It’s been two years since Arie Luyendyk graced our TV screens as the most boring Bachelor in history, and I have to say, I don’t really miss him. Watching Arie and Lauren fall in love (sorry, Becca) was arguably less exciting than watching paint dry, but hey, it seems like things are really working out for them. I love that. Two years after meeting on the show, they’re married, they have a daughter together, and now, the first house that they’re flipping together is officially on the market. Luckily, someone posted the Zillow listing in a Facebook group I’m in, and boy is it something.
I’m no real estate expert, and after perusing the listing, I have several questions. First, let’s go over some of the details. Arie and Lauren bought the old house in February of last year, and did a complete tear-down and new build. The new house has four bedrooms/three bathrooms, and is almost 3,000 square feet, which by my calculations is *looks around* definitely bigger than my apartment. Great, sounds like a normal suburban house. Arie is listed right there on Zillow as the listing agent, so it’s good to see he hasn’t let his Bachelor fame get in the way of his actual career.
The thing that immediately caught my attention is the asking price: $915,000. For those of us that are numerically challenged, that’s almost a million dollars! It sounded high to me, so I did a little digging. Arie and Lauren bought the old house on the lot for $298,500 in early 2019. Then, the new house was listed yesterday for $950,000. According to Zillow’s calculations, that’s a price increase of over 200%. Damn, do I need to get into flipping houses? Probably. Do I have the skills? Definitely not. Strangely, in less than a full day of being on the market, the price on the house has already been lowered by $35k, which seems like an odd strategy? Maybe this is a common tactic that I’m unaware of, but I’m gonna choose to think that Arie just made a typo when putting in the price.
Zillow also has a feature called the “Zestimate,” where it tells you the estimated actual value of a house. When I first saw the listing last night, the Zestimate on this house was a whopping $600k lower than the list price, but now it’s been updated to just over $900k, so I’m guessing that was just a lag on the new listing. In fact, the Zestimate has continued to go up in the last hour or so, which is interesting. But what’s really interesting is that the average value of a home in this neighborhood of Phoenix is around $360k. That’s a huuuuuge difference from Arie and Lauren’s just-shy-of-a-million asking price, and it makes me wonder why they built such a nice house in this neighborhood? My mom always told me that you never want to have the most expensive house in the neighborhood because it hurts your property value, and it looks like that’s exactly what these two have done. Oh well, not my problem.
Now that I’ve done enough research to earn my real estate license, let’s talk sh*t about the house itself, because I know that’s why we’re all here. From a first glance at the outside, it looks like Arie and Lauren stuck to the Vanderpump Rules architectural style of “off-white house with big black garage door,” and is anyone surprised? I’m not sure about those unpainted wooden beams surrounding the front door, but I guess the rustic wood offsets the feeling that your house looks like you saw it in a catalog and said “I love that” (sorry, I’ll stop).
Moving inside the front door, you’re immediately greeted by an open-concept kitchen. And by immediately, I mean that the stove is literally no more than six feet from the front door. Is this a thing? I will say, the kitchen looks beautiful. But all the photos are taken with that weird wide lens that’s supposed to make everything look bigger, and it leads to some sketchy Kylie Jenner Facetune issues. Like, the kitchen island looks like it’s straight out of an MC Escher drawing, and I can’t tell how big anything is.
In the initial post I saw about the house, one thing that many people called out is the lack of staging in these photos. And I have to agree, some furniture would have helped. In photo after photo, we just see these big, empty rooms, but due to the weird fish-eye perspective, it’s really hard to get a handle on how big anything is. I’m sure staging takes a lot of time and money, but still, it would be helpful to know what size bed I could fit in each room, for instance.
But all of these complaints about the layout and the lack of staging absolutely pale in comparison to what I’m about to show you. Brace yourself, because this is really upsetting.
Behold, the hall bathroom:
WHAT. THE. F*CK. Oh my god, I’m gonna be sick. And I say that because the tile looks like some kind of bacterial infection that’s rapidly spreading into the hallway. I’m gonna keep checking the Zillow listing, because by this time tomorrow, it might take over the whole house! Who can stop the tile???
