- [Narrator] For over six seasons,
the Zombie House Flip teams have been searching
the neighborhoods of America for desolated
and abandoned homes to bring back to their former glory.
- [Ashlee] Whoa, this is hideous.
- [Justin] It looks like they had a bonfire.
- [Narrator] From animal infested disasters...
- There's a (bleep) dead raccoon!
- There's a (bleep) - [Ashlee] (bleep)!
Oh my God, we're gonna get rabies.
- [Narrator] To big money makers.
- More profit than we've ever seen in our whole life.
- [Narrator] Staying on budget and on time
has always been the least of their worries.
- [Keith] Oh no! [glass shattering]
- Holy (bleep)!
This is a freaking nightmare.
- [Narrator] Now we're taking a look back at some
of the most unforgettable flips from the past season.
- What is that? - Oh my God.
- This is starting to feel like a bad investment
and I'm over it.
- [Narrator] And on this special episode,
the team finds a couple of larger than life properties
that have them seeing major dollar signs.
- It's gonna make us all a lot of money.
[rock music] [house rumbling]
- [Narrator] This is Zombie House Flipping:
Back to the Flip, Big Money Flips.
Welcome to this special episode of Zombie House Flipping.
Over the next hour, we'll take a look back at two flips
that brought in some serious cash.
Up first, a lakeside property and a seller
whose crazy demands kept eating into their bottom line.
- This is a buddy of mine.
He's had this house for a long time
on the lake, dock, boathouse, the works.
- [Ashlee] This is a little fancy.
Is this where we're going, the gated one?
- [Duke] Right here, the last one.
- [Keith] With the lawn furniture outside.
- [Duke] Yeah, I told you it's zombie.
What do you want?
So, what do you think?
[eerie music]
- [Ashlee] Definitely the worst house on the block.
- [Duke] Yeah. - [Ashlee] Roof looks awful.
Those roofs cost a fortune. - [Duke] Yeah.
- What I'm seeing are port holes over there.
I'm seeing ducts there.
I'm seeing tongue and groove there,
siding up there, and a terracotta roof.
That's like, a monster.
We gotta pick a theme and go with it,
'cause right now, it's got six different themes.
- Well, the theme is gonna be, get money, okay?
Come and look at the inside.
You'll see what it needs and decide if you guys wanna do it.
Look, you don't need to tell me that the exterior
of this house needs a serious makeover,
but I think the potential of this front room alone
will grab the team's attention.
- [Ashlee] Let's see.
- [Duke] I present to you,
- Oh my goodness. - Lake Conway.
- [All] Wow.
- There should be pews lined up here.
I've seen a lot of houses in my career,
but this might be the most jaw-dropping first impression
of a space I've ever seen.
- Why is the floor all wet? - Ew.
The floor's squishy.
Is this flood damage?
- That's the problem.
There was a flood, so we need to pull out all the carpet
and maybe cut out the bottom of the walls or something.
- This house is huge, but whatever flood
came in here was even bigger.
For all we know, this flood could have caused
some structural damage
underneath this mildew rotten carpet
and whatever's behind these walls.
- How big is this house again?
- About 3,500 square feet.
- [Narrator] It has four bedrooms,
two full bathrooms, and two halfs.
The primary bedroom and bath are on the ground floor.
There's a half bath off the kitchen
and upstairs are the other three bedrooms and a bath and a half.
- [Ashlee] Whoa, this is hideous.
- It's not the dated tackiness of this house that scares me,
it's the size.
On a house this big, we're talking
a lot of tackiness to undo.
- [Justin] The hideous tile is the least
of our problems in this room.
- Blinded by the pink.
And that can send our reno budget outta control fast.
Can you explain to us what we're doing?
Like, how this deal's gonna work?
- The owner's name is Mark, okay?
So Mark holds the house.
We just come in and pay for the renovation.
We don't have to spend a penny on the house.
We run the renovation.
When it's all done, sell the house,
we get our renovation costs back and then split the profits.
So the cost basis for the house is $600,000 as it sits.
I think the renovation, it could eat up $200,000.
- [Ashlee] $200,000, yeah.
- $800,000 is the basis at that point.
What do you think 3,500 square feet
on Lake Conway sells for, Ashlee?
- Oh, I need to calculate.
- I can tell you right now. - 1.1?
- Almost 300 bucks a square foot, so you're at 1.1, 1.2.
- Wow.
- If you clear 1.1... - Mm-hmm.
- That's $300,000 in profit we get to split.
- Wow.
- $150,000 made on $200,000 invested is a 75% ROI.
When have you ever seen that before?
- Never.
Those numbers do sound sweet,
but this too good to be true feeling
isn't going away any time soon.
- I'm 100% in, I love this place.
- You know I am. - I think it's a great idea.
- I'm with the team, but I'm personally
not in favor of this doing this project.
- Okay, so it's up to you.
- I think as long as we're legally protected,
I think we should do it.
- It's gonna make us all a lot of money.
- Okay, there you go. - Awesome, awesome.
[upbeat music]
- [Narrator] We made the deal with Duke's friend Mark,
and are going to pay zero bucks for the $600,000 property.
