Original subtitles

[Drew] This season on Backed by the Bros.

They've done some investment properties before,

so they should know a little something.

If they don't know a little something,

they're about to learn a little something.

[Jonathan] Massive undertaking.

Potentially, massive profit.

It smells like money.

We just want to help people

get into good investments or to help save them

from what's turning into a bad investment.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I've never flipped a house before.

[Jonathan] Had you fixed this up and rented it out

from the beginning,

you would've made over $400,000.

Oh.

-Hello. Hi. -Nice to meet you.

[man] Welcome to my nightmare.

[Drew] So we wanna back to you, guys.

-[cheering] -[laughs]

Thank you so much.

$100,000? You're fricking nuts.

What you're looking at doing with this house seems impossible.

If we don't think our services would be enough,

then we're not gonna back it.

You're starting to get desperate

and you'll make decisions that are not good decisions.

-It's gonna be an uphill battle. -[Jonathan] Yikes.

This is gonna look beautiful.

Tied in with the warmer tones.

Obviously this needs some work.

What's the new cost for all this?

-It's six to seven grand. -[Drew grunts]

This is the kind of thing you hate to see.

What the heck? Oh, no.

No, you didn't. We talked about that.

They're already 200 grand in the hole.

[woman] It's do or die for us.

If it goes south, it could ruin us.

[Jonathan] These are real investors.

They're not all gonna be successful.

He did not take our advice.

He framed for five bedrooms. He didn't go for four.

On paper, some things can look great.

In person, whole different story.

We got a problem. You got to tell these guys

to stop everything right now.

If they don't get this right, I think they're done.

I wanna put a second-story.

Is that something you've run by the brothers?

[Jonathan] I'm starting to actually have second thoughts

about whether or not we should have backed this project.

[woman] This is life-changing.

This is gonna turn the page to my career.

All right. Who wants to make some money?

[dramatic music playing]

-Howdy. -So this is it?

-This is it. -[Jonathan] It looks like industrial.

-[Drew] Yeah. -[Jonathan] What is it?

Oh, this is the utility right away.

They probably got this

as the cheapest house in the entire area.

We're meeting up with some pretty seasoned flippers,

James and Isabel.

But they have found themselves in over their heads

with their latest property in NoHo.

NoHo or North Hollywood, for those who don't know,

is actually a pretty great area.

Very close to restaurants, theme parks,

all kinds of great stuff.

[Drew] Also, it's a great rental market.

We've been flipping houses for the past...

[Isabel] Oh, seven years.

[James] And we've always been successful.

We bought this house for $750,000.

Our goal with this property was to build

an apartment building.

But, after spending tons of money on the plans

and trying to get them approved by the city,

they eventually said no.

Now our goal is to flip this house, make some money,

or, at least, get our money back

and wash our hands of this place.

If this investment fails...

Well, it can't fail. It cannot fail.

They've done some investment properties before,

so they should know a little something.

If they don't know a little something,

they're about to learn a little something.

[Jonathan] To figure out who we're gonna help,

and if we can help,

we're gonna kick those tires.

Then we wanna understand

if they know what they're doing

and can get the project done.

It's kind like a two-pronged approach.

We're looking at the investment property

and we're looking at the investor.

-Good. How are you? -Hey, pleasure.

-[James] Come on in. -[Drew] Nice to meet you.

-Isabel. -Hi, I'm James. Nice to meet you.

[Jonathan] What is the goal for this place?

So our original goal was to tear it down

and build an apartment building

and then the city crushed our plans for that, so.

Wait, this is just single-family residential.

What made you think you could do that?

In the '60s, a Q condition was set.

It operated as a school for a long time.

And we bought it when the preschool closed.

And so, I bet you, because you're not operating

a school off of it.

That's correct. Zoning doesn't...

-Oh, my gosh. That is-- -...transfer like that.

[James] That's interest,

the architect, engineer...

-[Isabel] Insurance. -...and then, insurance.

Only to learn, we can't build an apartment building.

And it cost you how much?

We've spent over $100,000.

-Oh, my God. -[Isabel] Just waiting.

[Drew] I would never spend that much money

that early on a project

when you don't even know what you can do.

A bad thing happened.

That money's gone now.

We need to take the emotion out of it

and think how can you get

the most back out of this property?

So you're looking at just to flip it?

-And we have to get going. -And it has to happen fast.

[Drew] Okay. What do you need to sell it for

and how much is your rental budget?

$100,000, we could bring it up to I think $1.2

and then we could at least break even on the sale.

Okay. 'Cause I think one to $1 to $1.2 is a bit of a dream

because it looks like there's a lot

more than $100,000 that has to happen.

I would assume you're gonna have to redo

pretty much all your electrical.

-Yeah. -Yeah.

[Drew] Oh.

There's so much that's gonna have to be torn out.

Were you guys planning to redo all lighting?

-[Isabel] Yes. -[James] Yes.

This would become the kitchen.

-This'll be the kitchen. -This is the kitchen.

Okay. What's this about?

[James] That's an illegal addition

that the city says we have to tear down.

This is also illegal.

This where we're standing right here,

this shouldn't be enclosed and covered up.

These should be the exterior walls.

Normally when we flip a house,

we completely gut it and fix everything,

but we don't have that in the budget.

[Drew] Now, there's a lot. I mean, honestly,

everywhere you look there are issues.

You're stuck on $100,000 for this project.

Literally, what you're looking at doing with this house

is spreading it so thin across the whole home

to make it appealing to any buyer

that it seems impossible.

[James] It's what we have.

Our kids' college savings is gone.

And we pulled out my retirement

that I had, like, a $401K.

You said kids' college fund. How many kids do you have?

