Evan & Keith Renovate a 70's House: What HGTV Shows Get Wrong About Flipping

TLDR

The featured show displayed purchase price, materials, and sale price without the full cost picture Ross used. His lesson is to price labor, selling costs, capital, and holding costs; match the neighborhood baseline; and treat the entertainment choices separately from the flip math.

Table of Contents

• The Foundation Flag You Do Not Skip.
• What the Real Math Looks Like.
• HGTV Design Distracts From the Baseline.
• The DIY Hacks That Actually Work.
• The Neighborhood Sets the Ceiling.
• FAQ.

The Foundation Flag You Do Not Skip

First shot of the house, the front porch foundation is crumbling. That is the first flag. Any time a foundation is visibly crumbling, you raise the antenna. The porch could have been built at the same time as the house, in which case whatever caused the damage is probably showing up elsewhere too.

My diagnostic lens is to look for the bleeding behind visible damage. Often that is water intrusion; sometimes it is pests. The visible crumble is a reason to investigate the cause, not a diagnosis by itself.

Another flag on this house: the back corner has no eave. In my review, that detail could leave the wall more exposed to repeated water. It is a prompt to inspect the gutter, flashing, drainage path, and wall condition, not proof from a video that water is already behind the siding.

Pro Tip

When you walk a property, train your eye to read possible signs of bleeding before the cosmetics. Foundation crumbles, missing eaves, full-height drywall patches, and drop ceilings that may conceal earlier damage are prompts to investigate.

Inside, a drywall patch runs up one wall and the flooring changes where the patch ends. I read that as a sign a wall may have been removed. On a photo review, that is a flag to verify permits, the beam, and the load path. It is not proof that the work was unpermitted or structurally wrong.

I also use known dimensions to read listing photos. A typical door is about seven feet tall and a common ceiling is about eight. If the gap above the door looks much smaller than a foot, I flag a potentially low ceiling instead of assuming the photo angle is harmless.

The same verification applies when somebody says the electrical was updated. I want to see the exterior meter base and weather head along with the interior panel. Newer service equipment can be evidence that the utility or inspector saw part of the work, but it does not prove every branch circuit is correct.

What the Real Math Looks Like

On the show, the breakdown looks great. Buy at $32,000. Rehab $35,000. Sell for $100,000. Profit $33,000.

That is not how the math actually works.

And that is before holding costs, property taxes, utilities, and surprises. In the recording, I estimated a builder’s-risk policy on a property like this at $1,500 to $2,000; get an actual quote rather than using that figure as a current rate.

The $35,000 rehab number worked because they did the labor themselves. For this featured job, I estimated another $35,000 of labor if an investor hired it out. That would change the deal completely.

I started by doing all the work myself and showed large paper profits because I did not pay anyone for the labor. That route is not available to everybody, and it is not required. For a contractor, time spent on the flip also replaces time that could have earned money on customer work. Count the labor when comparing the deal, even when you choose not to write yourself a check.

The HGTV Math Trap

The displayed $33,000 does not include the commissions, closing costs, holding costs, builders risk, or unpaid labor Ross adds in his review. Run the full math before treating the show’s displayed figure as investor profit.

HGTV Design Distracts From the Baseline

On the show, one designer says, “This is going to be my mid-century museum house. Clean lines, graphic black and white finishes, colorful geometric art pieces, metallic accents. When it is done it is going to feel like you walked into an art gallery.”

Cool concept. Terrible flipping strategy.

Gray and white would be just fine. You do not need to design every room differently. If you call a contractor and ask them to execute museum-quality finishes in every room, your $35,000 budget is gone on day one.

The baseline is what the neighborhood is already selling for. Gray floors, white walls, regular cabinets, butcher block or simple countertops. That puts you in the middle of the range of comps, which is where your house actually sells.

Key Concept

Designing every room differently creates drama for a show. It does not create profit for a flipper. Pick the finishes that match what other flipped houses in that neighborhood are selling at, then move on. Design distractions cost you time, cash, and consistency.

They even mention changing the floor plan. I usually avoid that because moving walls can uncover wiring, plumbing, structural, and permit work that was not in the first budget. My professional-flipper rule is to keep the scope of work as tight and predictable as the house allows.

The DIY Hacks That Actually Work

Here is where I have to give them credit. They show a painter’s-tape feature wall, a front-door curb-appeal upgrade, and hand-built concrete countertops. I call the paint and landscaping ideas accessible DIY work. I describe concrete countertops differently: cheap in materials, very labor intensive, and tough to make well.

I called paint one of the strongest dollar-for-dollar cosmetic projects in the video. Exterior paint can transform the look, but doing it well still takes preparation, masking, time, and safe access.

Landscaping is the same kind of labor tradeoff. In the recording, I compared about $1,500 to hire basic work with roughly $100 to $200 in materials and a weekend of your own labor. Those were the example’s numbers, not a current bid.

Concrete countertops are cheap in materials and expensive in hours. I have made them myself and broke the first set carrying them inside, which meant doing them again. Hiring that labor is a different calculation.

The cheap cosmetic projects a show fast-forwards through are the same ones I liked here: paint, landscaping, trim features at the front door, and one standout element inside. Keep those choices in one or two spots, not every room.

The Neighborhood Sets the Ceiling

The show closes with the house going under contract at asking. Great result. But the ceiling was about $100,000 because that is what the neighborhood supported in the source. They could have done much less design work and still reached that range.

Same in your market. The neighborhood supports a range. One house does not establish a higher resale value merely because it has granite, an accent wall, or art-gallery lighting.

Your job is to identify the supported range, scope the rehab to reach it, and execute efficiently. Design beyond what the comparable sales demand may have personal or media value, but the source does not show that it raises the sale price.

HGTV entertains. The neighborhood pays.

FAQ

I am just starting out. Should I still watch HGTV flipping shows for ideas?

Watch for entertainment, not as a substitute for underwriting. In this example, the displayed $33,000 falls to about $15,000 before other holding costs. Run each deal’s actual commissions, closing costs, financing, holding costs, and labor instead of applying a universal haircut.

Is it worth it to do the labor myself to save on the rehab budget?

I did all the work myself early on and the deals showed large profits because no labor check left the project. That path is not required. Value your own hours and compare them with the work or deal-finding time they replace.

Does staging the house matter for entry-level flips?

It depends on the market. In the source, I said I generally would not stage an entry-level home, though a difficult market could change that. When I staged properties myself, I rented larger furniture and made display beds over crates.

How do I know what the baseline actually is in my neighborhood?

Use the relevant neighborhood sales and their finish level. In this recording, I describe gray floors, white walls, regular cabinets, and simple hard-surface or butcher-block counters as enough to land in the middle of the renovated range for the featured neighborhood. That example is not a finish prescription for every market.

What about home runs? Are they ever worth swinging for?

Going beyond what the neighborhood demands does you no good in this example. The featured team could have done far less design work and still reached the same $100,000 market range.