Tarek El Moussa of ‘Flip or Flop’ Got the Shock of His Life While Working on His Latest Flip
Tarek El Moussa has flipped a lot of houses over the years, but he’s never had an experience like the one he had the other day. On Jan. 14, the Flip or Flop star shared a photo to Instagram of himself sitting in an empty pool at one of the properties he is renovating. In the post, he explained that when he and his crew started work on the pool, they found something pretty shocking.
Tarek El Moussa made a surprising discovery
El Moussa had purchased the property to flip. He knew it had a pool, but it was completely covered with wood. It was when he pulled the wood cover off to see what was underneath that he got a big shock.
“Once we took the cover off we realized people were actually living under the wood inside the empty pool!!” he wrote on Instagram.
“There were Mattresses, chairs, and electricity running throughout which is crazy because it is super dangerous!” he added. In a follow-up comment, he clarified that he didn’t find any people in the pool, just their belongings.
Fans called the situation “sad” and “crazy”
Many people who responded to the HGTV star’s post also expressed their astonishment that people would take up residence in an empty pool. “That’s crazy,” wrote one commenter. Someone else described it as “gross.”
Others were more sympathetic to those people who ended up in such a situation. “Sad actually,” wrote another. “Seems so many people suffer.” El Moussa replied: “Agree.”
“The housing situation is that extreme?” wondered one person. El Moussa replied that for some people, it is.
Flip or Flop shows El Moussa and his ex-wife Christina Anstead flipping homes in Southern California, which has some of the highest housing costs in the U.S. The median sale price for homes in Orange County, where the pair got their start, was $719,200 as of November 2019, according to Zillow. In the Los Angeles metro area, the median sale price is $654,000. The typical apartment in the region rents for about $2,000 a month.
When will new episodes of ‘Flip or Flop’ air?
The ninth season of Flip or Flop will premiere in August 2020 on HGTV. But El Moussa will return to TV before then. He’s starring in his own standalone HGTV series, Flipping 101 w/Tarek El Moussa. HGTV hasn’t announced a premiere date yet, but it should debut sometime in early 2020.
“My show covers how I help novice flippers get through their projects and I teach them how to turn the best profit!! And…how to come up with killer designs!!,” El Moussa explained in an Instagram post announcing the new series.
But as El Moussa discovered, not every novice flipper wanted to follow his advice. “[I]t turns out … they know way more than me,” he told USA Today. “I’ll tell them what to do, and literally half the time they don’t listen to me and it makes for good TV.”
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