[James] We have five kids. We have a six-year-old,

a three-year-old, a two-year-old,

-and five-week-old twins. -[Isabel] Twins.

-Wait. You have five-week-old twins? -Five-week-old twins?

-Yeah. -How are you doing?

-Wow. -She's a hero.

[Isabel] We got into real estate exactly for this reason,

to be with our kids, to be able to raise them.

And it's a dream that's being crushed

by the situation.

It's a really hard thing

because you have made a couple of the mistakes

that a lot of people make that think,

"Oh, I can get this money back.

I'll just pull out of my savings.

I'll pull out of the kids' college fund."

And then, all of a sudden, you're in this bind.

This is how a lot of people go under.

There are gonna be some very tough decisions

that you're gonna have to make on this.

I'll tell you, if I was walking into this,

looking at this saying, "I'm gonna renovate it,"

I would probably say,

"I could do this for 175 grand."

$100,000?

-You're fricking nuts. -I mean--

[Isabel] So you don't think it's gonna happen?

[Jonathan] I don't think you can do it.

You are going to have to roll up your sleeves

-and do some work. -That's what we have.

And your contractor's gonna have to do some favors.

Every square inch needs to be touched.

We haven't even looked outside yet.

I see a lot of debris and it goes back so far.

For someone who wants a relaxing backyard,

the airplane, the buzzing of the power lines.

That sort of crackling sound.

Oh, you'd be surprised.

We sold one of these right under the power lines.

[Jonathan] You guys are in a really disadvantaged situation here

because you literally have a stack of $100,000.

That's all you're willing to spend.

Number one thing I would say,

don't even consider a flip.

If you were looking to do this as a pure flip,

you're not gonna make your money back.

I would say short-term rental.

You know, vacation rentals.

You could charge $300 a night,

two grand per week.

I don't think we can back this

if it's just a fix-and-flip.

I don't know that they'll get their money back.

But if they make this a short-term rental,

they will definitely make their money back

over time and then some.

It's airport-friendly, close to Hollywood.

This lot isn't great, but NoHo is sought after,

especially for vacation rentals.

[James] It was a bit of a smack in the face,

'cause I'd been leaning toward flip

rather than rental.

[Isabel] This has put a dent in my confidence.

-We're worried. -[James] I think... I think

we need them more than we realize.

Well, I would hope to prove them wrong.

I think it's a good investment

'cause it's in a great neighborhood.

It is no longer a good investment.

Now, you're just trying to save your investment.

If you spend really smart,

there's still an opportunity

to make money on this property.

If we're gonna back you, we need confidence

that you know what you're doing

and you're being realistic.

Backing onto the utility corridor

is not a good spot.

[Isabel] It's not a good spot.

But it's not the worst either.

It doesn't mean we cannot squeeze it in.

Even after the tough love from the brothers,

I still hope they back us

because they do still have the expertise.

They do still have the ideas, the supplies, the experience.

And, I just feel like just their touch,

their touch on things is the miraculous one.

Let us think about this

and then we'll touch base, okay?

All right. Thank you for coming.

-[Jonathan] Yeah. -Thank you.

See you. Hope they help.

[James] If the brothers don't back us,

then our dream of continuing to flip houses

and spend so much time with our kids is in jeopardy.

Yikes. It's a mess.

This is the problem. They're starting in a hole.

They're 100 grand out-of-pocket,

and they haven't even done anything yet.

I mean, there's a path to a profitable rental,

but there is no way on earth

that this renovation is $100,000.

-[Drew] I don't see it. -[Jonathan] Period.

All right. I'll meet you at the other house.

-Oh, yeah. -This is...

This is a head-shaker.

[Drew] Yeah.

[upbeat music playing]

[Drew] We are on our way to Burbank

to meet Leanne and Renato,

and they're a divorced couple,

but they still own the house together,

and they wanna turn their garage into an ADU.

We're specifically looking for investors

who need help to reach their full potential.

We just wanna use the full weight

of our resources and our mentorship

to help people get into good investments

or to help save them from what's turning

into a bad investment.

And after analyzing each investor,

if we don't think our services would be enough,

then we're not gonna back them.

What's happening?

-We know this area. -Yeah. I love it.

I mean, this is one of the areas we were looking at

when we were first moving to the city.

Streets are just gorgeous

and it's easy to get everywhere.

Vacancy is around 4% here.

I think it's great in California

how they're encouraging everyone to have an ADU.

The one thing that's kind of nice too with these houses,

you have the garages set back,

still accessible from the front.

So, from a rental perspective,

it does feel like your own little home,

your own little entrance.

[Renato] When we purchased the house,

what was so unique about it was this big garage.

And for us, it's, like, this is great,

someday, to convert it into a usable space.

[Leanne] It's taken over 20 years

for us to consider even doing this.

Our ultimate goal is to actually bring in

some extra income for the family.

[Renato] It would help definitely

with the month-to-month for us.

-Here we go. -Uh-huh.

-Hey. -Hello.

-Hi. Hello. -[Drew] How are you?

-[Renato] How you doing? -So great to see you, guys.

-Yay. Hello. -[Jonathan] Pleasure.

-Nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you too.

-Well-- -Nice place you got here.

[Leanne] Yes. Thank you.

Used to be married, now just friends.

We're divorced. We're divorced.

We were married for 24 years

and then, the last 11 years has been divorced,

but have always remained best of friends.

[Leanne] We do have three daughters together

and we own the house together.

I live in the house with the girls.

[Renato] Yeah. And I live not too far.

-And how old are the kids? -Twenty-four,

-twenty, and eighteen. -[Drew] Okay.

How did this idea to get the rental in come up,

the ADU come up?

