This was the most nauseating of any episode. I think that is why they saved this one for last.
I am not sure why they advertised this as a twin rehab, one woman did all the work and planning. She was completly incompetent. The only reason she made any money was because the market surged during the filming. I’m embarassed to be in the same business as her.
Now that I have wiped away the tears and managed to breath again, the image of the young kid from “Three Kings” movie comes to mind… “I really ain’t got no day job.”
Oh…My…Goodness!!!
This episode was too much! Who wastes that much time on a paint decision? Or that much money, trying to make a decision? She had NO plan whatsoever. At least the guy from the episode with the couple who had the 3 yr old, he had a schedule. As funny as it seemed back then, it makes sense now.
In my opinion, she seemed to be making choices based on her own tastes and wasn’t looking at what was going to make the house sell. I know most rehabbers go the neutral route, but I think that’s what works, unless it’s in a historic district and you have to match your neighbors, which this woman was just fighting tooth and nail! Who puts red on top of green with red steps?! That was SO repulsive!
The kitchen was a joke. If I was a buyer and thought I could deal with the freeway issue, the kitchen would be the deciding factor, I think. Taking out those cabinets was a dumb idea. The colors were ugly. The fridge looked like it shrunk in the new space.
I felt sorry for her contractors.
She said at one point that she didn’t plan on the mortgage payments. Huh? Did she forget that important expense? Sheesh!
Question: If that house sold for 679K…do the people in that state make a lot more money compared to where I live, MO? The reason I ask that is because here you can get a mansion (well, it’s a mansion to me, lol) for that price! For example: http://www.realtor.com/Prop/1044487162?lnksrc=00045 or http://www.realtor.com/Prop/1044338192?lnksrc=00045. Someone please explain this to me. If a nurse here gets paid, oh, let’s say, $12 per hour, do they get paid twice that amount in CA?
I’m only guessing here, but I believe most of the “buyers” in California these days are speculators. I’m sure there are honest buyers in the market, but I recall reading somewhere that the state has become nothing more than a hotbed for speculative investing. The person who bought this house, for example, will probably turn right around and sell it again to some other speculator for a profit. That’s why so many people feel California is ripe for a bust.
Additionally, a lot of people buying homes in California are using interest-only (IO) or, more recently, negative amortization loans. Add that to the crazy appreciation rates, and unwary investors there are essentially playing a game of financial Russian roullette. It’s only a matter of time before the market there sees a reversing trend. Whoever manages to leave beforehand will make huge profits - whoever is left holding the proverbial bag will get burned big time. I believe its already happening in San Fransisco.
I think the majority of these “Property Ladder” shows focus on properties in California (specifically, the coastal cities), which is a shame. They should be focusing more on “normal” markets, instead of overinflated ones like California. The show really gives a funneled view of the world of real estate investing, IMHO, on this and other accounts (especially the nondisclosure of ALL monies involved).
I wonder about all the people watching this show who think “if these people can make $100K plus on one house I can make more since I am much sharper than them.” How much money will they loose by investing in real estate? In my opinion this show does a disservice to the public by making it look so easy.
I’m guessing that to save money the producers spread a film crew around to houses located within a couple of hours drive of each other. As you are aware, SoCal is a logical place to film a project because of the availability of professional film crews. There have been 5 SoCal houses and 3 Houston/TX houses. All 5 SoCal homes made good money because of the housing bubble. All 3 TX rehabbers got their a$$ kicked. THE TX cousins just about broke even. MBA Mom made about $10K, last week’s couple couldn’t even sell for a profit, so they had to rent the place out.
Hopefully the show will have another season or two. Eventually the SoCal market will reverse and we will have the delight of watching some novice rehabbers go belly up.
Salaries are higher in CA. But not so much higher that it offsets the housing prices. The affordability index in coastal CA is ridiculously low. Here is a quote:
““California was easily the state with the least affordable real estate market. An incredible 19 of the 25 least affordable markets are located in California. The least affordable housing market in the third quarter was the Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Lompoc metropolitan area, where less than 5-percent of homes sold were affordable to families earning the median household income of $64,700. The median house sale price during the quarter was $447,000. Compared to the first quarter of 2004, the numbers show a substantial decrease in affordability, where the median price was $380,000 and nearly 11-percent of homes sold were affordable to median-income earners.””
How can anyone think that an affordability index of 5% is sustainable?
For all of you discussing the California real estate market, let me try and answer your assumptions. I live in Northern California in an area where a 1000 sq foot, 2/1 home goes for up to $750k. Now, when you think about it, how much do you want to make on a flip? What are your goals? I would hope atleast 20% min. So, I buy a 2/1 that needs remodelling for $575k, fix it up for $50k, and then sell it for $750, I just made about 20%. It is all a numbers game. To even get a house to flip is going to cost a min. of $500k, and the down payment for that usually needs to be 20% since we have an inflated market. And as far as a bubble bursting, well, if it hasn’t burst yet, it isn’t going to. This area got hit so hard during the internet bust, and guess what, property values still went up. The problem with California is that 1) a lot of people want to live here, and they are moving here constantly 2) there is no where to build in the best places to live 3) foreigners with money or high paying jobs in Silicon Valley are moving here and are able to pay $$$ for housing.
