National Geographic | The 2000s

In July 2015, National Geographic premiered a special two-part series titled The 2000s: A New Reality all about analyzing the events that happened in the nation that made for a tumultuous first ten years of the 21st century.

On a news and political level, it doesn’t take much thinking to recount events that happened in the years between 2000 and 2010. We saw terrorist attacks, wars being started, historical presidential elections, and a wardrobe malfunction heard around the world.

But through all of the hard news, the 2000’s also saw the rise of reality television, dominated by shows like Survivor, The Osbournes, and, you guessed it, Flip This House.

Flip This House was a cornerstone for reality television, emerging with positivism in an economy that was incredibly depressed after the housing bubble burst of 2007. Armando Montelongo and his team were a breath of fresh air to viewers and made people believe that they could build their own fortune, even in a depressed economy.

“People realized that ‘If I flip houses, then I can have a larger piece of the overall American dream,” Armando says in Part 2 of this National Geographic special.

Keeping this in mind, Armando continued teaching his system of house flipping and his educational seminars long after his Flip This House days, and now boasts one of the largest real estate networks in the nation.

Not only did Armando change people’s lives with his real estate education, but he also set the tone for real estate reality television, paving the way for similar shows and networks. Since 2007, Armando Montelongo has remained a household name.