Are House Flipping Shows Real?

It’s hard to keep track of all the house flipping shows on TV today.  As it seems like every few months yet another house flipping show hits the airwaves.

You might be wondering though, are house flipping shows real?

The truth of the matter is, the answer is both yes and no.  While house flipping shows do give a general idea of what it’s like to flip a house, they usually show a highly condensed and stylized version of house flipping that leaves out many aspects of the process.

House Flipping Shows vs Reality

The condensed version of a house flip and the lack of detail is perhaps the largest disparity between house flipping shows and the reality of flipping houses.

Typical house flipping shows are a half hour long while an actual house flip can take 6 months or more to complete.  Obviously, with such a huge discrepancy in time between the show and an actual flip, the producers of house flipping shows have to make a lot of cuts along the way to condense the house flipping process into a half hour block of TV.

Because of this what perhaps took 5 minutes on TV between two commercial breaks actually took 3 months in real life.

Also remember people turn the TV on for entertainment and as a means of escape, not to be bored to death and have the harsh realities of life thrown in their face.  Because of this networks and producers know they need to make the topic of house flipping fun and entertaining to keep viewers tuning in week after week.

In reality, though house flipping is not always fun and exciting and there is a lot of good old fashion hard work involved throughout the house flipping process which can be boring and or back breaking.

What House Flipping Shows Get Right

• Before and After – One of the most rewarding and exciting aspects of flipping houses is the dramatic before and after transformation of the house.  House flipping shows do a great job of capturing this before and after house flipping transformation and the excitement around it.  
• Design – When flipping houses, picking a neutral design pallet and updating the home to be appealing to the masses and potential home buyers is very important.  House flipping shows typically do a great job showing the design process when remodeling a home.
• Selling the House – While the selling timeline is condensed on house flipping shows as with all other aspects of the flip,  the actual selling process is usually pretty accurate.

What House Flipping Shows Get Wrong

• Timelines – House flipping shows can give a very distorted picture of the house flipping process and timeline.  For example, interior and or exterior painting are almost always apart of any house flip.  To show this house flipping shows might show a  10-second clip of someone with a paint roller in their hand, in reality though, it can take weeks to paint the inside or outside of a house.  Not to mention all the time needed for prep work to even be ready to paint.
• Buying a Property – Usually on house flipping shows the show opens with someone on the phone or checking out a potential flip that they end up buying two minutes later.  In reality, though one of the most challenging aspects of flipping houses is finding a house to flip.  A typical house flipper might look at 10, 20, or even 50 homes before they find a house flip that actually works.
• Property Rehab – House flipping shows do not show an accurate representation of the work involved in the rehab of a house.  While house flipping shows might show someone with a sledgehammer knocking down a wall or someone laying tile, they don’t show a true picture of the work that goes into rehabbing a house.  When flipping houses the rehab of the home is one of the most time consuming and labor intensive portions of the house flip.  While you might be able to farm out some of the work to subcontractors a lot of the manual labor typically falls onto the house flipper due to cost or lack of qualified workers.
• Large House Flipping Profits – House flipping show locations are typically on the coasts or in large cities which tends to have more expensive real estate.  This is because more expensive real estate usually means larger profits when it comes to house flipping.  This is important because bigger profits are more exciting then smaller ones when watching house flipping shows.  I mean how exciting would it be to watch someone flip a house on TV and make $8,000?  So remember even though a house flipping show might show house flipping profits of $80,000, in reality, house flipping profits can range from less than $0 to over a $100,000 and everything in between.

Don’t Use House Flipping Shows to Determine if You Should Flip Houses

The house flipping world is littered with house flips gone wrong by starry-eyed house flippers that watched one too many house flipping shows not realizing what they were really getting themselves into.

The reality is that house flipping shows give a very condensed and rosy depiction of the house flipping process.  While many people do make money flipping houses including myself, there is no such thing as easy money.  House flipping as with any other business venture takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to be successful at it.

So before you jump into the world of house flipping make sure you know what you are getting into and never use house flipping shows as your source of information about house flipping and what it takes to be successful.

Want to learn more about the realities of house flipping?  Check out our article “How to Flip Houses for a Living“.