of days ago.
We're hoping we can lay tile in a week or so. Can we do it?
28 days is the standard.
So, a concrete slab should be 28 days old.
While it's drying, it has a tendency to shrink and move,
and tile's rigid.
So you don't want your substrate moving a whole lot
underneath it once you set it.
We do have a solution, though. It's our Mapeguard UM.
It's kind of like a plastic mat.
And as long as that slab is at least 7 days old
and in good shape, you're ready to go ahead
and start setting your tile immediately.
This is really impressive.
Instead of having to wait a month to lay tile,
we can now do it after the concrete's been in just a week.
If only there were shortcuts like this
for everything we got to do in the house.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
We're putting this Mapei magic to work right away.
We're starting with the self-leveling compound,
which mixes up as a near liquid
to fill up every nook and cranny
and then settles as a nice, even surface.
And for the kitchen, we have that primer
to go over the concrete that's already in place.
We spread out a thin layer
which will rapidly dry into a protective rubber seal.
So even though the concrete below is still curing,
we don't have to wait to lay tile
and make these floors look fantastic.
Once our floors are set,
it's time to bash out the old windows
and replace them with beautiful, double-paned upgrades.
Now that our floors are dry enough to walk on,
our drywall team has a lot of area to cover.
A simple estimate for the amount of drywall
needed for the walls and ceilings of a home
is equal to about four times
the square footage of the floors.
So for this 3,000-square-foot house,
we're talking about 12,000 square feet of drywall
to turn this maze of framing into a well-defined home.
And once all our surfaces are ready, it's time to paint.
We've chosen a color called Drift of Mist.
It's a light gray designed to pair well with other colors
in both cool and warm lighting.
And on the outside, we're going with a subtle
but vibrant color called Magnetic Gray.
For an accent. we're painting the columns a sandy brown
that'll help this house stand out.
Now it's landscaping time.
We're bringing in some tropical plants like areca palms,
I really like that tile for the floor of the bathroom.
Really? This one? You don't think that's a little hipster-y?
No.
God. That's kind of the opposite of what I was thinking,
just because I was thinking a little more traditional.
I really like this tile.
I was thinking more neutral, like this would be good.
- I don't know. - But it's so plain and bland.
Or let's have a look around.
What would you put with that tile?
Something like these or these.
Okay, well, I do love these,
but you think they're going to go with that?
Yeah, I think that would go really well.
God. You're definitely sure about that tile.
Yes, it's what I had in mind when I bought the house.
Okay, fair enough. But, I mean, I think it's only fair,
since we're supposed to be working together,
that I'll just do the kitchen. I'll pick all the tile,
all the finishes for the kitchen.
We have to kind of compromise, so...
- Okay. - Okay. Fair enough.
So let's go order the stuff.
It's time to put in all that great tile
that Diane and I picked out.
I made the choice for the main flooring throughout the house,
going with a 12x24-inch glazed porcelain tile
in a color called Cove Creek Gray.
In the bathrooms, we're putting in the modern designs
that Diane picked up.
For the floor one bathroom,
she loved a design called Beehive Medley
that features a honeycomb pattern.
And for the master, she found a pattern
called Memoir Gray Starburst,
which pairs with some multi-shade gray ceramics
for the shower wall and niche.
I admit I was a bit skeptical of her choices,
but I think the overall look came out great.
Shaker cabinets are all wood, all straight lines,
and they always look good in any home.
Then we add in some slick, new stainless steel appliances
which will really help modernize this kitchen.
Now it's time for staging.
Our friends at The Staging Company
are making this house look comfortable and inviting...
...both inside...
and outside,
using Adore Modern Decor's
bed swing and fire pit
to create a tranquil retreat.
With a photographer scheduled to come by soon,
Keith and I are helping put the finishing touches in place.
Oh. Keith! Are you okay?
- What happened? - No. God dang it.
Oh, my goodness. Look at the mess!
The photographer is actually on his way.
He just texted me.