All we're investing is 200 grand for the renovation,
making the overall cost basis $800,000.
I think we can list the upgraded property for $1.15 million,
creating a total profit of 350 grand,
making our half $175,000.
[sledgehammer booming]
- Are you guys ready to take this thing down?
I mean, what little bit of demo there is.
Since this house is a stalled rehab,
there's already been some demo done,
but that doesn't mean there's nothing to do.
[porcelain rattling]
Savage.
I'm gonna let Keith take out his frustrations in the bath.
- [Keith] Ow.
- [Duke] While Justin and I shred the old kitchen backsplash
and take down the interior doors.
- [Keith] Oh no! [glass shattering]
- [Justin] Bro, you broke the mirror?
- [Keith] I didn't do that.
I saw it drop.
- Can I see that hammer for a second?
- [Keith] Yeah.
- No more hammers for you.
- [Keith] I wasn't even in the room.
- Now we have bad luck for seven years.
We put Keith in demo time out
and brought in some real experts.
[drill whirring]
The crew is removing some vanities
and toilets that can be resold or reused.
Then they'll rip out all of the carpet and the tile,
all 3,500 square feet of it.
Now, this house is a blank slate ready for renovation.
[upbeat rock music]
[saw grinding]
- Today, LaCantina Doors are here to install my grand vision
of a four-panel sliding door that opens up the living room
to the backyard.
[upbeat music]
- Hey, what's going on, Duke?
- Oh, hey, good morning, Mark. What's up?
I wasn't expecting my buddy Mark here today.
While he is the homeowner, he told us
he wasn't gonna be involved in the construction.
Maybe he's just nervous, but I think
he'll see the flip is in good hands.
- Really opened it up.
- Yep, I think when people walk in this house
and they see this wide open view of the lake,
they're just gonna fall in love with it.
- Did you check and make sure you got it level?
- Yeah, we got that, of course, yeah.
It's the first thing we do.
- Okay, how's this gonna work? What holds it in?
What holds this in place here on the bottom and everything?
- We're going to put screws through the frame.
- You don't need to put any kind of water barrier
or anything like this for this?
- They've got all these tubes right here of sealant.
They're gonna be all caulked properly when it's done.
It's always cute when the homeowner thinks
they know more about flipping than we do,
but Mark needs to stick to our agreement
and remain the silent partner.
- Oh man, look what you just did!
- I intended to do that. I want to cut it off.
- All right, how about some safety glasses, man?
You need a hand with that?
How about this, is this good?
What about the outside wall?
Do we need to look at that?
- You ever heard the phrase, too many cooks in the kitchen?
- [Mark] Yeah, but we're not cooking.
We're doing construction work.
- Man, there is nothing worse than a backseat flipper.
- Look what you just did, man.
Scratch the frame up.
- It's not just that it's annoying,
but if he starts second guessing things or worse,
changing what we're supposed to do,
it really could start eating into our profit.
Fortunately, despite his intrusiveness,
[tools whirring]
the team from LaCantina still managed to install
the perfect sliding door system across the back of the house.
[upbeat music]
- [Ashlee] Hi.
- We didn't keep you waiting long, did we?
- [Rod] Nope, just got here. - Ah, perfect, perfect.
- Good seeing you guys. - Hi, great to see you.
- Ashlee and I are meeting with Rod
from Florida Door and Window Solutions
to pick out a new front door style.
I wisely scheduled this design consultation for a time
when Mark is gonna be out golfing.
The last thing I need is for his clear lack of style
to come in and muck up the works.
- You've picked out a decorative glass already, didn't you?
- [Duke] No, I didn't pick anything out.
- [Ashlee] Me neither.
- [Duke] Oh, I bet it was Mark, the homeowner.
Is that what he picked out right there?
- [Rod] Yeah. - [Ashlee] No way, really?
- Oh, so apparently Mark doesn't have to actually be here
to mess up this flip.
He can phone in his tasteless ideas from anywhere.
It's not appropriate to this build.
- [Rod] Personal preferences to the house, yeah.
- Why don't we pick a nice-- - How about the Solstice?
- [Duke] That's the one I wanted.
- [Rod] That's a good. - [Ashlee] It's gorgeous.
- [Duke] And, it's got rain glass. It's fiberglass, yeah?
- Yes, correct.
- But you can get it with the wood grain?
- You can get a wood grain and then it can be stained
to give it a gel, wood look. - That's gonna look amazing.
Yeah, he's got all the solutions. This is so easy.
- The sash stop here, we can take the glass out
and put the new new glass in.
- Hey guys, what's happening?
- How are you? - What's up?
- Hey. - What are you guys working on?
- Great. Look who decided not to go golfing after all.
- We picked out a nice door, it's gonna be gorgeous.
You don't have to worry about it,
and we have it all figured out.
- You like that better than the other, yeah?
- We all agreed that this one here qualifies
as less than optimal for this house.
- [Ashlee] Is that the one you were going for?
- Yeah, I thought that looked nice.
- Oh, maybe in the '90s.
- Wow, Mark is a piece of work.
