When House Flipping Gets Smelly: Inside Tommy Harr's Latest Zombie Property Challenge
Most people walk into a house and smell possibility. Tommy Harr walks in and smells profit — even when that smell is something far less pleasant. The 31-year-old star of A&E's Zombie House Flipping: Family Business has built an empire on transforming the properties nobody else wants, and his latest challenge is perhaps his most pungent yet. In an exclusive clip from an upcoming episode titled "Smells Like Money," Harr and his tight-knit family crew enter an abandoned ranch-style hoarder home in the Columbus, Ohio, area only to be greeted by what can only be described as a "very stinky" nightmare.
For anyone squeamish about bad smells, house flipping — and especially the niche world of zombie house flipping — might not be the career path of choice. But for the Harr family, an overpowering odor isn't a dealbreaker. It's a clue. It's data. In the world of distressed real estate, the worse a home looks, smells, and feels, the more opportunity it often hides for a savvy investor willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work.
What Is Zombie House Flipping?
Before diving into the stench-filled details of the latest episode, it's worth understanding what separates zombie house flipping from traditional fix-and-flip real estate investing. A "zombie" property is a home that has been abandoned by its owner — typically after they've vacated following a foreclosure notice — but has not yet been repossessed by the bank. These homes can sit empty for months or even years, caught in a legal and financial limbo that leaves them to deteriorate without anyone responsible for their upkeep.
During that time, the elements, vandals, wildlife, and unfortunately sometimes former occupants can cause significant damage. Roofs cave in. Pipes burst. Mold spreads. And in the case of hoarder houses, the accumulated belongings of a lifetime — combined with neglect — can create odor conditions that are almost impossible to describe without experiencing them firsthand.
Tommy Harr has completed around 400 house renovations over the course of his career, many of them at exactly these kinds of distressed, zombie properties. His expertise lies in seeing past the surface devastation — and apparently, past the surface smell — to identify homes with genuine profit potential once renovated.
Meet the Harr Family: The Team Behind the Transformations
What makes Zombie House Flipping: Family Business unique among the crowded field of real estate reality television is its genuine family dynamic. This isn't a manufactured team brought together for the cameras. The Harr family works together in real life, each member filling a specific and essential role in the flipping operation.
- Tommy Harr leads the business, sourcing zombie properties and overseeing the overall investment strategy that has allowed him to complete hundreds of successful flips.
- Will Harr, Tommy's youngest brother, is actively training to become a project manager, learning the ropes of renovation management on the job with real stakes on the line.
- Jake Harr, another younger brother, teams up with their father Chris Harr to handle the critical pre- and post-construction inspections that ensure every renovation meets quality standards.
- Katie Harr, the family matriarch, wears two important hats on the team — serving as both interior designer and real estate agent, giving the business an in-house creative and sales engine.
The show premiered in May on A&E and has quickly found an audience among fans of real estate reality programming who appreciate the authenticity of watching a real family business navigate the unpredictable world of distressed property investment.
'Smells Like Money': The Ohio Hoarder House Episode
In the exclusive clip from the upcoming episode cheekily titled "Smells Like Money," viewers get a front-row seat to what it actually looks and feels like when the Harr family enters one of these zombie properties for the first time. The ranch-style home in the Columbus, Ohio, area is a former hoarder house — meaning it was previously occupied by someone who accumulated an extreme amount of belongings, often combined with an inability to maintain basic sanitation standards.
The smell that greets the Harrs upon entry is described as "very stinky," which, given Tommy's experience with hundreds of distressed homes, suggests it is particularly severe. Hoarder houses present a unique set of renovation challenges beyond the ordinary structural and cosmetic issues found in typical zombie properties. The sheer volume of items left behind, combined with years of potential mold growth, pest infestations, and decomposing organic material, can make even experienced contractors hesitate.
But where others see a condemned nightmare, the Harr family sees a title card that reads "opportunity." The episode title itself — "Smells Like Money" — encapsulates the philosophy perfectly. A bad smell in a distressed market means competition is lower, acquisition prices are cheaper, and the margin for a skilled renovator is correspondingly higher.
Why the Columbus, Ohio Market Is a Hot Spot for House Flippers
It's no accident that Tommy Harr has built his flipping operation in the Columbus, Ohio, area. The city and its surrounding communities have long offered a compelling combination of factors that make it attractive for real estate investors: relatively affordable acquisition prices compared to coastal markets, a growing population that keeps buyer demand healthy, and a steady pipeline of distressed and zombie properties that have cycled through the foreclosure process.
Columbus has experienced consistent population growth driven by its university presence, expanding tech sector, and central Midwestern location. That growth translates into sustained housing demand, which in turn supports the exit prices that make flipping viable. When a skilled team like the Harrs can acquire a zombie property at a deep discount, renovate it efficiently using in-house labor and expertise, and sell into a healthy buyer's market, the economics can be compelling even on properties that initially smell like anything but money.
Key Lessons from the Zombie House Flipping Approach
Whether you're an aspiring real estate investor or simply a fan of the show, the Harr family's approach to zombie house flipping offers several transferable lessons about distressed property investment.
- Don't let your senses override your analysis. A bad smell, an overwhelming amount of clutter, or cosmetic devastation can scare away competition, which is precisely what creates opportunity for investors willing to look deeper.
- Build a reliable team. The Harrs succeed in part because they have trusted people handling every phase of the process — from acquisition and inspection to renovation management, design, and sales.
- Understand your local market deeply. Tommy Harr's focus on the Columbus area means he understands local pricing, buyer preferences, and neighborhood trajectory in a way that a generalist investor never could.
- Experience compounds. With approximately 400 renovations under his belt, Harr can assess a property's potential and pitfalls faster and more accurately than someone early in their investing career. There is no substitute for the pattern recognition that comes from repeated experience.
- Zombie properties require extra due diligence. Because these homes have often sat vacant for extended periods without maintenance, inspections must be thorough and renovation budgets must include contingency reserves for unexpected discoveries — like whatever is causing that particular ranch house to smell so strongly.
Tuning In: Where to Watch Zombie House Flipping: Family Business
If the Harr family's combination of family drama, renovation spectacle, and real estate strategy sounds like compelling television — and it is — Zombie House Flipping: Family Business airs on A&E. The show premiered in May and continues to follow Tommy and his crew through the Columbus, Ohio, real estate market as they identify, acquire, renovate, and sell zombie properties. The upcoming "Smells Like Money" episode promises to be one of the more memorable installments of the season, offering viewers a visceral glimpse into just how challenging — and rewarding — this particular brand of real estate investing can be.
For the Harr family, a very stinky abandoned hoarder house isn't a problem. It's a project. And if their track record of 400-plus renovations is any indication, it will soon smell a great deal more like money than it does right now.