What? You broke the leg?
I can fix this.
I might have some Gorilla Glue left. We got it.
"Bonds wood, stone, metal, ceramic."
Just hold on. You had me at wood.
That's what we got here.
That looks good. Flip it up
- so it's upwards. Yeah, yeah. - Okay.
Okay. It says here,
"Clamp objects together for 1 to 2 hours."
Yeah. Okay. Let's get cleaned up.
- Alright. We're good to go. - Yes.
There were some bumps along the way,
but we made it to the end of this tag-team flip.
And of the 110 grand we budgeted for reno,
we spent about $107,000.
That's a pretty good ending
for what turned out to be a great collaboration.
Now it's time to see how well our work paid off.
I mean, it's night and day.
You wouldn't even recognize this place.
This is arguably one of the biggest
transformations we've ever made.
Come here, Marley girl.
Wow. Crazy.
Do you remember when we first saw this place?
How the carport was held together with, like,
chains and tension wire and--
Yeah, cables.
Yeah, it was so sketchy,
and there was no real front door, either, you know?
Then there was that giant hole
that we could see inside the house.
Yeah, and remember, we passed on it the first time.
Oh, yeah. We ran into Diane and...
Don and Diane. Yeah.
It's 3,000 square feet of hell.
I didn't want to do this.
But now...
What a transformation, yeah?
Yeah. It's gorgeous.
And I love that we were able to stucco the whole front.
Just looks so fresh,
and the paint colors really bring it all together.
Yeah. - It has amazing curb appeal now.
Yeah. This front yard,
the pavers, landscaping, the palm trees.
And, guys, I love this porch that we built.
You know, this was a wall that we tore down.
And now you've got this awesome lounging area.
We've got a proper front door.
- Yeah. - And now we've got, like, this wide open, huge carport.
The carport is massive.
I love the paint color on the door, as well.
It's "Distance." Okay.
So fancy. Ooh.
Well, I'm glad we got to go the distance with this place.
And I think Don and Diane are inside.
Should we go see 'em?
Say hi. Hello!
Hey! How are you guys?
Hey! Hey!
- Hey, guys. - We've been ready for you.
Looks so good.
Do you remember what this room originally looked like?
This room was so dark.
It was like a cave before.
And we thought the ceiling was coming down.
Yeah, yeah. There was that beam.
Don't lean on that post.
It's not attached to anything. Oh, my God.
This is scaring me.
This place was just a labyrinth of rooms,
and nothing really made sense.
- Look at it now. - This looks incredible.
- I'm stunned. - It's so wide open now.
And bright.
We've got LED bright lights.
We were able to just give it a lot of lighting.
In the dining room, though,
that's the one that had bricks.
Bricks.
It was an old patio that they just put the tile right over.
We had no idea this was the dining room,
'cause you couldn't tell.
This is just such a beautiful dining room now,
and it just really makes sense.
The whole layout just makes sense now.
Big change.
And now it flows nicely into the kitchen.
Yeah. Let's check out the kitchen.
When we first got here, this room was nothing
but a forest of 2x4s.
It was so confusing. You couldn't tell what was what.
Yeah, but look at it now.
I mean, this place is super bright, it's well lit.
The white Shaker cabinets look awesome.
And the midnight blue island,
it's my favorite part of this kitchen by far.
Yeah. Yeah, me too.
And then the counters
really top off the beautiful cabinets,
and then the new stainless steel appliances
will make it so functional.
It's incredible.
Hey, so, you guys want to go see some more rooms?
Yes. Let's take a look.
The other wing of the house, right?
I remember when I first got into this room,
we had to step over all that wood, remember?
Yeah, somebody had the idea of building the floor up
to try to make it more level,
but it was just regular timber on concrete.
It was a fun house.
But now look at the light in this room. It's gorgeous.
- This looks great. - All the bedrooms are so big,
aren't they? Like, this is massive.
Yeah, this is another great bedroom.
Everything has such a good feel now.