If he imposes his hard design choices on this flip,
the sale price is gonna drop like a stone.
- [Narrator] The team sees a big time profit
on this lakeside property, but homeowner Mark
continues to get in the way.
- [Mark] Look what you just did, man.
- [Narrator] They will need to right this ship
before it breaks the bank.
- We picked out a nice door, it's gonna be gorgeous.
You don't have to worry about it,
and we have it all figured out.
- You like that better than the other, yeah?
- Wow, Mark is a piece of work.
If he imposes his hard design choices on this flip,
the sale price is gonna drop like a stone.
We're gonna sell this house and we're done.
So we want to be in tune with what most people like
most of the time nowadays.
- All right, well what do I know?
- Thanks, Mark. Appreciate it.
See ya. - [Mark] All right.
- We're kind of working with him a little bit,
and so anyway, we've decided, yes.
- Yeah.
[upbeat music]
- [Duke] We're finally getting Mark's designs out of here.
Florida Window and Door Solutions is replacing them
with two leaded glass doors.
[drill whirring] [hammer pounding]
Now this front entrance has some timeless appeal.
[cash register ringing]
And inside, we're opening up some walls
and doing some reframing to improve the flow
throughout the house.
[cash register ringing]
And while we're at it, we're also making sure
the whole house is well insulated.
[cash register ringing]
- With all the different projects going on
around the house,
our big time budget is draining fast.
We started with a generous 200 grand
and already $46,000 of it is gone.
Fortunately, it's all money we've chosen to spend
instead of Mark, but we're already thinking about spending
a few bucks to send homie on vacation.
Might end up saving us money in the long run.
[upbeat rock music]
- Man, it has been impossible trying to get this job done
with Mark breathing down our neck nonstop.
- I get it.
He's like, sentimental about his house.
- I've known him for like half my life.
I mean, like, I get it, totally, but it's different
when you're renovating a house with someone.
Friends or not, Mark's gotta learn to stay in his lane.
Mark has been a pain in our butt since day one.
- [Mark] Uh-oh. - [Keith] That's--
- Look what you just did.
Man, nobody put those power tools away?
- [Duke] You guys get like a feeling of trepidation
when we show up here, like, what's he done next?
- Hey guys, what's going on?
- Today, we need to set him straight.
Mark, we need to talk.
- Yes, sir. I got a little bit of a problem.
I got a buddy who's got a llama.
- A what?
- Yeah, you heard me, it's a llama.
He had an emergency, he had to go back out of the country.
I said I'll just watch this thing for a little bit.
Now I need you guys to help me watch it
for just a few days.
- Well, what do you mean?
You want us to babysit a llama?
You really have a llama? - It's a real deal, man.
- Oh, come on, man. - It's a cool little animal.
It just eats grass, it's real friendly, don't bite.
The worst case scenario, he spits at you a little bit.
[spitting sound effect]
- This is unreal.
I mean, Mark is pushing this partnership
past the bounds of the absurd.
We flip houses, we don't run zoos.
Why can't you watch it yourself?
- My sister's in a bind in Hilton Head
and I gotta fly my plane up there.
I can't say no.
- Hang on, so how many days are you gonna be away for?
- Just for a week, okay?
- You know, suddenly this super weird request
doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
If stopping by some guy's house to feed a llama a few times
gets Mark out of our hair for a week,
that llama is worth its weight in gold.
We'll take care of the llama as long as you need to be away.
- All right, man.
- I'll help you with the llama drama.
- Okay, he's cool. He's cool.
You'll like the llama.
- Cool llama, right on. - All right.
- Well, llama busy man, so let's go look at this job site.
[laughing]
[upbeat rock music]
- With Mark away, we can go full steam
on fixing this place up.
NewSouth Window Solutions is here to replace
all the old windows with new double pane glass
that not only looks great, but it's super energy efficient.
Mark might complain, but new buyers will love it.
[cash register ringing]
- Mark's surprise redesign set us back a little bit
on the interior work, but we finally adjusted
to his adjustments, and now we can finally paint.
We've chosen a light gray shade, which goes perfectly
with the house's warm, lakefront setting.
[cash register ringing]
We're also fixing the wood on the stairs,
then staining the hardwood ceilings both inside and out.
[cash register ringing]
[cement crumbling]
- These last few touch-ups marked and be good to go.
- Yeah.
It's looking good on the inside.
With Duke's buddy Mark outta town and out of the way,
this flip has really come along great.
With just a few finishing touches,
we'll be ready for our open house tomorrow.
Look at this gorgeous view though.
It's so nice. Fabulous.
Duke, look at this ridiculous creature.
- That's not a creature. That's the llama.
You gotta be kidding me.
- Why is there a llama in our backyard?
- Duke, why is there a llama in our backyard?
Oh my God, what's it doing here?
- We watched that thing for a few days for Mark.
It's a long story, but it shouldn't be here.
I gotta call Mark.
- I have no idea what Duke is babbling on about,
but partnering with his friend Mark has given us nothing
but aggravation, and now some weird exotic animal.
- [Mark] Hello. - It's Duke.
- [Mark] Hey.