It is a hard market to uncover the great houses to flip, but if you do, there is serious $$ to be made.
That episode was so funny. Talk about lazy and incompetent. I love how she was complaining about the 4k mort payment and then goes off on a trip lol
She did a poor job. The refrigerator looked like the black hole, the kitchen was amateur at best. The counter was crap. You mean to tell me you can’t spring $250 for a cheap new range?
Also, how many days are needed to go buy a stupid shower fixture? I mean crap, you could go grocery shopping at Costco and run into one.
The sad part is, thanks to a fast appreciating market, she made out. I would love to see her do a flip in the midwest.
How in the heck do you not know the Kitchen is your money point and you are an “appraiser”?
Oh, I don’t care much for the kitchen so my buyers won’t either. I mean really, who wouldn’t want to eat dinner in a closet?
Nothing like buying multiple lights to try them out at home.
That color of that house gave me acid reflux.
They should go back and show the house 6 months later. I bet it is a new color and totally reworked.
TLC Property ladder is a load of crap. They always forget to deduct the cost of selling the house and closing costs. I want to see them try flipping somewhere else besides California.
What a schmuck! As per the usual, my wife and I discussed this while we refurbed our $57K property (…and, no, I didn’t leave out a digit!). This woman wanted to be on TV, play with the pretty colors, and scam someone out of some money. At last count she had 37 CANS OF PAINT SAMPLES and not a single clue!!! For Pete’s sake, she NEVER made it to the job site before about 11:00. Luckily it was LaLaLand – try that here in Louisiana and see how you like it – at 11:00 yesterday it was 97 degrees and 60 % humidity – that’ll give you a really “bad hair day”!
She did take up a little of the old flooring (first she used her ‘girl screwdriver’ – the only tool that she owned-- and then tried a putty knife until graduating to a shovel that she borrowed from the gardener (why was she paying for a gardner while their was a ‘roll-off’ on site???)…must of us invest in the $29 tool for that – I could’ve scraped ALL of the flooring in that house up in about 4 hours.
I laughed when she was dealing with the Historical Committee and they were the ones that ‘didn’t get it’!
This show kills me…
Jack9 – you forgot to add in the traffic ticket! LOL
I think the point of that episode is if someone as dumb as her can be successful, anyone can. I would like to see her try to pull something like that outside of California. She was lucky she was at the peak of the california real estate boom when they filmed that episode.
She could have pooped in the middle of the living room and people would still have bought the house.
New to this, so not sure if this is the right place to post this–but what is driving me crazy with every show is the final staging. Except for one guy who said he decided to use the furniture from his own apartment; no one talks about where they got the furniture or the investment in it. Maybe everyone has a few extra sofas, chairs, beds and dressers that they can move in to spruce the place. Doesn’t cost any money either. Also agree with most of the other postings; not including the “fees” gives a false picture of the true profits.
You gotta believe that the show provides the staging as a part of the series budget…with it, there has to be interior designers, etc. I can tell you that in several episodes that I watched, the owners just did not have the skill set to even paint the rooms with the level of skill that the final product displayed.
Thanks for the imput. I had an opportunity to review some of the other postings and found some discussions of the same. I also agree on the quality of the painting. Maybe it’s like when they do the “star” thing–special lenses or something. Things are not always as they appear.
In the Elenora’s House thread, I posted about my conversation with one of the buyers. The producers staged that house, and presumably the other houses.
LAST WEEK: Anthony bought a townhouse in Santa Monica for $588,000. This is Anthony’s first flip, and he is concerned about how he can make the biggest profit with his limited budget and rehabbing skills.
Basically, Anthony’s father bailed his useless butt out in a huge way. He flew his dad and mom from Boston twice for free labor. Dad had a clue and mom was a hard worker. Anthony’s brother and his ‘squeeze’ came out the first time but I didn’t see them do anything but sightsee on Anthony’s dime. Again, another California property (a 2/2 condo) that the rehabber made money on because it was in LaLa Land. Anthony was a Realtor of some sort. In the end, he pulled the “lowball bait and switch” and got way too much money for the place. He ripped out the kitchen for some reason and replaced the cabinets with some that looked almost the same. He should have refaced the old ones for about 1/2 price. He was going to create a two-master arrangement upstairs but instead split the large bedroom into two smaller ones (actually a smart move making the property a 3/2). He had grand ideas for the upstairs hallway bath but abandoned that idea faced with too much time and money already invested. Why did he tile the ceiling in the master bath?
Your thoughts?
Keith
THIS WEEK: Beach Babe Rehab Bungle – Ashley just closed on her first property - a condo in Long Beach, California, for $253,000. With a $10,000 renovation budget, she plans to resell the property for $300,000 in two months. On her meager budget, she’ll be counting on friends for help.
