Interview “Stephanie and Deidre on Season 2 of Hoarder House Flippers on HGTV Canada ’

Hoarder House Flippers returns for an exciting Season 2 on Wednesday, October 30 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV Canada, bringing back captivating teams like the Mbaye brothers and Heather and Nathan, alongside introducing a fresh and dynamic duo, Stephanie and Deidre. Hailing from Windsor, Ontario, Stephanie and Deidre built their successful business, Border City Living, after a chance meeting. Together, they’ve transitioned from award-winning real estate agents to home-flipping specialists, merging their passion for community with innovative design to transform unique properties throughout Windsor.

The Extra Mile had the opportunity to speak with Stephanie and Deidre about their journey in house flipping, balancing the challenges of running a real estate business while tackling some of the most demanding renovation projects. In our conversation, they shared their passion for breathing new life into forgotten homes, their commitment to elevating Windsor’s housing market, and their belief that creating a home with heart and style isn’t exclusive to big cities. With genuine enthusiasm and a relentless drive to “make it right,” their story is one of creativity, perseverance, and a love for seeing projects through to perfection. Season 2 promises to showcase their talent, challenges, and triumphs, inspiring viewers to go the extra mile in creating the spaces they dream of.

TEM (The Extra Mile) : What drew you both to the world of house flipping? Especially taking on such challenging properties that we kind of see featured on Hoarder House Flippers. Did you ever hesitate before tackling any of the properties?

Deidre: I think it sort of started out of necessity, really. So we started doing this when we were quite young. And as you can imagine, you don’t have a huge budget. So we were like, okay, we only have X number of dollars. Nobody else wants this house. We can get it super cheap. Let’s just see what happens. And then it’s almost like you get used to it. And then you get addicted to the challenge of being like, can we make this good? And then in the end, you’re like, okay, and then people are super happy and it’s, uh, it sort of started that way.

Stephanie:  The transformation is always huge and it’s so satisfying. And people will see on the show that there’s multiple reveals and just going through that process is, it’s amazing.

TEM:  So I’m curious, how has working together on the show changed? Or let’s say, strengthen your dynamics as friends, business partners, and just entrepreneurs?

Stephanie: Great question. We have always worked really closely together. Deidra and I are on the phone probably 30 times a day, just checking in about what’s happening in our business, and what’s happening with our construction projects. When we were doing the show, it was a little bit challenging because we were still operating our full-time real estate business, and between shots and shooting with the crew, we’d be like, OK, we’ve got to get an email. But we really just rely on each other a lot for making sure that everything gets done. I think that maybe what the future might hold for us is kind of grilling our team and expanding a little bit. That’s. kind of what we realized during the process is that there’s room for us expanding our team and possible mentorship in growing more women in the industry, so we’re looking forward to the future.

TEM: Being a woman in let’s demanding an often male-dominated field, have you find that place a lot of unique challenges and like how do you overcome them together?

Deidre:  I think in a way, we use it to our advantage too, so the relationships that we’ve created, our team, their second to none, everyone respects us, a lot of mutual respect, we treat our team great, they treat us great, but in the beginning people are like oh maybe they don’t understand this and we really do, so you can use it to your advantage sometimes in that way, but I think overall. Well, it’s nice to pleasantly surprise people as well. So we have a lot of mansplaining happening sometimes. And they’ll be like, you have to decorate. You have to do your island this way. This is the only way to do it. Oh, this kitchen’s too small. Why would you bother? Oh, And then in the end, when they see it, they’re like, oh. And then we see them do the same thing for somebody else. So it’s like teaching people.

TEM: You both run successful businesses as realtors and Border City Living, which often can be making tough decisions. What has been, for each of you, the toughest business decision that you’ve had to make?And how would you say it impacted your growth?

Deidre: What do you think, Steph? like, toughest decision. mean, it’s always difficult to move on from people on your team. We give people a chance, but we move so quickly. that if people don’t show up or they don’t do what they say they’re going to do, we’ve learned to identify that pretty quickly. And that’s something that Steph and I have always, I guess, put in the core of our business is like doing what you say you’re going to do. And even sometimes to our detriment, we’re like this goes into eight weeks, which might mean you don’t see your friends and family for two months. But it’s kind of sticking to what you say and obviously life give throws things at you and you have to roll with the punches. But in general, I think just not being too nice is something that we’ve had to learn where I’m sure you know, the female thing, men can be tough, women, they don’t, people don’t like it. But in the end, we just have a project to get done or a house to sell and we just have to do what we need to do and sometimes it means we’ve got to move on from people.

