Home disparagement

Greg and I, like millions of other Americans, are fans of the latest crop of home improvement shows, which focus mostly on flipping. Flipping, if you don't know, is the process of buying a rundown house, renovating it very quickly, and then selling it for an immense profit. That is, immense profit, if the people doing the flipping aren't idiots.

We like Property Ladder, which features a host named Kirsten who's an expert on flipping. She visits properties at the beginning of projects, offers practical advice that the flippers almost always ignore completely, and then she visits for a post-mortem at the end. The flippers all, and I mean all, go over their timelines for completing their projects. They also all, and I mean all, go over their budgets.

Other mistakes are: becoming emotionally attached to the houses and thus putting in too much of their own (expensive or weird) taste; trying to do too much of the work themselves or with friends and family members instead of recognizing that they are over their heads and calling in contractors; making bad decisions on really important things (like not replacing broken air conditioning in a city where the temperature can rise to 110 degrees in the summer, or by deciding that closets aren't important in a master bedroom); and by going the cheap route in areas where people are looking for something better.

Greg and I are getting really good at yelling at the people on the TV (OK, mostly me). We just saw an episode where the couple started out committed to putting "environmentally friendly" elements into their flip, including solar panels. Then they hired the guy's brother as a contractor, and he screwed up a bunch of items. Then they thought washing the walls with a bleach solution would clear up a mold problem, ignoring the fact that mold growing on one side of a wall usually means it's growing on the other side of the wall too. And, to top it all off, they decided to try to sell the house themselves instead of going with a realtor.

I actually hate the idea of giving any money to a realtor. I think they get an absolutely ridiculous amount of money for doing what sometimes amounts to very little work. However, if you're flipping and time is a very important factor (and it always is for these people), then you're probably stupid not to get that realtor advantage.

In this most recent example, 26 weeks went by with the flip unsold. The couple's profit went from $104,000 to $43,000. Some people would say, hey! They made $43,000 in 9 months, so good for them. I know, I know. Actually, my sister and her husband flip houses and then do a rent-to-own arrangement for buyers and they're doing very well with it. That's not the point. For talking back to your TV and feeling superior, "flip TV" is hard to beat.