[Renato] I mean, when we had bought the house

back in the day, it's like a double, right?

-The gentleman that was here-- -To four--

Oh, it goes all the way.

Oh, yeah. That's why we wanna do it in the back.

[Renato] The front here was,

obviously, primarily to park cars,

but the back, it was a shop.

[Leanne] This is all storage.

[Drew] This is a dream to have though.

Like in the city, in this area, you don't find this.

Between the back area and the front area,

what's your total square footage?

I think it's about 800 square feet.

[Jonathan] I mean that would be a pretty massive--

Well, that's why we would just do this.

Oh, you only wanna do the back?

Yeah. We wanna keep this as a garage

since the kids still live here.

[Jonathan] How much would the rent be

if you were renting out just this back?

We'd like to do, like, $2,800 to $3,000.

Where did you get your stats on for that?

My cousin has a ADU

and they built a two bedroom,

two bath, and she's paying $3,100, so--

They had two bedroom is 800 square feet.

But you wanna get about the same as what she's getting

for just less than 500 square foot, one bedroom.

[Jonathan] It's not realistic.

And for a one bedroom in an area like this,

-I mean-- -$1,800 to $2,200

depending on what you have, how new it is.

[Jonathan] Is there a shared yard space?

Well, there's a little patio.

-I can show you. -Behind the garage.

-Which way? -Yeah. We can go...

-We can go-- -[Jonathan] This way?

-Yup. -[Leanne] Yeah. Yeah.

So I wanted to do French doors

to come out to the little patio area.

[Drew] So you want a private garden here,

you wanna cut open a hole here for a door?

[Renato] It offers that quiet, which is really good.

[Drew] Well, the nice thing too is,

if they have this, you could gate this off

so they don't even need to walk around the side of the house.

-That's all yours. -Yeah. Exactly.

This is their own little private Idaho.

We have had some contractors come out

and give us some prices,

like $40,000 or something. But that was--

-[Drew] Wait, $40,000 to do what? -To finish this into an ADU?

Yeah. I don't think it was once--

Not a chance in hell.

-No. -[Leanne] Yeah.

[Jonathan] You have a unique situation.

Most people's garage is just like 400 square feet.

-[Leanne] Exactly. -[Jonathan] That's it.

Keep using the garage,

convert the back into a rental space,

probably cost you about 150 grand.

Somewhere $130,000, $150,000 to get done.

Be realistic with what the numbers are gonna be.

If you're only able to get $1,800 to $2,100 in rent,

would you still be okay with that or is that not enough?

[Leanne] Because we have to get a loan for $150,000,

I guess it just depends

on what the monthly cost would be.

Oh, so you're gonna get a loan to do this work here?

Yes. Yeah. We have to get a loan.

So, have you calculated

how much interest you'll pay on the loan

versus what you would bring in for rental?

-No, that's a... That's a... -No, that's a--

[Renato] That's a great point.

What's the motivation to do this?

Why go through all this headache

and heartache at the end of the day?

I am the one that lives in the house

with the three girls

and it would take a little bit

of the burden off of me.

Ah. I'd like to make extra money,

because I work two jobs.

And, I have this space and it's like...

It would be great to be able to use that

to bring the income in.

So, it's just all the numbers

is just overwhelming.

If you were able to rent the entire thing out

to get $3,000 or close to that,

would you do that over just the backend?

Because that would be a better investment.

It's gonna up the price

of actually doing the construction.

Exactly. It would not be $150,000

-to do 800 square feet. -The loan would go up

and up and up, and... Yeah.

-But your income then goes up. -[Leanne] Yeah.

That's why the math is so important.

Oh, the numbers. Yeah.

What was it you would need from us?

I just feel like I could trust you guys

to make sure that it's the best it can be.

-We have a bit to think about and to talk through. -[Leanne] Yeah.

I want you to really be honest with yourselves, talk through.

Would you wanna do the back,

would you wanna do the whole thing?

-It's a tough conversation. -[Leanne] I know.

We waited so long.

It definitely will be a letdown

if we do not get to do this ADU.

-[Renato] All right. -Thank you, guys.

-Take care, guys. -Thank you so much.

It's all on the line. We're going for it.

But we need them to help us.

[Jonathan] Now that I've seen that property,

I think I know who I wanna back.

[Drew] Yeah. I've seen enough.

They need us for these projects,

and we have a lot on the line, too.

This is our time,

our reputation, our resources.

That's not unlimited.

That's what we have to try and figure out.

Who can we benefit the most,

what can we bring to the table,

what can they bring to the table.

They are the ones doing the work,

they're leading the charge.

We are here to support.

So if somebody's expecting us to come over

and take the reins, no. This isn't for us.

[Jonathan] We need to pick smart

because time is our most precious commodity

and we cannot waste it.

Leanne and Renato are investment rookies.

They have a dream and need to bring in extra income.

They have nothing ventured but possibly a lot

to gain with their ADU.

I'd like to make extra money.

[Jonathan] James and Isabel are full-time property investors

with a dream of building well

so that they can have time to raise their huge family.

But they're at a jam,

and that dream is at risk.

There's a lot of emotion here

and a lot at stake for both investors.

Okay. So comparing to James and Isabel's house.

I mean, James and Isabel's house is ready to go.

[Drew] I like that James is willing to get in there

and get handy and do the work himself.

I think they would probably do some of the work themselves, too.

Yeah. If you think about the actual construction,

James and Isabel's place is a lot more complicated.

This is an ADU conversion,

this would be a lot easier.

They'd still have to submit permits and everything

whereas Isabel and James are ready to go.

And they're also ready to sink.

They're so in debt, they need something done now.

Leanne was about to burst into tears.