- The llama is here in the backyard.
You realize that, right?
- [Mark] Yeah, had a problem with his fence.
I just brought him over for a few hours
while I go and fix it.
- We're trying to get ready for the open house
and the llama's running around the backyard.
- [Mark] Yeah, I gotta fix this fence
and I'm gonna borrow my buddy's trailer
and get the llama back over there.
- Thank you very much.
- That guy is ridiculous. - It's crazy.
It's like... - [Ashlee] Ugh, llama drama.
- [Duke] It'll be gone today, don't worry.
- While we wait for Mark to get this crazy animal
out of here, it's time to get this house staged.
[rock music]
Megan Morris is here with her team from MHM.
I love this tufted white furniture you brought.
It's fabulous. - Thank you.
I love staging when you're on the water.
It makes everything look better. - Yeah.
[laughing]
Bringing this house to life with the perfect ensemble
of furniture and accessories.
This is a space people won't be able to resist.
[cash register ringing]
[upbeat rock music]
Look at this place.
- [Justin] All right. - Looking so good, right?
- This is what this house was meant to look like.
- [Duke] Finally at the finish line. I can't believe it.
- I never ever thought we'd get here.
- [Duke] It's a big flip and needed a lot of stuff.
- And then we had to deal with Mark too, so.
- Oh, don't tell me about it.
- [Ashlee] Yeah. - [Justin] Yeah.
- [Duke] But at the end, this result
is worth all the effort.
- Yeah, when we first got here, this place was a dingy,
disjointed mess, like a house that time forgot,
but now, super, super transformation.
- Yeah, we stained the wheeling there.
We added new windows, and then I love the brand new doors
that we put in, which are gorgeous.
- And the old doors were solid slabs.
This makes all the difference because it's got
some leaded glass inserts to let light pass through.
This house really has great curb appeal.
Y'all wanna see if the beauty is more than skin deep?
- Yeah. - Check out the inside.
- Wait 'til you see it. - All right.
- [Ashlee] Okay, look at it now.
- Wow.
- Isn't this amazing?
- This is definitely what this house was meant to look like.
I remember this place being a water damaged nightmare,
but with a ton of potential.
Now, that potential's been realized.
- The tongue and groove ceilings, it's really cool
we got to save 'em.
You know, there's a lot of water damage
when we first got here.
- It's gorgeous.
- [Duke] The light streaming in from those glass doors
in the back.
When we got here, those were just windows,
less light and no lake access.
- [Justin] Now, they're an invitation to step outside
and enjoy the view.
- [Duke] Speaking of view. - [Keith] Look at this.
This is amazing.
- This is what's gonna sell this house.
- Gorgeous. - Yeah.
- And I love this deck.
I mean, you could have your morning coffee out here,
glass of wine at nighttime.
- Yeah, before, this area was just dead grass
and dying bushes.
Now, it's like the social center of the whole house.
- [Ashlee] Beautiful.
- [Keith] This is a wonderful suite.
- [Ashlee] It is now.
When we first came here, there were stains on everything.
This place was a pig sty.
- It looks great now. - [Duke] It does.
- Not a drop of mildew in sight. - Look at the loft now.
It's so gorgeous, don't you think?
This is so nice.
- [Duke] Yeah, you could relax up here for days.
- [Justin] Yeah, it's an inspiring space
to be in, you know.
- I'll show you the rest of the house.
Here's the bathroom.
- [Duke] You like the relaxation situation
that could happen in here? - Yes.
- This is the Jacuzzi tub we got to replace
that old one that was here. - Yeah.
- Remember it was like that altered marble from the 1980s?
- [Ashlee] Yeah, and it was totally ugly, oh my God,
and do you remember there was wallpaper in here?
It was horrible.
- [Justin] Well, this place is very inviting now.
- We made some major layout changes.
Before, you had to go into the shower room to use the toilet.
Now, we've got a separate toilet room
and of course the shower space is here
where we can show off all the beautiful tile work.
- Let's check out the dining room.
- [Duke] Yeah, for sure.
- [Justin] This might be the biggest kitchen I think
we've ever done in a house.
- [Ashlee] It's a true chef's kitchen.
- You know, when we started, this was just a long empty room
with bad tile and no character.
- Now, it's a dream kitchen
with a great island for entertaining.
Dude, you can sit like 10 people comfortably at the sink.
- [Ashlee] I love the backsplash that we chose.
I think it really like brightens it up.
Should we check out the balcony? - [Justin] Yeah.
- [Keith] Wow. - [Ashlee] Gorgeous.
- Everything about this is great.
I think we're gonna have a great payoff.
- Let's hope so, 'cause remember, we gotta split
this kitty with you know who.
- Oh yeah, Mark never actually let us
forget that for one minute.
Guys, I gotta jet.
I'll be back after the open house.
We'll see what happens. - Oh okay, cool.
- All right, guys. - See ya.
- We're actually gonna go clean out the garage.
There's some final tools and stuff I wanna pick up.
- Okay, I've got people coming over soon.
- [Duke] No, no, this house is done.
- This partnership project was a headache from the get go,
but our deal might actually pay off.