But actually, who made this design decision? Joanna Gaines would never. Like, did they get 90% of the way through laying the floors in the hallway and run out of wood? Honestly, that’s the only explanation I can think of, because this is gonna look so weird when the bathroom door is closed. Also, the edge of the wall where it meets the floor looks… kind of sloppy? For that asking price, I would expect all details to be flawless. I’m sure whoever buys this house will love it, but it’s not the one for me, and not just because I will never have $900,000.
If you’re in the Phoenix area, there’s an open house tomorrow, and I’m literally begging you to go inspect and report back. Does the house actually look nice? Can you figure out why this tile situation happened? Is Arie going to follow you around the house while you cry in every room? I have never needed answers more. Good luck to Arie and Lauren, and maybe if they’re lucky, they’ll get an HGTV show out of this.
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Images: Zillow (4)
It’s been less than two months since The Bachelor finale made us all want to punch our TVs, but it appears things are going well for Arie and Lauren, the least interesting couple in the history of relationships. They haven’t broken up yet, which is only mildly surprising, and this week they announced that they bought a house together in Arizona. Yay, wow, I’m so excited for them, what a wonderful couple. Ugh. When does Becca K’s season of The Bachelorette start?
I’m pretty sure you don’t need a refresher on what a douchebag Arie Luyendyk Jr. is, but let me quickly reiterate: he really fucking sucks. Nevertheless, Lauren, our favorite wooden doll, agreed to marry the pool noodle of a man who dumped her on national television (and then changed his mind). She has since moved across the country for him, and now they’ve invested in property together. Not to be cynical, but I feel strongly that every Bachelor couple should be together for a full year before making any major financial decisions together. Like, I’m sure they’re very in love, but we saw how that turned out with Nick and Vanessa, and pretty much ever other Bachelor couple for the past 15 years. Why do I watch this show again?
Like any good C-list couple, Arie and Lauren announced their exciting real estate news in an Us Weekly exclusive, because it’s all about earning that coin. They decided on the house after seeing almost 70 properties. Wow, Lauren is surprisingly picky about houses, considering that she apparently has literally no deal-breakers when it comes to choosing a man. The house is brand new, probably because when asked about the prospect of doing a remodel, Arie said, “Lauren was completely overwhelmed.” I mean, of course she was. That would’ve required her saying, like, words to contractors. Scary shit. Just imagine these two touring a house together:
Real estate agent: These counters are premium marble, imported from Tuscany.
Lauren: I love that.
Real estate agent: The master bathroom has a jacuzzi big enough for two.
Arie: Wow.
Real estate agent: This picture window has stunning views of the mountains in the distance.
Lauren: Oh. Pretty.
The house they settled on is 2,600 square feet, which is plenty of space for them to avoid each other at all times. Lauren sounds like she’s mainly excited about the house because it has space for the dogs. “Our dogs are very excited. They are each going to have their own room … I mean it does have four bedrooms.” I can’t tell if she’s being serious (I don’t get the sense that she’s downloaded the sarcasm expansion pack yet), but it’s extreme 2018 nonsense to give your dogs two separate bedrooms.
In the interview, Lauren also talks about her big move from Virginia Beach to Phoenix to be with Arie. She says it’s been a really easy adjustment for her, but I’m not buying it. Lauren is like that new girl in 10th grade who was in three of your classes but never said a word. Do you even remember that girl’s name? Elizabeth? Emily? Exactly. Lauren says she’s been “making friends,” but unless these friends are also only capable of speaking the words “wow” and “I love that”, I have a hard time believing she’s making a big social splash in Phoenix.
Anyway, Lauren says that “It has been fun exploring the area and Arie is a really good tour guide, so that helps.” Yikes, that sounds bleak. I can’t imagine anything worse than being forced to explore Phoenix, Arizona with fucking Arie Luyendyk Jr. as my tour guide. I’ll do the self-guided tour, thanks. Since moving, Lauren has started real estate school, so someday she’ll be able to sell homes with all the charisma of an index card.
I’m happy for her, truly. Hopefully we won’t have to hear much from Arie and Lauren until the inevitable awful wedding, because they’ll be so busy not talking to each other in their shiny new house. Works for me, because I’ll be busy watching the new trash Bachelor spin-off.
Images: @ariejr / Instagram; Giphy