A 19-year-old from Millard is making her television debut on a show that teaches kids the art of house flipping.
Ryleigh Eckles started helping her father, Nate, with house flipping projects when she was just 6 years old. By age 16, she had successfully flipped her first house on her own.
"When she was like 3 or 4, I had her go into the basement of one of our rentals and I had her paint the walls, and I didn't care how it looked because I came back behind her with a roller and painted it," Nate said.
The father-daughter duo has now flipped 50 houses together. They currently have 3 projects underway in Omaha and one in Griswold, Iowa. Together, they run Urban Firebirds Home Solutions.
"So in the basement we had these rooms built out but they were nonconforming so we added an egress window and a closet to each of the rooms," Ryleigh said.
Ryleigh recently made her national television debut on "Kids Who Flip," where she shares her expertise with other young entrepreneurs interested in real estate.
"I feel very proud of myself and just everything that I've done to get here and I'm glad that other kids can look up to me and other other kids that are starting to come up into real estate and just being entrepreneurs," Ryleigh said.
Jamie Davis, a friend and business partner, believes Ryleigh is a natural role model for aspiring young entrepreneurs.
"I want every kid that has dreams and aspirations to wanna be an entrepreneur to follow Riley and let her lead the way," Davis said.
On the show, Ryleigh draws from her 13 years of experience in the house flipping business to mentor other young people.
"The biggest things that I tell people is to always be conservative with your numbers because one of the biggest lessons that I had to learn early on," Ryleigh said.
Ryleigh recently finished filming in Nashville for "Kids Who Flip Challenge," where she will be competing to design an Airbnb.
Where you can watch:
- Destination America, Wednesday nights at 7 pm
- Hulu Live
- Dish
- Direct TV
- COX cable
- HGTV Go app
- Apple TV
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