After running the comps again for this area,
we've decided to list the house for $1.19 million.
- Let's just pick up the last of these things and get out.
What is this llama still doing here?
- Oh my God.
Ash, come here. I got a surprise for you.
- [Ashlee] Yeah? - Yeah, surprise.
[Ashlee gasping]
- Oh my God, what are we gonna do?
- Have an open zoo today instead of an open house?
- Yeah, what time is it?
I literally was about to put on my heels.
It's starting in two minutes.
Oh my God, they just texted. They're outside.
- They're here now?
Of all the things we've had to do to flip a house,
wrangling a llama has gotta be the strangest.
This is like Mark's final gotcha.
- A three car garage, that's huge.
- Hi. - Hello, how are you?
Nice to to meet you. - [Ashlee] Good, good.
You guys wanna come on in?
- We were just taking it in.
- Yes, it's really, really nice.
Gorgeous neighborhood.
- Does it, is that a dock around back?
- Yes, all the way around the back, it's--
- Can we go see it?
- Why don't we go through the house, the house is gorgeous.
Come, come. - Well, wait.
So I see the exterior is brick though, is it?
- It is, it's brick, brick. - Is it concrete under that?
Is it concrete block? - Yes.
Concrete under it, yes, yes. - Okay, and--
- So I'll tell you everything inside.
Come join me. - Okay, okay.
- [Justin] Let's go. - That was so close, oh my God.
They almost turned around the whole time.
[upbeat music]
- The open house was a huge hit.
People love the house just as much as the location.
We aimed high on our asking price of 1.19 million,
and it paid off with a full price offer.
With initial home value of $600,000
and our rento costs hitting 197,
the overall profit was $393,000,
with our team's half $196,500.
I do have a bit of a surprise for you guys
since we did make it to the finish line.
- [Keith] Oh, cool. - All right.
- We need a hefty champagne after all this hard work.
[cork popping] We deserve it, right?
- [Keith] It was almost like we had our own super villain
working against us the whole time.
- [Justin] Cheers, gang.
- Here's to a job finally done.
- Well, by the way, I got a lead from our brokerage
that said somebody else has a really cool house
that they'd love to partner with us on.
You guys wanna go check it out tomorrow?
- No, no, no. [laughing]
- [Ashlee] Yeah, are you crazy?
Up next, the team sees huge dollar signs
in this unfinished build,
but struggles to keep the potential buyer
and all his high tech demands interested.
- Man, I love working in Lancaster Park, dude.
The collection of houses, they're just so eclectic.
- [Justin] Yeah.
- You know in Lancaster, when they scrape little houses,
they put up really interesting new houses.
- For sure, man.
- [Keith] So this house was like,
a new construction house that was abandoned?
- Yeah.
- Bro, we don't really see too many houses
that are unfinished. - Yeah.
- So it's kind of odd to see something like this.
We got a off-market tip about a property
that's completely different than the usual flips that we do.
The owners did a complete tear-down,
framed up a new house,
and then just walked away from it.
At this point, we don't even know the layout of the house,
but Keith and I decided we wanted to look at it
real quick while Ashlee stayed behind to do
some research on the property.
What does it take for somebody to walk away
from a house halfway built?
We could be walking into a nightmare.
- [Keith] I think we're about to find out.
Here it is.
[tense music]
Look at that thing.
- [Justin] Definitely a zombie, a monster zombie.
- Wow. This big boy has seen some hard times.
I mean, there's debris hanging from the balcony.
There's trash bags on the walls, but man, it's huge.
- [Justin] What is this, 4,000, 5,000 square feet?
- [Keith] This only happens when somebody runs outta money.
- Yeah. I don't know.
I mean, mother nature's starting to take the house back.
- [Keith] Yeah, this is gonna need a ton of cleanup.
- Well, they got the windows installed and it looks like
they were putting can lights in and stopped halfway.
- [Keith] Yeah, and the roof is on
so it could be dry inside.
- [Justin] Depending on what's behind the black trash bag.
- [Keith] Yeah, we hope there is an inside, right? [chuckles]
- All right, we're in.
Oh man, this is freaking huge, dude.
[Keith laughing]
Are you kidding me?
One look, and it's obvious this is not
the typical zombie we deal with.
It's more like a concrete compound
with a labyrinth of framing inside.
- [Keith] I think that's the kitchen probably.
- [Justin] Is this a shower or a pantry?
- [Keith] There's no shower or pan.
- No, this has gotta be the kitchen.
- Yeah, that's what I'm saying, like,
there wouldn't have electric while I was in the shower.
- Okay.
- Hey, there's plumbing out here.
- This is an island or a bar top.
All right, so we're in the kitchen.
- Right.
- Then this is a bedroom, 'cause there's a tub over there, so.
- [Keith] Yeah.
- The layout is a little discombobulating.
All I see is two by fours.
Hopefully it'll start to make sense.
- So this is nothing like a typical zombie.
Yeah, it's been neglected and needs a lot of cleanup,
but this isn't just turning a lifeless property
into a nice home.
