Los Angeles Times - 07.03.2020

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HOT PROPERTY LOS ANGELES TIMES SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 2020 WSCE

REALITY REALTY

Real estate’s reality-renovation

power couple — “Flip or Flop” exes

Tarek El Moussa and Christina

Anstead — yet persevere. The

demolition that was their tabloid-

splashed 2018 divorce is now well-

settled dust; they’ll air the ninth

season of their wildly popular

HGTV show this August, marking

their third as uncoupled hosts.

Besides “Flip or Flop,” Anstead

has moved on: a new husband,

baby and a solo show, “Christina on

the Coast.” El Moussa seemed

moored to his million-dollar yacht,

but enter new girlfriend Heather

Rae Young, an agent with the Op-

penheim Group and a regular on

Netflix’s docu-soap “Selling

Sunset.”

Young moved into El Moussa’s

$2.28-million Costa Mesa home

last year — and appears on an epi-

sode in his new solo show, HGTV’s

“Flipping 101 w/Tarek El Moussa,”

which premiered Thursday.

El Moussa mentors SoCal re-

hab rookies during the 14-episode

series as they juggle fears and test

the limits of maxed-out finances.

Flipping houses is all about cali-

brating that dicey risk-reward ra-

tio, one that El Moussa knows in

spades. He’s finessed hundreds of

O.C. home transformations.

We reached El Moussa on the

road to LAX — catching a flight to

Honolulu to speak at one of his

Homemade Investor workshops

(he also surprised Young with a

Valentine’s Day outing at Oahu’s

Kualoa Ranch).

We’d usually start with a business

question, but the internet’s

ablaze with the warp speed tra-

jectory of your romance with

Heather — replete with shots

together on your yacht.

Heather’s the queen of Bad

Decisions.

We should probably tell readers

that Bad Decisions is the name of

your boat.

(Laughs) We don’t know if I’m a

bad decision yet; we’ll find out.

Don’t do a headline — She’s the

queen of Bad Decisions!

In what ways is Heather influenc-

ing your approach to real estate?

I’ve been getting a lot of influ-

ence from her, bringing more of a

West Hollywood or Los Angeles

vibe to some of the houses I’m

doing, instead of doing the stand-

ard Orange County remodel. [The

couple also rent a condo in a West

Hollywood high-rise.]

Does this signal more swank in

the type of homes you cover?

One thing that’s definitely next

on the list for me is developing,

remodeling and flipping high-end

spec homes. So instead of people

seeing me buy a $500,000 house, I’d

love to see them watch me build a

$5-million or $10-million house.

You know, just some really cool,

unique, crazy houses.

Describe the range of flips cov-

ered on your show.

They’re spread throughout

Southern California — across

Orange County, L.A. County and

even San Bernardino County. One

of the really cool neighborhoods is

Brentwood. It’s a multimillion-

dollar house and we have another

in Simi Valley and a really cool

full-frontal ocean-view property in

Pacific Palisades. On the low end,

$500,000, and on the high end, in

the low $3 millions.

That high-end market is a hefty

risk for newbie flippers.

Oh my gosh, I’m not kidding,

when I meet some of these rookie

flippers buying these high-end

homes, I want to run — it’s really

scary. I have a lot of empathy for

them because I’ve been in their

shoes. Some of them, I didn’t think

there was any way possible they

were going to pull it off.

We’re envisioning a kind of deer-

in-the-headlights approach to

financing such flips.

One couple financed the pur-

chase price, they financed the

closing costs, they financed the

down payment and they financed

the construction.

So they went into the property

with, like, negative 25% down. It’s

crazy! And they paid a huge pre-

mium to the lender to get every-

thing financed. They didn’t come

$1 out of pocket but their monthly

mortgage payment was extremely

high.

Flipping houses is said to be

neighborhood-specific, in terms

of spotting areas with rising

values that have older home

stock. True or false?

So many people think you have

to buy into a certain neighborhood

and it’s actually false. The neigh-

borhood doesn’t have to be popu-

lar; it doesn’t even have to be up

and coming. Houses still sell in

every single neighborhood. So you

just have to make sure you buy it

for the right price — if things go

wrong, you’re still going to end up

pretty OK.

Dust is settled; he’s on to next pursuits

‘Flip or Flop’ host Tarek El

Moussa talks about his

booming career, new solo

show and glitzy romance.

By R. Daniel Foster

TAREK EL MOUSSA,left, star of a new HGTV program, “Flipping 101,” shows off a successful rehab with South L.A. homeowners.

Erik VoakeHGTV