[dramatic music playing]

-You know, we can't do both. -[Drew] No.

We only have one crew coming available right now.

We have some extra materials and things too

that could help one of them.

We're on the same page, right?

I think we're on the same page.

I think we're on the same page.

I think there's only one choice.

-James and Isabel. -[Drew] Yeah.

[Jonathan] Boom. All right.

Let's give them a call.

[line ringing]

-Hey. -[James] Hello.

All right. We really like you guys

and we think your heart's in the right place

with what you wanna do,

I think there are some learnings.

Yes. But you're also busy

with six-week-old babies,

so we would like to back you

and take some pressure off your plate.

-Thank you. We're so excited. -Amazing.

You really got dealt a bad hand,

not being able to build the apartment building.

So we're gonna get over there.

We're gonna bring some of our crew

who I think will be the perfect fit.

[Drew] We know your budget's tight,

you've already spent way more than you wanted to,

and you've been in this project

for way longer than you wanted to,

so we wanna get you over the finish line.

-Thank you so much. -Thank you so much.

And I'll get my hands dirty.

I'll do anything I can do to get it done.

-All right. We'll see you soon. -All right. Thanks y'all.

-Thank you. -[Jonathan] Bye, guys.

We're not gonna back Leanne and Renato right now.

We have the resources available,

but they're still not at the point

where they can benefit from them.

They're just not ready.

So we'll give them advice

on how to get their ADU up and running,

how to crunch some numbers,

and they'll definitely benefit from that.

[Drew] Yeah. And we asked them to reach out to us

when they have their plans

and their permits in place.

And who knows, down the road, maybe it might work out

that we can help them in the future.

[Jonathan] Hey, hey.

Hey. What's happening?

First red flag for James and Isabel.

Even though using our own contractor

is always the best choice,

they have their existing contractor

that they've been working with.

-Warning, warning. -Yeah.

Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out is,

is it a good thing

that they've already worked with him

or is it a bad thing

because we know our trades we can trust.

Have they sunk a lot of money in

with this contractor?

[Jonathan] I mean, he said that he's used this guy

on other projects and he trusts them.

I think the city will be flexible about it.

Okay. Sounds good.

I like it when we have our dream team

of our contractors

and our design team.

We can put our contractor on it

but the trouble is,

our contractor's only available

for four to five weeks which isn't enough.

And I don't wanna risk losing him for even longer.

That'll mess up other projects.

But, if we can have somebody on our team

working with him...

[Drew] Gianna's available.

I think we can give her six weeks on this.

[Jonathan] The one thing actually with Gianna

that would be a good fit with this project

is she's always laser-focused on budgets.

I mean, that's a good idea, sort of design mentorship from her,

overall project mentorship from us.

And we're gonna have to help bump up

their budget with some materials.

It will get James and Isabel back on track.

If they really wanna go with their contractor

and they trust him

because they've used him in the past,

I think that's fine,

as long as Gianna can keep an eye on things.

We just need to keep them reined in.

[Jonathan] Yeah. I think you're right.

We're not walking away with anything from these projects

other than we wanna maintain our reputation.

We don't wanna have our resources or our time

or our money drawn into a project

that is just a black hole.

We are headed to North Hollywood

to introduce James and Isabel to Gianna

who's a designer we've worked with for a long time.

She's already put a lot of work into the design plans

and I think we have a solid path

to help James and Isabel

turn this money pit into a money maker.

They are providing 100 grand towards the reno

plus their sweat equity and their contractor.

In addition to Gianna, we're backing them

with some free construction and design materials,

and the mentorship we think they need

to fight through this.

We wanna get this place rented in six weeks.

Seems like a quick turnaround

but we're both bringing a lot to the table

so we think we can pull it off.

-Hello. -[James] Hello.

[Jonathan] What's happenin'?

-This is Gianna. -[Gianna] Okay. Hi.

Hi. Nice to meet you.

If we keep the space open as much as we can,

we'll make it very light and lovely

with some light LVP flooring

and light and bright colors.

We have the living room in here.

We'd make that a singular window

and then put cabinets on either side.

The kitchen would have open shelves near

where the stove would be.

[Drew] All things renters are looking for

and should be advertised in your listing.

[Isabel] Okay.

[Jonathan] So Gianna, tells us you're thinking of splitting this space

into two bedrooms to turn this house

from a three-bedroom into a five-bedroom?

-[Isabel] Yes. Correct. -[James] Yeah.

[Jonathan] But these two bedrooms

wouldn't have a bathroom on this wing?

[James] There wouldn't be, no.

[Isabel] No, there would be nothing.

[Drew] That's not functional. It's a better investment

to make this a four-bedroom house

and turn this area into a great primary suite

by adding a bathroom.

-[Isabel] Oh. -[James] I don't know.

You know, you have the bathroom right here

and a nice closet.

This is really... It's a nice appeal

to people to have a nice primary suite.

[Drew] So many people just think

for a short-term rental

about the number of bedrooms.

But if you have these tiny little bedrooms

that feel like you're in a prison cell,

do you actually expect to get top dollar rent? No.

[Gianna] Out here is where we have to kind

of pinch the pennies.

We just have to put some ground cover,

maybe some mulch.

Just something to make everything

look clean and fresh. Different areas

for the amount of people you want

just to have out here,

just extra living space.

You'll have different zones,

so we'll have a dining area,

have, like, a nice sitting area.

They can have a nice little playground

because it fits families who are traveling.

[Drew] Yeah. Families love this stuff

and they will pay more for it.

[Jonathan] You mentioned raising the height of the wall

-for privacy-- -[Isabel] I would like that.

[Jonathan] That would be nice.

[Isabel] I think that's essential, I'm just saying.

