A Columbus family will be the stars of an A&E home flipping show called "Zombie House Flipping: Family Business."
WOSU’s Debbie Holmes spoke to Tommy Harr, who has helped young homeowners seeking affordable housing in Columbus.
Debbie Holmes: What exactly is a "zombie house" and how do you gain control of them?
Tommy Harr: A "zombie house" is a house that you drive by every day, and it looks decrepit, it's falling apart and you hope that somebody comes in and transforms it in your neighborhood.
Debbie Holmes: So, how does your show distinguish itself from other home remodeling shows?
Tommy Harr: Our shows are much different, because I have got my whole family involved. I've got my dad who's a home inspector, my brother's a home inspector, my other brother is my construction manager and my mom's my designer and my realtor. So, instead of seeing a house and making it ugly to beautiful, we go in and we see it and we inspect it and then we fix it up.
Debbie Holmes: It's all family then.
Tommy Harr: All family. My dad's been doing home inspections for 25 years in Columbus, Ohio. So, he's the person that tells us, 'hey, this house is really messed up.'
Debbie Holmes: How many family members then are involved?
Tommy Harr: We've got five of us, my two brothers, my mom, my dad and I've got two sisters, but they're not involved in real estate, so they made it in like small cuts.
Debbie Holmes: So how did this come about then?
Tommy Harr: I'm in a group where I was learning to build my education company, and there's an old A&E executive in it, and he was transitioning from being an A&E executive to being in real estate, and we kind of just brushed shoulders, and over the last three years built a relationship, and next thing you know, we had a TV show from it.
Debbie Holmes: And how long is the show? Is it one hour or a half hour?
Tommy Harr: The show is an hour long.
Debbie Holmes: So, it takes you through the whole process then of the transformation of the home.
Tommy Harr: It takes the whole thing into play. From us inspecting it the first day and finding all the issues, to us making it beautiful and then selling it on the back end.
Debbie Holmes: So, how many homes have you and your family remodeled?
Tommy Harr: We've remodeled probably over 300 houses around central Ohio.
Debbie Holmes: This started when?
Tommy Harr: This started about eight years ago. So right after college, I graduated from the University of Dayton and jumped right into it.
Debbie Holmes: Was your background then in anything home remodeling related?
Tommy Harr: Not home remodeling related, but I started as a home inspector with my dad. And as I started to watch people renovate houses, I was like, you know what, I think I can do this and kind of just went feet first.
Debbie Holmes: You do the work.
Tommy Harr: I used to. Now we have so many going on that I’m kind of just the facilitator, and I'm making sure that things are going, but I do not swing the hammers.
Debbie Holmes: Did you ever?
Tommy Harr: I did in the beginning, yes.
Debbie Holmes: Tell me about the home areas. Are there specific neighborhoods? The first episode is in Blacklick Estates, which is on the southeast side.
Tommy Harr: Yeah, we kind of did a mix of all of Columbus. We have east side, we've got Grandview, we've got Linden, we’ve got Clintonville. We've got a whole gamut of the entire area of Columbus because I wanted to showcase how beautiful the city is.
Debbie Holmes: And what's the average price that you pay for the homes that you flip?
Tommy Harr: Average price is probably about $150 (thousand) to $200,000 and we put $50 (thousand) to $100,000 (worth of work) into each of them.
Debbie Holmes: Okay, and then your profit is about how much?
Tommy Harr: We usually make about $30 (thousand) to $40 (thousand) on a house, so nothing too crazy.
Debbie Holmes: But it's how many houses at a time that you're working on?
Tommy Harr: I'm usually renovating anywhere from 25 to 35 houses at a time.
Debbie Holmes: Wow, that is a lot of homes. And how many others like you are out there?
Tommy Harr: There's a lot, Columbus is actually a really big market for real estate investors and there's a lot of people in the market.
Debbie Holmes: Are you running out of houses?
Tommy Harr: We're not running out of houses.
Debbie Holmes: Again, you're going into multiple areas.
Tommy Harr: Yeah, we do all of Franklin County and even some surrounding areas.
Debbie Holmes: And how many episodes have you recorded for A&E?
Tommy Harr: So, we recorded 10 episodes. We recorded from August to January of last year, and they're all airing here Saturday all the way through August.
Debbie Holmes: Do you have a contract past that or are you waiting to see?
Tommy Harr: So, we're waiting to see. They're seeing how the results of the show are, and then we technically can get up to three seasons. They just must see how it goes.
Debbie Holmes: What's the payout with that?
Tommy Harr: They don't pay us a lot. It's more the exposure, so they pay us a little bit, but it's something really cool as well.
Debbie Holmes: "Zombie House Flipping: Family Business" airs on the cable channel A&E, and the first episode airs on May 30.
