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“Flip or Flop” stars Tarek El Moussa and Christina Anstead have remained a steadfast house-flipping duo, despite their divorce. However, in the latest episode, Anstead is on vacation, so El Moussa partners up with a friend who’s new to flipping, Robert Drenk.
This house flip gets off to a shaky start. After buying a house sight unseen in Lakewood, CA, for $400,000, they seem to regret their decision once they set foot in the house.
The house in this episode, aptly titled “Hoarding Potential,” is filled with junk and trash. It’s so bad, they have to pay $6,000 upfront to get everything removed. Already, this is turning out to be an expensive flip.
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Will El Moussa and his rookie flipper friend be able to turn a profit on this hoarder house? Read on to see how they cope with this mess, and the lessons they (and we) can learn from this pricey house flip.
Modern vs. contemporary: There’s a difference!
El Moussa tells Drenk that this house, with its small size and low price, is probably going to get snapped up by a younger buyer. So, it’s important to cater to a younger style. El Moussa knows they can do this with either a contemporary or modern design in the kitchen.
Though “contemporary” and “modern” sound like the same thing, El Moussa shows the newbie flipper that these two styles are very different. While modern designs usually have more clean lines, contemporary homes usually feature more pops of color and even some funky patterns.
To illustrate this, El Moussa lays kitchen samples on the floor so they can consider the options. Immediately, both El Moussa and Drenk gravitate to the contemporary look, choosing white cabinets to make the small space look bigger and a patterned tile to make the backsplash pop.
In the end, their choices look perfect in the space—it’s the ideal contemporary look.
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Don’t shy away from a colorful island
With a gorgeous kitchen already taking shape, El Moussa starts to have second thoughts on the white-on-white design. He wonders if they need another pop of color to bring the kitchen together. He proposes painting the island blue for a little something different.
At first Drenk is hesitant about the style—and especially wary of its $900 price tag. But in the end, El Moussa’s design choice wins him over. Once the island is painted, it perfectly complements the backsplash, just as El Moussa said it would. Plus, it gives the kitchen a gorgeous custom look.
“You walk right through the door, first thing you see is that blue island,” El Moussa says when touring the finished house.
Drenk also admires the color: “It’s like a beautiful sky blue.”
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It pays to take risks with tile
When it comes time to pick out shower tile, El Moussa confesses that there is “something I’ve always wanted to do.” He tells Drenk that he wants to run large white tile halfway up from the shower floor, then finish the shower from the middle to the top with a smaller blue tile.
It certainly is a different look compared with the showers he and Anstead usually do, but once the tile is installed, it looks great.
“I love how that tile came out,” El Moussa says when looking at the finished bathroom.
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Save money by putting paneling on just the front of the house
There’s no arguing that the front of this house looks forgettably plain. The light brown exterior doesn’t do the home any favors, and El Moussa and Drenk know that it needs to be changed. They just can’t decide what to do instead.
Drenk wants to put shiplap all around the exterior, but El Moussa points out that shiplap would be too expensive—about $10,000. Still, El Moussa doesn’t hate the idea of some paneling on the exterior, and they reach a compromise. They end up putting paneling on the front of the house and painting everything white with a gray trim.
In the end, the house looks amazing—and it doesn’t break the bank.
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Heated bathroom floors can be a selling point
Even though El Moussa takes over a lot of the design work, there’s one upscale amenity that Drenk wants to incorporate: a heated bathroom floor. At first, El Moussa is against the idea. He tries to argue that, in so many flips, he’s never done heated floors, so they should play it safe and stick to tradition.
But El Moussa’s argument backfires when he realizes that this actually may be the perfect time to try out this luxurious add-on.
They pay $1,000 to install the floors and, in the end, El Moussa seems pleased with the result.
“It’s actually really, really cool,” he says.
So, is it a flip or flop?
El Moussa and Drenk work hard on this renovation, and in the end it looks amazing.
“It looks like a brand-new house,” Drenk says.
But in order to make this hoarder house a dream home, they had to spend a lot of money. While the renovation estimate was originally set at $81,000, they end up going over budget by a shocking $20,000. That means, after a purchase price of $400,000, they have a break-even price of $530,000.
El Moussa and Drenk agree to list the house at $599,900. To their surprise, they end up getting an impressive offer for a whopping $617,000. That means these two will share a profit of $87,000, making this house a major success!
So does this mean El Moussa might partner up with Drenk rather than his ex-wife to flip houses more often? We’ll have to see what happens next week.
The post See ya, Christina? Tarek El Moussa Tries a New Partner on ‘Flip or Flop’ appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.
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