Let's make sure we know exactly

where our spend is in the other areas

before we go to a header

because that's a nicety.

We have necessity and then we have nicety.

You're saying this is...

-[Isabel] There you go. -So that's what you want?

-It makes a difference because you see the sun-- -[Gianna] Yeah.

Because it all... It blocks out

some of the power lines, you know?

[Jonathan] Oh, give me a break. Look up.

-[Isabel] It's aesthetics. -Look up.

What are you blocking out?

[Drew] Well, we will be smart with spend.

You have Gianna here who knows how to save money

and still make it look great.

You guys get going on demo,

Gianna will lock in plans

that'll be great for rent, and then we'll be back.

-Sounds good. -All right. Excellent.

-Thank you. -I'm excited.

For short-term rental in this area,

they can get at least $60,000

or $70,000 in revenue a year,

which would get them back on their feet.

If they convert this to a four bedroom,

three and a half bath,

that'll be better for resell value.

[James] Oh, it'll be so much fun.

Give me a hug. Give me a big hug.

-Listen to Mommy. -[girl] Mommy.

[Isabel] Yes.

The way how it look,

-in the back. -Yeah, it looks terrible.

[James] Work has finally started at this house.

It's been about 18 months waiting for plans,

anything to get moving on this house,

and it feels so good to have finally, you know,

broken ground, as they say.

Demoed, knocked down walls,

getting rid of things that aren't supposed to be here.

-[James] It's a new door now, right? -[Adolpho] Yeah, right.

[James] You can come right through it.

And I feel like...

It smells like money.

I think we can knock these down.

One of the ways we're keeping this budget low

is by rolling up my sleeves and getting

as much work down as I can myself.

I'm gonna be tackling the landscaping,

the exterior painting, and anything else

that comes up that I think I can get done without

having to shell out money to someone else.

Isabel and I split the work pretty well.

So we are very busy at home and then very busy at work.

We have twin newborns at home

and three other kids. It's...

She's there just taking care of all of them.

[Adolpho grunts]

[James] What else do we have left here?

Yeah. We gotta totally remove the drywall

and then we're gonna remove the ceiling joists one by one,

and after that, we're removing the wall.

[James] Okay. And then we'll have this opened up,

we can have a nice exterior patio.

[Adolpho] That's right. It will be totally nice.

-Can we knock some drywall down? -That's right.

You can knock some drywall, right, James.

Follow you. Oh, my God.

[upbeat music playing]

[notification ping]

[Jonathan] Oh.

Oh, my gosh, these guys.

[line ringing]

Hey, hey. We got a problem.

You gotta tell these guys to stop everything right now.

Got the photos.

Thanks for sending.

We got a problem. You gotta tell these guys

to stop everything right now.

They're not wearing any safety gear of any kind.

There are no harnesses on anybody on the roof.

You gotta be on top of your guys 'cause

there's no standards of any kind being practiced there.

And you're still liable at the end of the day.

I'll go talk to them. I'll make sure that they

get all their PPE and harnesses,

everything they're supposed to have.

Yeah. It's really important.

It just takes one accident to ruin your business.

[James] I think Jonathan was totally right.

It's dangerous and you don't want your guys getting hurt.

So moving forward, if I ever have someone up

on the roof, I'm gonna make sure that

they're harnessed and anchored and they can't fall.

We made so many mistakes early on.

I wish we had a mentor who could tell us,

"Oh, no, guys, bad idea. Rookie mistake."

[James] Demo's complete, plumbing is done,

and electric is...

-[Isabel] Almost done. -...almost done, too.

And now we're basically reworking the floor

plan of the home to fit what we want.

And we put new windows in, huh?

-Okay. Let me see. -[James] All right.

Perfect.

-All good. -How do they look?

[Isabel] I... Yeah.

-It looks fine. -[James] Yeah.

It's really good. I mean,

windows make a big difference.

Can I ask you why did we need to do this?

The windows were completely coated

in lead-based paint and they were all crackling.

Nine windows we had to replace.

How much do these add to our budget?

Uh, about $2,000.

-That's 2% of our budget. -[Isabel] Where is this coming from...

Yeah. I mean, where is this all coming out from?

-Like... -I don't know.

What else can we save on?

I don't know, we have to pinch pennies somewhere else.

[Isabel] The brothers did tell us that this is

absolutely impossible to do within 100K.

And I disagree with them and I wanna prove them wrong

because I think it's possible, but...

I can't wait to prove them wrong.

This is... Uh, well, they're starting to be right, so.

[laughs]

Keep your fingers crossed.

Check out all this framing we got done.

[Isabel] Oh, wow.

Hey, this place looks good.

It doesn't seem as small as I thought.

[James] I like it, too.

And we took that, what was formally the garage,

did not follow the brothers' advice,

and we made two great bedrooms.

Jonathan and Drew making out there was gonna be

these two tiny bedrooms, but...

-But they're not that bad. -...these are big bedrooms.

-I mean, they may be-- -They're not the widest

but they're, like...

This one's like 18-feet long,

I think this one's 14 and a half.

I mean, I'm sad that we couldn't do

what they said because I would have liked the big bedroom

with the bathroom and a closet but--

I'm not sad.

I really like what we got here.

I like what we got, too.

They weren't paying for it, we are.

-[Isabel] Okay. -So we get to make the choices.

Adolpho's quote of $30,000 to put in a bathroom,

that would've been a 30% increase in our budget.

30% is not okay.

Knowing we're already over budget just brings up

so many pains of this house.

But our challenge right now is to just make it

happen within our budget.

[soft upbeat music playing]

[Jonathan] I'm on my way to James and Isabel's place

to see it in person.

I just wanna make sure we're on track.

