'Flipping Across America' Season 2: Desert house vs mid-century fixer-upper, which will sell better?

HGTV’s ‘Flipping Across America’ premiered its first episode of Season 2 on December 3 with host Alison Victoria showing us how favorite flipping masters economize their renovations. The show followed two sets of well-known stars and flipping masters, Lindsey and Eric Bennett on one hand and Clint Robertson and Luke Caldwell on the other and gave them similar house purchase prices and renovation budgets. The show determines how renovation and design choices impact profit margins in different cities. 

Throughout the season, designer and real estate developer Alison Victoria, best known from the hit series ‘Windy City Rehab’, will be guiding viewers across the country to find out which of the fan-favorite home renovation experts best economize their flips and make the most out of their budgets, revealing where buyers really do get the biggest bang for their buck in the flipping business.

Desert Flippers Lindsey and Eric Bennett took on a desert house that was left in disrepair. Meanwhile, Clint Robertson and Luke Caldwell from ‘Boise Boys’ wrangled a midcentury fixer-upper in the city's high desert that's in need of a major update. 

Lindsey and Eric bought a high-desert house for $200,000 and kept a remodel budget of $50,000. High desert refers to desert regions with elevations of 2,000 to 4,000 feet. They wanted to sell the house for $299,000. Clint and Luke bought the mid-century fixer-upper house for $190,000. Their remodel budget was $70,000. Both the teams, who were unaware that they were competing against each other, had a potential profit of $40,000. 

Lindsey and Eric found an additional bedroom in their house that did not have a permit and was built illegally. Originally it was supposed to be a three-bedroom and two-bathroom house. The couple decided to get a permit for the room and raise their selling price. Automatically, their renovation budget also went up higher given the fact that the house they had bought was a complete mess. Eventually, they also found a furnace leak that needed immediate repair. Outside their house was a massive wooden shed that looked like it was in good condition but when Eric tried to pull a piece of wood the entire structure came tumbling down. Thankfully, the husband and wife got away with minor scratches.

Back at Clint and Luke's, the boys get to work at full speed. They found a leak too that caused damage and mold that could be fixed for $800 and fixed all the faulty pipelines. They were fortunate the damage was fixed at a lower price since water damage repair tends to get very expensive. After fixing all the damages of both the houses the renovation budget of both the houses go up. While Clint and Robert list their house for $300,000, Lindsey and Eric list their four-bedroom house for $349,000.

Catch season 2 of HGTV’s ‘Flipping across America’ is every Thursday at 8 pm ET.