flip or flop christina and tarek designs homes kitchen makeovers

'The bigger the disaster, the better the makeover,' El Moussa says during the show's opening credits. Five seasons have aired since the first, and they've bought, renovated, and sold at least 14 homes in each season. Looking back, El Moussa is glad filming the show pushed him to take on more investments, even though it seemed intimidating at the time. The success has spawned an HGTV franchise with 'Flip or Flop' seasons set to film in Las Vegas, Atlanta, Fort Worth, Nashville, and Chicago featuring other house-flipping experts. In 2016, 'Flip or Flop' attracted a total of 17 million viewers, according to the network. Within weeks, the show struck a chord with viewers and HGTV moved it to primetime. The first season debuted in 2013 with little marketing, said El Moussa, because the network was worried it may be 'out of their element and they weren't sure ratings were going to be good.'

That was when El Moussa 'became addicted' to house flipping. After frantically reaching out to family and friends to raise funds, he found a business partner and they bought their first property in Santa Ana, California, for $115,000.Īfter putting in $20,000 into renovations and closing costs, they sold the house for $169,000, netting $34,000 in profit.

'The market had obviously become very depressed and I started seeing all these different deals coming across the table, and at the time I wasn't a house flipper so I wasn't buying those properties, but I saw that the profit was huge,' El Moussa, now the star of HGTV's top-rated series 'Flip or Flop,' told Business Insider.Įl Moussa was intrigued by the idea of buying a home below market value, investing money to renovate it, and selling it for a profit. Americans were defaulting on their mortgage loans en masse and there was a huge uptick in the number of homes being sold or auctioned off for dirt cheap.

It often indicates a user profile.Īround 2008, when he was 28, the US housing market fell into crisis mode. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.

Flip or flop christina and tarek designs homes kitchen makeovers