And especially with Gianna, she's costing Drew and me

about three grand a week to be here on this project.

I need to make sure she's not gonna be there forever.

But I left the call with James a little bit anxious.

We have to do things right and I wanna make sure

this investment is a win for them.

But, uh, I don't know.

I'm kind of getting the feeling that

maybe they're not as coachable as I'm hoping.

The two of them, are they actually listening to you?

I mean, I...

They know what they want.

[Isabel] I think I have some ideas about

the colors in the kitchen.

I chose, like, cabinets that are green,

they match with the beautiful countertop.

I like the cabinet color.

A little concern that maybe there's a little

too much of a choice...

-Okay. -...for renters.

I like it so...

The thing is, it doesn't matter what you want,

it's what will the end user want

and that's what's gonna get you a better price,

get you more renters.

Real important question 'cause it just started...

-Oh, yes. -...storming outside.

Do we have a roof on everything?

That is a great question.

I was just gonna call my husband to make sure.

Let me check in on them. Are they over here?

-[Isabel] Yes. -Okay.

-Hey... Oh, hey. -Hello.

You're the man I'm looking for here.

I was actually just asking if you've got

roof everywhere that you need roofing?

We do. Yeah, we do.

I was wondering that earlier today actually.

You're mudding, which is a good sign,

means you're coming around the corner, final stretch.

I see two doors.

There are two doors that are over there.

[Jonathan] Wait. You went against our advice.

We said to make this a bigger primary suite instead.

[James] So we thought about it a lot.

And it just wasn't gonna be in the budget.

We were just weren't gonna be able to make it work.

So yeah, we decided, for short term rentals,

the number of bedrooms was gonna be more important

than a large primary suite.

I thought we had talked through this.

I thought they knew the benefits, and now,

because they're trying to save $30,000,

I think they're actually costing themselves double

or triple that when they eventually go to sell.

They're not listening to our advice

and they've lost an opportunity

to make more money.

It's disappointing.

Are you having the mudders clean this up?

[James] Yes, I just realized that when we were here now.

[Jonathan] How long do you think it's gonna be

before you get all the mudding done and...

The rain is gonna slow the drying down,

the tile guy is ready to go, and then...

And, you know, then, we gotta get kitchen cabinets and...

-Yeah, floors. -[Jonathan] Wait. Sorry. Hold on. You said tile guy?

In the bathrooms, yeah.

[Isabel] I mean, he's ready to go now.

I don't see how we can be ready for tilers

to starts when we still have so much stuff

and some of it's even still demo, like that's when you

start to get people tripping over each other

and the damage happens, and then, who pays for it?

-You do. -We do, yeah.

-[James] Yeah. -Yeah.

[Jonathan] You guys are rushing and you're gonna make

mistakes that will cost us all time and money.

Oh, those illegal additions are gone.

This is gonna look 1,000 times better.

Oh, your roofing isn't fully done here.

You actually have a negative grade

-underneath your vent over there. -[James] I know.

[Jonathan] So that needs to be fixed, too, or you're gonna

have all your new mud drywall inside get damaged.

This is your job as the owners of this project

is to walk around and make sure that your

subs are doing what you want them to do.

And that they're also putting your money

where it's best spent.

Between the unsafe roofing and now this, I don't think

you have as good a handle on your subs as you think you do.

I'm a little nervous for you guys.

-[upbeat music playing] -[Jonathan] Hello.

[Drew] Hi.

[Jonathan] I'm just leaving James and Isabel's place,

and it is definitely chaotic over there.

[Drew] As chaotic as it is here right now?

[Jonathan] Way more so.

He's jumped into some decisions,

like he framed for five bedrooms,

he did not take our advice, so he didn't go for four.

[Drew] Really?

If that was a really beautiful main bedroom suite

over there instead of being two smaller bedrooms,

I think they would've had better resale value.

But how's the quality of the work with what they're doing?

[Jonathan] I'm just worried that the project as a whole

may not represent itself the best if there are certain

places where the work isn't up to my standards.

[Drew] Yeah, that's too bad.

I know Gianna is keeping an eye on them,

but it wouldn't hurt for us to pop in every now

and then just make sure everything's on track.

-[Drew] Okay. -[Jonathan] Your place is a totally

different type of chaos.

-An adorable chaos. -[Drew] Yeah.

Hey, Parker, say, "Bye-bye, Uncle Jonathan."

[Parker] Bye-bye, Uncle.

[upbeat music playing]

Hey, how you doing?

-[James] Hello. -[Drew] All right.

So what's happening with the fence back there?

I see you're doing the topper.

[James] All right. Well, I'm putting up the privacy fence,

which I think is making a really big difference.

I got a really good deal on the material

and it's really easy. It was quick secure.

It took, like, half a day.

I think it made a really big difference.

[Drew] I'm not denying that a privacy fence

is gonna look better.

My only concern is there are so many things

within the house and even the yard

that area really important to get to, so...

[James] You know, we got the windows up,

the drywall is in, so I...

It's time to start painting the exteriors.

Okay. I'm gonna swing by in the next few days

just to check in on a few things.

-I wanna make sure... -Okay.

...that we're making the right progress.

-Thank you. -[Drew] There's only so much I can see

or do over the phone.

I really need to be there in person to see James

and Isabel's place, so I'm gonna hop over there.

[upbeat music playing]

Oh, wow. Yeah, when you said you're painting,

I thought you meant you're gonna have the painters

come in, so you're literally doing everything.

Yeah, yeah, I have the sprayer.

I just had to buy the paint and put the muscle to it.

As long as at the end of the day stuff looks like

it's done by a professional, good, save the money.

What is your landscaping budget?

Somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000.