It's very fresh, very modern.
And we got a great owner's suite to still look at.
Do you guys remember how unsafe this room used to be?
The ceiling was sagging.
It was like structurally unsafe, and it was a code violation.
But now...
This looks great.
This is amazing, actually.
- Beautiful. - Yeah.
Lots of light. Walk-in closet.
I think it came out great.
Let's check out the master bathroom. Yeah.
Remember, this is the room that we snaked
to see if the drain was gonna hold water.
And found a rat.
Oh, my God. Look at that.
- Hey! - There's a rat.
Lord! This thing's so sweet.
Wow. - We can turn that on. I got the bubbles.
I absolutely love the tile, the Memoir Gray.
It just ties everything together.
The floor tile looks amazing.
To do a shower on this scale, I mean, it's super impressive.
I think the vanity is gorgeous.
It's the 72-inch vanity with the engineered quartz,
the same as we have in the kitchen.
A buyer is really gonna love this whole bathroom.
- Yeah. - Should we check out the rest?
- Yeah, absolutely. - Let's check out the rest.
- Another nice room. - What a fabulous office.
You can do so many things with this room.
Could be a bedroom, it could be an office, a playroom.
Anything. It's right off the master.
And it's not necessarily, like, close to any of the kids' rooms.
- Yeah. - So you could have some peace and quiet
to actually work inside this room.
- There's more. - Yeah, there's a lot more.
Another amazing room.
It has this great window
with all the natural light coming in.
Great little bathroom. Perfect size for a guest.
Another master.
With another huge shower.
- This is cool. - It's crazy 'cause it's so huge!
This Beehive Medley tile does really look great.
And I love that we tied it in with the niche, too.
Well, guys, there's plenty more of this house to see.
Let's keep on going.
First time we saw this,
it was nice and sketchy, with all the chains.
I looked on the property appraiser's site
to make sure that we hadn't bought it from Hannibal Lecter.
Not much of a dungeon - anymore. - No, this is remarkable.
We had to close off the skylights in here.
- Yeah, yeah. - So we've got the LEDs.
Light, light, light, light everywhere.
And with as much space and bedrooms that we have,
I mean, this could just be a bonus room, you know?
We should check out the outside
'cause a lot of change has happened here, too.
Do you remember when we first came out here?
They had painted splotches on the wall, remember?
Like, why are you picking paint colors
when the house looks like that?
But look at it now.
This backyard feels almost like a courtyard.
The fence is almost as high as the house.
It's kind of enclosed. You have privacy.
- This is nice. - You can grill.
We ended up putting a nice house together as a team.
Came together
and now we got a beautiful house
and you can get it sold.
It's time.
Let's get our money back out of this place.
- Yes! Let's do it. - Alright. Let's get out of here.
Let's stick out the sign right now, yeah?
This property went from being so horrible
we didn't even want to touch it,
to an amazing estate with a great design.
Don and Diane were right when they saw potential in this place
because the market in this area has exploded.
Based on recent comps,
we raised our asking price from $450,000 to $550,000,
and we still got tons of interest.
After multiple bids, we accepted an incredible offer of $595,000.
Don and Diane bought this house for $215,000,
and we put in $106,000 in reno costs.
The closing costs on the sale hit just over 32 grand,
making the total expenses about $353,000.
That leaves a gross profit of more than $240,000.
Half of that comes to us, minus the loan interest
of $4,100 on that reno money,
which means our take-home profit is over $116,000.
Taking this on by ourselves might have been a bit much,
but as a team effort, it paid off beautifully.
We ended up putting a nice house together as a team.
- Yeah. - Great teamwork.
But the question is, would you all do it again?
It took me about a month to understand Keith.
And then it took me another month to appreciate Keith.
And now I'm about to like him.
That seems to me very fast-moving.
It's taken me years.
Yeah, she's still struggling with that.
It's a three-phase process.
- Yeah. - Yeah, but it's a good one.
It's like the steps of grieving. Yeah.