They say “home is where the heart is.” Yet in the case of this episode, home is where the drama is.
Josh Altman is struggling to balance the needs of his sellers at Dovetail, and those of his pregnant wife Heather. Madison Hildebrand is ready to take the infamous “next step” with Cody, who needs to meet his broker boyfriend’s parents to reach peak relationship status.
Here’s where we left off:
Meet the parents
Madison is taking time off from real estate this episode to focus on “the next step” with his boyfriend Cody. Things appear serious enough that Madison wants to bring him home to Arizona for a family reunion, because nothing says “I love you” more than subjecting your significant other to swarms of relatives. Even Madison’s mother wants to spare the poor guy the trouble, but apparently the only way to grow their relationship is for Cody to suffer the painfully awkward experience of meeting the parents.
Madison presents the idea to Cody, who is lukewarm at best when it comes to furthering their relationship. To be fair, Madison is quite pensive about the trip, too. He’s concerned that their GASP! 12-year age gap will completely scandalize the family reunion, but it’s 2017 and age is just a number, yadda yadda. Like a good millennial, Cody shrugs, giving us his best “I guess,” and before we know the pair is off to Arizona!
Apart from the fact that Cody clearly has nothing in common with Madison’s parents, the trip goes smoothly. And how couldn’t it? Look at that house! It’s as if they’re staying at a five-star resort, for crying out loud. Not that a scenic background of desert granite, an outdoor patio with a built-in fireplace and free-flowing wine totally relieves the pressure, but it sure does help. Now we see where Madison’s love of real estate comes from — it started right at home!
Having planted firmly at the “next step,” it’ll be interesting to see if their relationship will evolve and whether the age difference will continue to be a plot line.
For now, we’ll take it as a selling point.
Baby blues
Josh should probably take a page out of Madison’s book and focus on his relationship, considering his wife Heather is set to give birth at any moment. That certainly warrants a slowdown!
But alas, in this episode Josh continues to put the property business before before his pregnant wife. This time, the baby drama goes down while the two shop for ridiculously expensive strollers, leading Josh to walk out of the store. (To be perfectly honest, we’d also flee with prices like that.)
As the two search for the perfect pram for Baby Altman, Josh gets a call from his brother Matt. The two have received an offer on their massive Dovetail listing, which Josh has completely committed his life to, promising the developers that he will be available to them at the drop of a hat. Well, the hat is dropping at the worst possible moment, and Heather is none too pleased.
“It’s wonderful being a single mother,” she says.
Riiiight.
Her agitation is justified, though, considering she’s made herself available and he can’t do the same.
Josh switches focus to the things that really matter, like this gargantuan listing in Bradbury Estates. The buyer, a Chinese national, offers $16 million and requests a 90-day close with a 45-day contingency period while they move their money out of China.
“For $16 million, you’re having me drive all the way here to hear the offer,” says the developer, Ann, begging the question of why they couldn’t just do this over the phone.
Ann and the buyer’s representative sit down face to face, which is real estate taboo, but the two are able to meet at $17.5 million with a 21-day closing period, so it’s happily ever after.
Now it’s back to baby strollers and an angry, heavily pregnant wife for Josh.
Elsewhere in the episode…
Our rising star Tracy Tutor Maltas is back in Brentwood, trying to offload a $5 million home and all the crappy furniture the comes with it. She hosts an estate sale, but quickly learns that people who visit estate sales don’t typically buy used furniture for thousands of dollars. When that doesn’t work, she decides to get rid of it all and stages the home at a cost of $20,000 instead. Thinking this will change her luck, she employs the help of her children to throw a lemonade stand-themed open house to attract younger families. The threat of bad weather could ruin everything, however, because as Tracy said, nobody in Los Angeles leaves their home when it rains. To be continued…
A perfectly coiffed Josh Flagg scopes out a home on the “right side of the tracks” in Beverly Hills, whatever that means. He’s surprised to discover out that none other than fellow Bravolebrity and the Agency brokerage chief Mauricio Umansky has also been summoned to the property. Little did they know that the seller would like them to co-list the home, which Josh’s fiance Bobby is really happy about because now they can go out to dinner with Kyle Richards. Though he’s only a part-time reality television star, Mauricio hasn’t been trained in the art of drama, so the partnership goes smoothly. The two sell the $16 million home no problem.