Stephanie : And I think in our real estate business, we’re often met with a lot of challenges, and so we’ve just, through our experience, learned to grow and adapt, and adaptability is huge, especially when you’re dealing with a market, like the real estate market as well. So we’ve gotten really good at adapting and facing challenges and helping people like resolve and problem-solve is huge for us.

TEM: Many people dream of renovating homes, but fear unexpected issues like budget overruns as we saw on the episode. So what advice would you give to first-time renovators about, let’s say, managing risk and just kind of keeping stress under control in times like that?

Deidre:  Well, I think it’s like keeping calm, especially if you are running a team, is so important. As soon as people start freaking out.  You know, it all, it costs more, everybody’s stress, and it’s no fun anymore. So really it is about keeping calm and realizing there’s a way to get everything done. So the thing too is when you’re trying to flip fast, often it does cost more money. So if you have a project, like let’s say maybe it’s something you’re living in, then you just slow down a little bit, take a little bit more time to source materials, wait till things go on sale. It’s this whole feeling that everything has to be done in two months, or it’s a failure that’s not necessarily true depending on what you do. If you do it for a living, like us, we kind of have to get it done because we’re already on to the next project. But essentially, like Steph was saying, adapting, and sometimes you don’t get to do the design thing that you wanted because you have to change the electrical. And it’s no fun. But in the end, you can bring that stuff in with staging. or other character. you just, and you need to leave a contingency plan. Don’t flip with your last five bucks.

Stephanie: I think too, also like the part that I love about design and these construction projects is that you can have an idea in the beginning. And it’s such a beautiful process like to watch either that idea come to fruition or see how you have to adapt because something came up that you didn’t expect. So it’s just like, you know, we’ve said this before, it’s kind of like art. You don’t know exactly what the end result is going to be because of all of the different things that could come up, you know, in roadblocks and budget issues.

Deidre: You can’t be too attached to the outcome.  So you have this idea, oh, I must make this post look like this one I saw on Instagram or Pinterest. That’s when you can kind of get yourself stuck. because Sometimes you’re fighting against the look of a house too, and that’s another thing I’d say is one of our biggest tips is It’s not about emulating a look of a house. Let’s say Modern is very in right now if you take a heritage home and you try to make it look like a modern beach house.  You’re gonna spend three times as much money If you let the house show you what it wants to be and you lean into the character of the house You can often get things done for like half as much Nothing things change that.

TEM: What do you guys hope, you know viewers take away from watching your journey? Is there any like specific messages that you want to convey?

Deidre:  For me, I think it’s that you can live in a smaller city and make it cool. People think, like, to have a cool house, you have to live in Toronto, or you have to live in these big cities. So that’s kind of how we got into it too, as we said, all right, we’re moving back to Windsor from these big cities. We want to live in a great house that represents us. They weren’t on the market, so we had to start making them. So it’s really just encouraging people, if you have a dream of wanting to live in a certain type of home or property or style, you can make it yourself, or you can hire somebody to help you, but you don’t have to settle for, like, ordinary, just because you live in a mid-sized city.

Stephanie:  Also, you know, we often hear the word luxury, like, for us, we try to show people that you don’t have to live in a mansion to feel like you have a luxurious home. It can be a small bungalow that you’re putting natural materials into, that you’re, you know, feeling at home. and just really elevating what you have, it doesn’t always have to be the biggest house on the block.

TEM: So we’re all about going the extra mile so what is going the extra mile mean to you as entrepreneurs and how do you embody that philosophy on your day-to-day?

Stephanie:  I love that you do that because we do that too. I feel like that could be one of our mottos in our business. We just we don’t stop until we get it right and whether it’s in a flip or with our clients. We always feel like we want people to be taken care of and you know sometimes that means we’re re-painting a room or we’re you know staying up till 1 a.m. to perfect something on our website because for us you don’t get a second chance at first impressions right so we’re always going that extra mile like yourself.

Deidre: And it might even be like oh gosh we have the perfect pillows for this couch they’re the perfect color but they’re already they’re on the other side of town it’s like no we have to go get them because it’s it’s like something in our brain that we have to see but it’s a reflection of us as people and I think it’s because we actually enjoy what we do as well. It’s not drudgery we’re like oh gosh we can’t wait to look at this done and it’s it’s fun and it’s creative and we don’t want to just you know do it halfway.

Hoarder House Flippers airs on HGTV Canada at 9 p.m. ET/PT,