The Trademark Realty guys are the ones I like to watch. The MonumentalAssholes down in Texas and the other folks in Atlanta aren’t nearly as professional and driven as the Davis team. Trademark is a well-established business that knows how to make things work, and the other teams seem like well-meaning weekend warriors in comparison. Trademark buys the houses themselves and have their own selling agents, so they’re not getting reamed nearly as badly on those transactions.
We just watched the first episode of The Real Deal (Trademark’s “new” show on TLC), and boy oh boy did they get themselves into a mess! They bought a house for $350k in a neighborhood with a median price range of $500k. (The owner was in forclosure or something.) It had beautiful hardwood floors … that were completely warped. Further investigation showed that the pump housing for the pool was right next to the foundation of the house and was dumping 100s of gallons of overflow water into the crawlspace. They had to take out all of the bottom floor insulation, ductwork, subfloors, and finished floors plus pay for serious mold remediation in the crawlspace. In the end they made $78k in a week! Plus, I like TLC’s format a little bit better than A&E’s, but I do miss the cool intro music.
Did you see the episode where they “flipped” that restaurant? It was where Richard used to make a lot of deals in his early days, before he had an impressive office. They closed the Crab Shack down for four days and spent like $40k of their own money re-doing it. At the closing credits, they claimed that weekly business had increased by about 150% after the flip. And Trademark didn’t charge them for it. (Or did they? I got the impression that it was a “donation” to an old friend who needed a boost.)
Darn, I missed the TLC show. I do watch the Landmark flip shows on A & E. That’s Saturday, these days! Sell This House, Sell This House, Flip This House, Flip This House… and in the commercials, Clean This House! (My house, that is.)
I concur that the Davis group has a much, much better feel while watching. While they don’t seem to be too concerned with proper permitting for the work, they also seem to take pride in finding a house that can be saved and remade. I do like the idea of these old houses getting a second life, somehow that just makes me happy.
I had the opposite reaction over some house somewhere where some horribly spoiled woman was whining about paying $160K for a 4 bedroom 2 bath house.
With a yard.
In the city. Whatever city it was. I don’t care.
I wanted to slap her.
(I’m looking at those 408sq ft/$260k things right now. It’s amazing what you can fit into 400 square feet including a bedroom.)
I like Property Ladder better - it shows how many things can go wrong and the flips never go well. Never. It’s a lesson in why you shouldn’t flip - even if you are a jack of all trades/contractor/whatever. That show always self destructs on the flipper.
I just watched an episode with Trademark this past weekend (latecommer to the series) and I was also more impressed with them than the Montelongos or the Atlanta couple. Although I also suspect that one of the ways they cut costs is by both the lack of permits and using contractors that don’t exactly have correct licenses. I suppose as long as you have one guy on your staff that is a very expierienced contractor and knows what to look for that wouldn’t be a problem…but it can really bite you in the ass.
One thing I did notice about the Montelongos is that it looked like they did their own financing to the people that buy their houses…I can’t even imagine how they’re screwing people over that way too.
Awww… there’s a link to Armando Montelongo’s very own website, courtesy of Google. Y’all will be glad to know that he’s taking up a new line of business: selling “How to Flip” videos and books:
And Artiel, you’re right. None of these people bother with getting licenses… until their construction jobs are shut down. Even Trademark got into a pissing contest with a local bureaucrat… you could tell that Richard just hated backing down in front of the camera, but he really had no choice.
Yeah, that was painful. But the part that bugged me (no pun intended) was them cleaning out the maggot-filled fridge and putting it back. Spring for a new fridge already!
I agree they are honest and community-minded folks. They do skirt the edge of the permit laws occasionally though! The funniest part was when Richard was describing the baseball player who got hurt and spiralled downhill: “He got into drugs, got some tattoos…” as if these were equal depravities!
What cemented my hatred for the Montelongos was the episode with the house that was infested with snakes in the backyard. How did they solve the problem? They adopted several cats from the shelter and let them loose on the property. Problem solved! Douchebags. :mad:
