Wonder how many other shows on HGTV remodeling are not what they seem to be.
Did he get paid for these and who paid for the stuff?

Related story Part I

Part II

The surprising thing is Armando, the Texas flipper, hasn't been exposed as a fraud yet.

"It's TV", says Sam.

If you get the chance, see any episode of The Big Flip, Canada's answer to Flip This House for the real deal. Half the time, it seems, these guys work their fingers to the bone for free.

marvelousmarvin: The surprising thing is Armando, the Texas flipper, hasn't been exposed as a fraud yet.

He's the reason I stopped watching the show. I cannot believe they ever used that "team".

Most reality shows are bunk.
The sad part is that people EXPECT the same in real life.

All the staging & re-do shows give people false expectations of how homes should look.
No wonder it's tougher to sell a house now than ever. All have to be updated & staged. Sheesh.

How about multiple bids? We don't get them around here...
It can be demoralizing to the rest of the legitimate sellers.

xamsx,

You know things are out of control when its freaking Armando who's the more ethical flipper. And, that's only because nobody down in Texas has bothered to do an investigation concerning his business practices. Cause once they do, you know they're going to find a graveyard full of skeletons there.

Richard Davis and Trademark migrated to TLC, but their show has become less about flipping and more an infomercial trying to convince others across the nation to partner up with that company.

marvelousmarvin if you go to the A&E forums there is some very interesting posts concerning Armando's buisness practices. Some people have also traced his buy-sell prices (interesting in a non-disclosure state). Apparently flipping is not necessarily a money maker for the pros, even in a decent market.

Having purchased and renovated a pretty decent number of houses over the years, I can tell you that just about all the TV stuff you see is BS.

The money is made on the purchase, not the renovations.
The more pros you have to hire the less likely you are to make a decent profit.
I have a crew available, so this work is mostly 'keep busy' between larger jobs.
If I actually computed what I make per hour for the reno work on these jobs it would probably be pretty bad.

I remember an episode where Armando was hiring an intern. He was very arrogant during the interview process which seemed more about bullying the applicants than actually determining which of them had skills to fit the position. He challenged one of the boys to bet him about something and essentially browbeat the kid into taking the bet. Of course, Armando won and he took the poor kids money, but didn't give him the intern position.

The boy that did get the job was assigned an impossible back-breaking task and then had to endure Armando berating him for not having what it takes for real estate flipping. Armando (or anyone else) couldn't have completed the job in the time allowed.

Armando is a pompous jerk. He brags at achieving financial success by squeezing contractors and laborers. I doubt he's as successful as he pretends to be, anyway.

The money is made on the purchase, not the renovations.
The more pros you have to hire the less likely you are to make a decent profit.
I have a crew available, so this work is mostly 'keep busy' between larger jobs.
If I actually computed what I make per hour for the reno work on these jobs it would probably be pretty bad.

Probably better money if you can get a larger lot, subdivide and put up a modular on the other parcel; no?

The guy that built my dad's house did this. He refurbed / updated the bi level on one street, then sold each for $244,000 (IIRC) and my dad's on the other street behind it $260,000. Pretty sure he paid a little over $100,000 for it, and what another $10,000 to subdivide, then the cost of my dad's which was probably $150,000. Between the two it took about a year, not quite. I doubt his help makes more than $25,000 a year, and with only 2 guys, himself and his son when needed, I'm sure the profit was good.

Any pieces of land large enough to be subdivided 'by rights' (no zoning change) routinely goes for over a million in Northern Virginia, and you will not make any money with a modular.
Knock downs of small houses (house value ~$100k, land value often ~$500k+) and building something over a million is pretty common.
Within about 5 blocks of my house there are at least 4 or 5 in progress right now.

Ugh. I hate that A&E forum setup as it makes it difficult to read. But, I'm surprised that A&E allows that information to remain as I thought A&E would be the type that would delete any negative comments like the TLC boards.

Probably A&E doesn't care enough to set up a moderator to go through those threads just like they didn't care about the backgrounds of the San Antonio and Atlanta flippers. I also hold the producers and TV execs culpable for giving Sam that platform to swindle more investors. A background check should have caught all this beforehand, and the producers during filming would have known that the flips were fake.

And, I think A&E had some idea something shady was going. I only watched one or two episodes of Sam and Armando, but didn't the later episodes drop Sam and focus on the realtor? However, that shift still shows how corrupt the producers and A&E are. There's no way this realtor didn't know what was going on with Sam.

As he said, tho, "It's TV." Just because someone puts the word 'reality' in a TV show name or description doesn't mean it's real. (I wish they'd crack down on this practice as false advertisement, tho--it's cheapening the English language. Word like 'reality' that used to have a meaning are having that meaning stripped away by marketers.)

I always assume these people are eiither crooks or are doing incredibly shoddy work in their renovations. And that the 'profit' isn't taking into account RE commissions or taxes. Basically, if it isn't on PBS, then it's fake. (Ever watch This Old House? How many weeks does it take them to do their remodel projects? Much more realistic. And no phony deadlines--"The open house is in 3 days, but the roof just fell in!! But we'll make it, we have to!!")

And it always bugs me when they browbeat their workers or contractors into doing work for basically free. Why shouldn't their crew share in all their riches, after all (if there really are riches)?