• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, March 3, 2020

Thanks mostly to years and years of TV shows on HGTV (and a smattering elsewhere), the business of flipping houses has become a widespread phenomenon.

In fact, long-time, astute observers of HGTV shows such as “House Hunters” might have noticed in recent years that many of the houses seen on the show appear to be flip houses.

These are often older, vacant homes from which all traces of old-fashioned character have been removed and replaced with various backsplash and flooring materials that are au courant today and widely available at Home Depot or Lowe’s.

Many people are no doubt making decent money flipping houses. It is also reasonable to assume that many who have dreamed of striking it rich in the house-flipping game have sunk their life savings into their dreams and come up empty.

Tarek El Moussa, an HGTV personality who by all appearances has succeeded as a house flipper, evidently wants to try to prevent the latter by offering this new series on the fundamentals of house-flipping called “Flipping 101 w/Tarek El Moussa,” premiering Thursday on HGTV.

This is his second series on HGTV, and his first one as a solo following the break-up of his marriage to his now ex-wife Christina (formerly Christina El Moussa and now Christina Anstead following a new marriage).

Tarek and Christina first gained fame as husband-and-wife flippers on “Flip Or Flop” on HGTV. Then their marriage imploded and they made tabloid headlines. The gist of the tabloid stories was that their split was anything but amicable.

And yet, incredibly, they returned after what you might call a divorce hiatus to actually make new episodes of “Flip Or Flop.” Their divorce even became part of the promotion campaign HGTV mounted for the show’s return.

Promo spots hinted that their relationship was so volatile that anything could happen, although nothing really did. In the new shows, they still disagreed about things like backsplashes, but that had always been the case.

Soon thereafter, Christina got her own show called “Christina on the Coast” in which she is seen with her blonde hair flying in the breeze as she drives a white Audi convertible. She also decorates.

And now, Tarek has his own show too in which he will apparently take amateur flippers under his wing to show them where they have gone wrong and set them on the right path to profitability.

If the premiere episode of “Flipping 101” is any indication, house-flipping is not for the faint of heart. And neither is this show, as a very nice couple with no flipping experience sink well north of a half-million dollars in a house the husband bought based on pictures on the internet.

One thing the photos did not show: The next-door neighbor's backyard and driveway littered with old cars and other junk.

Somehow, Tarek saves them from losing everything, but along the way, he has to contend with a husband who continually decides to embark on design and architectural schemes that Tarek explicitly advised against.

“Flipping 101” is a worthy entry in the HGTV canon thanks to Tarek himself. He was always the better half of “Flip Or Flop,” anyway, so seeing him thriving on his own show will strike some HGTV viewers as poetic justice, especially since Christina has been starring in her own show since last May.

If the TV Blog has any criticism of “Flipping 101,” it is the show's length. At just 22 minutes of running time in a half-hour, the house-flip seen in the premiere episode (which I previewed this week) seemed too easy, even though there were also hints that it was fraught with difficulties.

These difficulties would have made for better drama and entertainment if we were allowed to see them more fully. If the show were an hour, there would be more to see and more to learn. 

Tarek and Christina apparently share custody of their two small children. The kids are seen in both of their parents' shows. Perhaps they too will get shows of their own in the years to come.

“Flipping 101 w/Tarek El Moussa” premieres Thursday (March 5) at 9 p.m. Eastern on HGTV.