Flipping the Poconos! He buys them, fixes them and sells them... all in house Bob Brown, president of RGB Custom Builders, in East Stroudsburg, said flipping houses is a lot less glamorous than what we see on HGTV. RGB Custom Home Builders has been constructing and flipping homes in NEPA since 1986. Brown vividly remembers the days when he built homes alone. "I couldn't afford to pay anyone and built probably 60 homes entirely by myself, then blew out both knees making a snow angel!” So he started working at a desk. These days, Brown still does desk duty, but like Chip on HGTV's “Fixer Upper,” he does 16
his share of house flipping. "Yesterday I was crawling through a crawlspace— not a clean crawlspace— a wet, damp and dingy one 'eating' insulation as I went. When I got out I was covered in insulation and dirt with wet knees." Brown's business is in its 32nd year and going strong with 14 full-time and three part-time employees. He said the characters on HGTV seem to have a lot of fun, "But to us, it's a business. Don't get me wrong," he said. "It has its moments that are fun; but it's business — you do what you have to do." Like Joanna Gaines and some of the other HGTV wives, Josie Brown, Bob's wife, makes a large contribution to the flipping process. "We recently looked at a house that I wantHappeningsPA.com
ed to pass on, due to its age and my wife made me buy it. I did, begrudgingly, and she was able to transform that 'dog of a house' to a really neat home that we sold in two days." Bob and Josie Brown live in East Stroudsburg and are the parents of four children. As a real estate broker, Brown said he checks out new listings every morning at 4:15 over a cup of coffee and looks at those he's interested in at 9 a.m. A potential buy, he said, is usually the one that looks like a mess, but has good bones and just needs a face lift. Brown has bought houses from $18,500 up to $215,000. "The trick is to find a house that is basically sound with no settling, water and other issues that just needs a few things fixed up. That makes a big difference in the way the continued on page 18