HGTV’s Bargain Block delivers low-cost homes ideal for first-time buyers that seem to hold up even after the episodes air.
Bargain Block is one of the most unique home flipping shows on television. Its hosts transform dilapidated houses in Detroit into beautiful homes fit for first-time buyers.
And although some people have called the quality of Keith Bynum and Evan Thomas’s builds into question over the years, they have managed to earn and maintain a good reputation in the Detroit real-estate market.
All about Bargain Block
HGTV’s house flipping show, Bargain Block, follows Keith Bynum and Evan Thomas, as they attempt to transform blocks of neglected houses which have fallen into disrepair.
Where most flippers shows focus on securing the highest-possible selling prices for their homes, Keith and Evan purchase these as-good-as-demolished houses for as low as $1,000.
They then quickly get to work repairing and restoring what they can before adding a few crafty decorations and selling the homes at entry-level prices, which usually do not exceed $100,000.
The homes from Bargain Block might hold up better than expected
The very first season of Bargain Block started airing in 2021 and although many HGTV fans have enjoyed watching Keith and Evan transform these affordable houses for three seasons, some questions have been raised about the quality of their work.
Bargain Block is unique in the that Keith and Evan approach each build with the goal of keeping costs as low as possible, and although this news is sure to make any first-time homeowner quite happy, quotes like “There was a big learning curve at first” or “Sometimes we finish something and know it’s not perfect” from the show’s hosts and the sometimes unfinished homes which are show during the ‘open house’ section of the show make it seem like Keith and Evan may be using low-cost housing as an excuse to cover up their poor construction.
However, as appealing as it may be to jump on the reality television hate train, the reality is that Keith and Evan would have never been able to survive in the same real-estate market for so many years, if buyers had started suspecting that their Bargain Block builds did not hold up after the cameras stopped rolling.
Furthermore, they certainly would not have been able to sell houses like the aptly named “weird house” from the first season of the show (which eventually sold for a reported price of $110,900 in 2021) or any of the other homes listed on Shea Hicks Whitfield’s Zillow page if the workmanship on their projects was not up to scratch.
The lessons that Keith and Evan have learned over the years
Keith and Evan may be well established within the Detroit real-estate market by now, but this does not mean that this duo has stopped learning along the way.
Evan admitted in a 2023 interview for Realtor.com that he has become “a lot more thorough” than he used to be when inspecting the houses that they want to fix.
Keith also admitted in a different interview that they have been “making sure that all the boxes are checked when they need to be checked” through the years.
Keith and Evan have been flipping houses since before Bargain Block started airing
For those who did not know, Keith and Evan are actually engaged in real life. The pair originally met via the online dating platform, Match.com and started dating while they were both living in Colorado and Evan was finishing up with graduate school.
It did not take long for Keith to pull Evan into his home renovation hobby, but the couple did not become serious about this hobby until Keith flew to Detroit in 2017 and bought his first would-be flip for the low price of $12,000. Of course, the idea for their now hit show did not surface until many years later.
Bargain Block‘s timelines for flips are often much longer than they seem
Although some of the Bargain Block episodes may make it seem like Evan and Keith work miracles when it comes to turning these decrepit old homes into livable spaces , the show’s hosts have admitted that this is mostly attributable to some good old television-magic.
In reality, the Bargain Block projects often take months to complete, and Keith and Evan have turned to working on multiple projects at once to keep things moving.
For instance, Evan recently told TV Insider that the renovations shown in the Bargain Block season three premiere episode “lasted around nine months, waiting and waiting and waiting” and that the renovations on their own Detroit-based home turned into a “multi-year process.”