It's turning a skeleton into a mansion, and because of that,
this is nowhere near our comfort zone,
but I'm also thinking there could be a whole bunch of money
to be made here if we're willing to jump
into some very deep water.
- Ashlee was able to secure the design plans for this house,
and it's every bit as extravagant as it looked.
- [Narrator] The two story structure has just over
4,000 square feet of living space,
plus an attached two car garage
and a covered lanai in the back.
The bulk of the first floor features an open plan flow
from the kitchen and dining area to the living room.
It has a bedroom suite with attached bath,
plus a guest room that's actually separate
from the hall bath beside it.
Upstairs are three other secondary suites,
two with their own bathrooms
and even a library/media room for entertaining.
Then there's the primary suite, a huge room
with two oversized walk-in closets,
a primary bath with dual entry walk-in shower,
and even a large balcony overlooking the street.
[rock music]
- Getting it all put back together is gonna require
a budget unlike anything we've ever done before.
We offered their asking price of $550,000.
Now it's just up to them to say yes.
If they do, we'll set ourselves a renovation budget
of 300 grand and hope that's more than enough.
We'll have to get a loan from the bank for all that money,
and that means a big interest rate.
The scope of this project will take a good three months.
So we anticipate interest running more than 20 grand.
We also think closing costs at the time of sale
will hit around $54,000.
That puts us all in at $925,000,
which is enormous, but here's the thing.
We think a house of this caliber in this neighborhood
could sell for a cool $1.3 million, which would earn us
a massive profit of around 375 grand.
A project like this isn't necessarily what we do
as zombie house flippers, but with that kind of money
on the line, it's worth taking on this mega zombie,
despite the risk.
[upbeat rock music]
- [Justin] We got a lot of projects
going on right now, y'all.
[phone dings] - Oh, hold on.
Oh, guys, so they accepted our offer
on Orangewood. - On Orangewood?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I just got the text.
- Dude. - What, what?
- [Keith] Yeah!
- $550,000, that's a lot of money.
- Holy cow. - [Justin] It is a lot of money.
- I mean, think about this loan.
It's $550,000 plus $300,000,
plus we have all the hard money costs.
- Yeah.
- [Justin] It's gonna be a million bucks.
- That number makes me nervous.
I admit, at first, it was very exciting
to put a bid on such a unique property,
but taking on such a huge loan
with such high interest payments while hoping to find a buyer
who will pay top dollar, that's terrifying.
- Yeah, but if we sell it for 1.3,
that's more profit than we've ever seen in our whole lives.
- Yeah, it's a lot.
So the house is pretty much new construction.
You know how they do new construction pre-sales?
When you're doing like a new subdivision,
they'll pre-sell five houses at a time.
- [Keith] Yeah?
- What if we did that and we hit up the local agents
that are working with all the new construction,
see if they have a buyer, and then potentially
sell them the house like pre-construction,
we get a small down payment from them, so they're invested.
We let 'em help design the house and then they get
the exact hot house they wanted and they take it
the instant it's done, rather than us getting stuck
with an unsold property that we're paying huge interest on.
- That would be amazing. - [Keith] Let's run with it.
- [Ashlee] So I'll send the escrow money.
- Yeah, send escrow.
Escrow on its way.
- Yes, yes! - Let's sell it.
[hammer dinging] [saw whirring]
[energetic music]
[knocking] - Hey Keith, how are you?
- Today, we've invited a couple of real estate agents
to the Orangewood house for an early preview.
Both of these ladies represent some high-end clientele,
so we're hoping they have some prospects
that might be interested in buying this place.
- I do have some buyers that I think
this would be a good fit for.
- I think I might have a potential buyer for you.
- Really? - Yes.
[Keith laughing] - Love this.
This is fantastic.
We barely started on this place and we have multiple parties
that might be interested in it.
Hopefully, one of 'em will actually
come through with an offer.
[cement crumbling]
[upbeat rock music]
- [Ashlee] Cream and sugar, please.
- [Keith] Cream and sugar.
- [Ashlee] So are you excited to meet our buyer?
- [Keith] Yeah.
I'm excited we found someone so quickly.
- Our early preview worked
and we got one offer on the Orangewood house.
One of the agents we met showed her client the place
and he said he would buy the finished house
for $1.3 million, which is incredible.
- [Agent] Hi! - Hey.
- [Ashlee] He did reserve the right to back out of the deal,
but he paid a non-refundable 13 grand
as an earnest money deposit,
which means he's less likely to bail on us.
We also gave him the blueprints
so he could weigh in on the design.
So today, we're meeting him to finalize
the deal and discuss the build.
So are you excited?
- Very excited. Love the house.
- [Keith] Great.
- But there's some things we want to do with it.
What I want to do is make this a smart house.
I want everything to be controlled by a tablet.
Everything in the house is gonna be connected
to a network closet downstairs.
- So we're selling a house to Tony Stark.
Okay.
I have never heard of a house with this much tech.
I mean, we put in a great electrical system,
but this guy wants way more.
Frankly, I'm not even really sure how to pull it off.
I'm sure there are people that do that.
I just don't, I don't have anybody for that.
- We can find someone.
- [Henry] Then we're good to go.