Just be careful. If you can keep it more to $3,000,

then I would go for it because you're gonna

find somewhere inside that needs to be done.

And the... Yeah, and the back is a lot

bigger than the front.

[Drew] What's your budget for the back?

It's all included in the same, front and back.

Oh, wait, that $3,000 to $5,000 is front and back?

-Yeah, it's front and back. -Oh, gosh. Okay.

-Yeah, it's gonna be tight. -I'll let you finish this.

Is Isabel inside or...

Yeah, she and Gianna are inside talking

-about the kitchen. -Okay.

-What's happening? -Hello.

[Drew] What's the plan here?

[Gianna] The cabinetry for the kitchen,

we're going with the green color.

-Okay. -I like that dark brown,

but it won't go with the cabinets

because it's too dark, the green is too dark,

so this is my favorite choice.

-What's your choice? -This is the pyrite.

This one is the... I think the better.

-[Drew] Okay. I'm with you. -[Isabel] Yeah.

I'm glad you went with this product, though,

because it's gonna be so much more durable

-than a hardwood... -Oh, yeah.

especially for the turnover of short-term rental.

You wanna just walk me around the space a little bit?

Yeah, let's look around.

[Drew] It's tough for me to not be the one

in control of this process.

We are backing these investors,

we're backing them and let them take the reins.

We can offer them some construction

and design materials at no cost.

We're giving them a designer free of charge,

huge value there.

And of course, our mentorship.

But James and Isabel are bringing sweat equity

and 100 grand of their own money to this reno.

There's a lot on the line for them but also for us.

I mean, this is our time, our effort.

We also have our reputation.

So I wanna make sure that at the end, it doesn't go south

because they will financially lose everything.

But also, I wanna make sure

that we see a win with this, too.

Win-win for everybody.

So the last thing is just the fence?

-[Isabel] Yeah. -You can't see over it.

I was wondering how tall it is, but--

No, no, no. I mean, it's great that you have the divide.

Leave it until you're done everything else

to see where you're at before you stain it.

-[James] I agree. -[Drew] How are you on budget right now?

We're... What are we over?

-I think we're like $6,500. -Oh, there you go.

[Drew] We're gonna help them every way we can,

we have a lot of materials in the warehouse,

that could save them tens of thousands of dollars,

but I feel they just need to roll up their sleeves

and do more work themselves to keep the budget in check.

[Isabel] A lot is going on at the same time

so it's a big overwhelming.

It's also, you know,

have to balance everything with the kids.

I must tell you, I'm learning on the job.

I'm not an experienced mother of five kids.

I'm learning to be a mother of five kids

while doing this renovation on our...

on our own.

Hey, guys, you have to hurry because

we need to go to Gianna.

It's just... It's a lot,

but we're learning and I think we're balancing.

[upbeat rock music playing]

[James] Our budget is really tight

so I've started taking on more and more projects

as we progressed on this house.

On Gianna's recommendation, we bought preassembled

cabinets to save money.

We thought if we paint them a great color,

no one will question them.

I think the green turned out great.

It's really gonna pop.

I don't think it's too bold.

I think it goes great with the floor.

Measure twice, cut once.

[Gianna] One of the benefits of working with the brothers

is having access to their inventory at their warehouse.

Today is for you.

Welcome to the brothers' warehouse.

[Isabel] Wow. Thank you.

[Gianna] Pretty much anything you can think of,

this is where everything is stored for projects

that are happening right now,

items that didn't get used, stuff for the future.

So the good part is,

since we have such a slim tight budget,

this will help us offset some of these costs.

We can tag anything.

If it's available and not used in another project,

it's fair game for us to use.

Wow. I'm excited. I can't wait to see...

-Yeah. -...what you guys have.

-There's some baseboards over there. -Furniture.

-Baseboard. -Oh, wow. I see a vanity.

[Gianna] This could be used for the powder room.

-I love it. -[Gianna] Yeah.

This is available.

This is quite a gift here.

Let's tag this. I know I can get you a fridge,

a dishwasher, and a stove, and it...

-In time. -Wow.

Getting these, like, designer finishing touches,

higher-end looking appliances...

-Blue. This is a nice blue. -[Isabel] I love this one.

The butterflies.

[Gianna] All these stuff ultimately is going to get

them a higher return on their investment.

[slow upbeat music playing]

[James] I have been working a lot at this house.

I've been here seven days a week

for about three or four weeks.

It's been so worth it.

We've saved so much money by me

doing a lot of physical labor.

[man] Bedroom.

[Isabel] And we're furnishing today, finally.

Everything is ready.

The house is ready, the yard is 98% ready,

and we brought in the furniture.

And, you know, we're setting it up so we can rent it.

Start renting it and make money.

Finally.

Wee.

[Gianna] James and Isabel have chosen

to reveal the home to Jonathan and Drew.

What the brothers are gonna be looking for is

making sure we have defined areas in the space.

It is five bedroom.

We're gonna have stuff that's durable

for every guest that could possibly be

filling this space up.

Things that, you know,

will hide stains here in a rental.

[Isabel] Gianna helped so much.

Not only did she have very good advice,

but she also helped us pick certain materials,

and taught me the value of certain choices

versus how I felt.

I am very nervous about them coming and seeing,

you know, what we worked on because they...

You know, they pay attention to details.

We did our best.

[slow upbeat music playing]

[Drew] Everything is on the line for James and Isabel.

They have lost their retirement money,

they've lost the kids' college,

they've put it all into this property.

And if they don't get this right, I think they're done.

[tense music playing]

You can tell you're nervous.

[James] I am nervous.

I mean, it's looking good from the outside already.

[knocking on door]

-[gasps] They're here. -They're here.

