Urban Resurrection

The colorful crew of Zombie House Flipping is headed for a prime TV slot in its continuing quest to bring Orlando houses back from the dead.

- Roger Moore

Keith Ori hangs up the cell phone grafted onto his ear, casts his eyes over the pink 1940's Delaney Park two-story that saw its best days 50 years ago and absent-mindedly pokes a fist through a half-broken window.

“Keith? What’d I tell you?” Eric Liebman has interrupted another conversation to comically scold “the talent.” 

“NEVER break glass when the camera’s not rolling.” 

This oversized home is coming down—a good part of it, anyway. But the John Deere excavator can’t load chunks of a demolished three-car garage and driveway into a rotating team of dump trucks; the workmen can’t saw five feet off the end of the house; the Bobcat that Ori wants to use to haul away the massive heat pump can’t be cranked up without the TV cameras rolling.

The empty ruin at 1615 Delaney Ave. has been foreclosed on, abandoned—a “zombie house” in real estate parlance. But it’s getting its moment in the spotlight as the latest star of Zombie House Flipping, Orlando’s contribution to the tidal wave of renovation shows filling cable TV. It premiered on the little-seen FYI Network in January, but now the show and its Orlando team of Realtor/designer/builder/flippers is moving to the big leagues, with a bigger production budget. The parent A&E network, the cable giant where Duck Dynasty rules, where Hoarders has a home and Gene Simmons Family Jewels are on display, is moving Zombie into prime time, although no premiere date has been set.

“This town is about real estate,” says Liebman, the director and on-site producer. “This is ground zero for bank repos and zombie houses. I’ve done a few of these shows all over the country. And I had never been in a house where fleas were jumping on your legs, bugs were going up the walls.