As for the rest of the house,
my wife and I like a modern look.
Light tones, maybe some black and white.
We can work together on that.
- [Agent] That's perfect. - Okay.
- Great. Good meeting. - [Henry] Nice to meet you too.
- Yeah. - Thank you.
- Okay, I guess we're signing on with this guy no matter what.
- [Henry] Take care.
- The thing is, we agreed to cover all the reno costs.
I mean, yeah, if his demands pushed us over budget,
we could say no or tell him to pay more,
but then he might bail and leave us hanging.
This flip could turn into a nightmare.
We're gonna need more coffee.
- [Narrator] The team has taken on a flip
that could earn them a record breaking profit,
but they begin to feel the pressure
when their perfect buyer's list of demands start to grow.
- Per Henry's specifications, we've rewired the entire house
with Category 6 ethernet cables and doubled
the service power to 400 amps
to meet all of his electrical demands.
Now we're ready to seal it all in.
We're covering every nook and cranny
with fiberglass bat insulation, which is perfect
for keeping all the electronics at the optimal temperature.
And then we're ready to close it all up with drywall
and we're getting a lot of it if we're gonna turn this place
from a huge maze of wooden frames
into the beginnings of an actual home.
[exciting music]
Henry's early demands had me worried,
but hopefully our good work here will convince him
that he only needs to give us his ideas
and then he can trust us to get the job done.
[cash register ringing]
[upbeat music]
That just looks like electronic spaghetti.
- But once the rack is set up, all you need
is just an ethernet cable, plug it in,
and let Lutron do the magic.
- Today I've invited Osmar from Lutron
to come over to the house.
This is the expert we promised Henry we'd find
when he said he wanted a house
that was both wired and interactive.
- [Henry] Hey, guys. - [Osmar] How's it going?
- [Keith] So I want Henry to meet him and hear
how the Lutron team is planning to put
this smart house together.
- The Lutron Caseta or the Select system,
we can control not only your lights, your switches,
and dim them properly, we can also control seamlessly
your shades throughout your house.
- Oh, that would be incredible.
I wanna show you a bedroom to get an idea
of what kind of shades we can use back there.
This is gonna be our guest room.
In the morning, it gets a lot of sun.
Maybe that person's not ready to wake up yet.
- We can seamlessly control the shade
so that you have privacy or light blockage.
- Can I still control the stuff in here
from somewhere else in the house?
- You can control it from your app,
you can control it from the Pico handheld,
or if you have a Google Assistant or an Alexa,
you can actually control it by voice.
- Well, Henry seems excited.
So if our client's happy, I'm happy,
and I gotta admit all this futuristic sci-fi stuff,
it's got me pretty excited too.
This sounds like it's ripe for practical jokes.
[Osmar laughing]
- We'll definitely have to prevent the kids from yelling,
"Turn off the house," in the middle of the day.
[Keith laughing] - Right, yeah.
- We're a bit more than halfway through this flip,
but we've spent well more than half of our budget,
spending now about 178 grand.
Keeping Henry satisfied is costing us more than we hoped,
but at this point, we don't wanna risk
losing him as our buyer.
So it looks like our dream profit might be
coming back down to Earth a little bit.
[wood splitting]
[upbeat music]
- What's going on here?
So this is still open.
This should be closed by now, right?
- [Keith] Yeah. We just need the electric company to inspect
and approve the connections and then we'll bury the trench.
- Okay, awesome. - All right?
We're about a week out from when Henry wants to move in
and although we're close to finished,
this messy job site doesn't look like we're close to finished.
I know Henry's on edge about it, so I'm just hoping
I can reassure him that we're staying on pace
with the progress we're making.
So the rest of the house is coming right along.
We got the kitchen cabinets in.
- Whoa, what is that?
We picked white cabinets. It's not white at all.
- Oh my God.
Let me call Ash 'cause she's the one
that put the order through. - [Henry] Oh my God.
- [Ashlee] Hey, how's it going? - Hey.
I'm at Orangewood with Henry and we got a serious problem.
Can you get over here?
- [Ashlee] Okay, well, I'm nearby.
Let me, I'll just come over. - [Keith] Yeah, please.
- [Ashlee] I'm on the road. - Okay, all right, bye.
I don't know what the hell is going on here.
I swear I told the vendor exactly what cabinets we wanted,
but we have five other flips going on
and none of us were here on site
when these cabinets were installed.
Henry's ready to blow his top.
Even if I can calm him down, I have no idea
how long this is gonna take to fix, and time is money.
- [Ashlee] Keith, hey. - Hey.
We got a really big problem.
These aren't the cabinets that he ordered.
- [Henry] They're not even close to what we ordered.
- [Ashlee] Oh my God, this is like creamy traditional.
- This is completely different than what we wanted.
It's been a string of delays, there's been mistakes.
I mean, how many blunders have I not caught?
This is starting to feel like a bad investment
and I'm over it.
- (bleep).
- How did this happen? - I have no idea.
Like they, I don't really understand.
When we took this job, we knew it was a risk.
The kind of zombies we normally flip
are moderately priced homes, but we wanted a shot
at a million dollar super zombie.