Come on in.

-[Drew] Hey. -[Jonathan] Hey.

-Come on here. -Come on in.

How are you doing? Good to see you.

-Hey. You, too. -Oh, my gosh.

You guys.

-This is... -[Drew] Whoa. Look at this.

[Jonathan] incredible.

[Drew] What a difference.

The appeal as soon as you walk in the front door

is phenomenal.

In rentals, first impressions

are everything and this is a home run.

Before, nothing was phenomenal.

-[James] No. -[Drew] It looks amazing to see it done.

I will say that the place looks a little better

than I was expecting it to look. I'm really happy.

It's like you had a professional

designer working with you.

-[James] I know! -[Drew] Yeah.

[James] We appreciate you saving us money

with the preassembled cabinets suggestion.

Gianna advised us to go with the slab,

you know, it goes all the way up

to the ceiling with the open shelves.

It just... It makes it feel more open.

You know, these appliances are amazing.

You giving us those saved us thousands.

[Jonathan] Well, no, the appliances look great.

I think they look awesome.

The finish of the cabinets, it doesn't have

a nice clean polished finish.

-It feels very rough. -Was it a spray?

[James] It has one coat of spray.

[Drew] Yeah, so you would obviously

wanna do a couple of coats.

And the other thing I mentioned,

typically when you're designing your cabinets,

have your doors swing in to where the countertops are.

It's kinda useless to have to go

away from the counter over here.

That's a good point. Yeah.

[Drew] It's just always open and--

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Oh, no soft close?

[James] No, they didn't come with soft close.

[Drew] That's... Especially for a rental,

you want that because they're gonna thrash the place.

[James] The brothers pointing out things that needed

improvement or weren't done correctly

didn't hurt my feelings at all,

like I took it as learning.

Nothing was given critically.

It was just given...

-To help. Yeah. -...with a lesson to be learned.

[Drew] The floors look incredible and I love

that it's LVP so it's gonna be really, really durable.

[James] Yeah, we ran it right into this bathroom.

Oh, your wallpaper choice.

This wallpaper from the warehouse will photograph

really well for your rental listing.

-[Jonathan] So nice. -[James] Mmm-hmm.

[Jonathan] I like that you chose darker

to go moody in here.

[Isabel] You guys have great materials.

I love it.

[Drew] This actually turned out really great

for the dining room, so good choice there

because you have enough traffic and flow.

It's intimate.

[Jonathan] The one thing that, you know,

we went back and forth quite a bit about

was do we want to run plumbing all the way over here?

And this is what I'm very excited or nervous

to see how it turned out.

-You go first. -What?

-These look great. -[Drew] They look really good.

-[James] Oh, okay. Good. -[Jonathan] Oh, my gosh.

Nice job.

[Drew] The occupancy rate for a short-term

rental is about 75 which is really good.

So if you have this place rented out 75%

of the time at $300 a night, that's almost $7,000 a month.

If you can get those kinda numbers,

hopefully you do well here.

Future resell value, I still think this would've

been better as a main bedroom suite with another bathroom.

Let's not dwell on the past.

The bedroom looks great.

I wanna see the other bedroom.

[Jonathan] Ooh-wee.

Nice. This is great.

[Drew] I like, though, that with the staging

you've decided to put the kids at the end of the house

because that is exactly what every parent wants.

-[James] Yes. Yes. -[Drew] You know. Right?

I'm excited to see the backyard.

The yard, yes.

All right.

[upbeat music playing]

[Drew] Everything is clean, it's safe.

And I love that there are different zones.

[Drew] I like that you've differentiated

between this play area.

You did a nice little bit of mulch around the outside.

[James] Adults can sit here on this beautiful furniture.

How do you feel in the end now that it's all done?

-Amazing. -Yeah.

-Come on in here and-- -Amazing.

And I feel fantastic.

I had a lot of anxiety coming this way

but now, it just feels good.

All right. Let's talk a little numbers.

We always calculate worst-case scenario.

You know, we don't wanna get too happy and too excited,

but the house inside looks great.

Because of all the work that you did,

-that saved you $20,000-- -$25,000 to $30,000.

At least. And then we had almost $30,000 of product

and materials plus Gianna.

All these things that saved you money.

[Jonathan] So your actual spend on this renovation

was $112,000, but with your sweat equity and our backing,

the true value of this reno

is about $190,000 and it shows.

This place looks amazing.

[Drew] In this area for what the going rates are,

$70,000 a year is a good price

-for this as a short-term rental. -Okay.

If you think about that, this is what makes me excited.

-It's amazing. -[Jonathan] With this amount

of revenue, you'll not only be able to rebuild

your personal savings,

you'll be able to grow your business

and build personal wealth.

It's incredible what this has turned into

with your all's help, so thank you.

-Thank you. -You're very welcome.

-We can't say thank you enough. -[Isabel] Thank you.

-Oh, my gosh. That's exciting. -Congrats again.

-Thank you. -I'm so excited.

[James] I feel great. I think we impressed

the brothers.

For me, I'm happy that they were

-happy with the work I did. -[Isabel] You're proud.

-[James] Yeah, I'm proud. -[Isabel] I know.

-[James] I'm proud of the work I've done. -[Isabel] It's amazing.

We did it.

And we could not have stayed on

-budget without their backing. -Honestly, I can't believe

how much they helped.

[upbeat music playing]

So we just heard from James and Isabel.

And apparently, they got an offer

on the property for $1.17 million.

Which sounds great but that's actually below

their break-even point, so they said no

which is a good thing because they're actually averaging

350 bucks a night as a short-term rental.

They actually are so excited because they're

recouping their lost savings

and they even wanna invest in another property.

Way to go.