Now this cabinet screw up could be the last straw for Henry.
I mean, if he wants to bail on this,
he's gonna only lose 13 grand.
If he walks, we're gonna have to finish it all,
we're gonna have to put it back on the market.
Hopefully someone who's gonna spend
$1.3 million is going to come around.
The whole point of pre-selling this house was,
we didn't wanna get stuck paying a lot of interest
on a huge loan, waiting for a buyer to come through.
If this house sits for a long time,
it could have major financial consequences for us.
- This sucks.
[energetic rock music]
- [Keith] Our cabinet supplier delivered these cabinets
in a color called pearl glaze instead of the pearl white
that Henry actually wanted.
They admitted their mistake and absorbed
the cost of the exchange.
[drill whirring]
But since the install was our responsibility,
we have to pay for the reinstall.
Hey, at least the cabinets were in stock
so it got done right away.
We add some modern appliances
and some beautiful countertops,
and we have a kitchen set up that our buyer will love.
- [Ashlee] And finally, it's move in day for Henry.
In order to fill out this huge house,
our friends at the staging company offered some furniture
for sale, which Henry gladly paired with his own,
making this house a fully finished home.
[upbeat rock music]
- [Justin] I can't believe we finally got it done.
- [Keith] Guys, we made that.
- [Ashlee] It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible.
- That is 4,000 square feet of awesome,
- [Justin] But it sure didn't start out that way.
This thing was a shell of a house prior.
- [Keith] It was concrete blocks and some framing.
- [Justin] Now it's a house. - [Ashlee] A beautiful house.
- [Keith] Hey, there's our buyer.
- [Ashlee] I'm so excited for him to see it.
- I know. - Finally finished.
Hey. - What's up, guys?
- [Keith] Hey, Henry. - How are you?
- [Henry] Looks incredible.
- [Ashlee] Did you ever think this day would happen?
- No. [laughing]
I had my doubts for sure, but I love it.
- That outside looks amazing.
I love the brick and the mortar and then that
tongue and groove ceiling on the front porch looks amazing.
This is an incredible transformation.
- All right guys, let's go see the inside.
I want to play with all the toys.
- Finally, finally.
- [Justin] Man, it feels like yesterday the inside
was nothing but a forest of two by fours.
- [Keith] Yeah, remember, it was so confusing,
you couldn't tell what was what.
- [Justin] But now look at it. - [Keith] Man.
- [Henry] This is incredible. - [Ashlee] Unbelievable.
- [Justin] So spacious, you could fly a kite in here.
- [Henry] Yeah, I'm really happy with how the kitchen turned out.
- [Keith] Even the lighting in here is top of the line.
- The best part about this is with all of our smart stuff
and my wires that I had you guys run,
we have full control over everything.
So like the pendants, if we want to bring down the mood
a little bit, we can drop 'em down.
- [Ashlee] Oh my goodness.
- Bring 'em back up when we're actually working in here.
- [Keith] It's so cool that
you can control it from anywhere.
- [Henry] In the living room, we have our massive shades.
- [Keith] You can voice control these, right?
- [Henry] Absolutely.
I can go like, "living room shades up,"
and everything will just...
- [Ashlee] Wow. - [Justin] What?!
- Head on up. - That's so quiet.
- [Ashlee] Guys, all our other flips are gonna be jealous.
- [Keith] I know.
All right, hey, you guys wanna see the upstairs?
- [Justin] Let's do it.
- [Keith] Here's the media room you wanted.
- So this is my playroom.
- [Keith] Just like you asked, we put four speakers
in the back, three in the front, four in the ceiling,
and we dropped a couple of subwoofers down
for the ultimate surround sound experience.
- [Justin] That's gotta sound incredible.
So happy that we were able to pull all this off.
- I appreciate all you guys, all your work.
- Absolutely.
- Yeah, it's, I mean, it's our dream home,
so it's all come together and it's amazing.
- Let's the three of us go celebrate now.
- Yeah. - All right?
- [Justin] Cool. - Take care, Henry.
- All right, thanks guys. - Bye, thank you.
I admit, taking on this project and the huge loan
that we needed for it had me nervous
through the whole process, but I couldn't be happier
with how things turned out both for Henry and for us.
We bought this house for 550 grand,
and our reno costs went over our 300k budget
by about 22 grand, but hitting our timeline
kept our loan interest close to what we expected
at about $23,000.
Add in the closing cost of just over 58 grand
and that puts our all in cost at $954,000,
but with the sale price of $1.3 million,
we made an incredible profit of more than $345,000
and that is absolutely worth a celebration.
- [Justin] Well, gang, cheers to getting Orangewood done.
- Unbelievable.
It was so overwhelming, the scale of it.
It was almost like a commercial building.
All the technology, all the details.
- Especially when we have a learning curve,
and we've never made a house that tech savvy,
and we also haven't done new construction.
Also our highest sale price ever on a property.
- Yeah.
- You know, we helped this family get their dream home.
Guys, that's a huge win in my book.
- Yeah. - To the next one.
[glasses clinking] - Yay.