INSIDE Trump's BILLION DOLLAR Fixer Upper: Alcatraz

I'm a real estate pro. We're at the Rock

to check out a fixer upper because

Donald Trump says he wants to get a good

deal on this one and fix it up. So,

let's see what they'll be running into

and what the costs of fixing this joint

up are going to be.

Um, yeah. Welcome to the rock. Let's get

started. Got a lot of uh salt water

around here, salty air. It's going to

cost me a lot of money to keep this

thing fixed up and uh at least tenant

quality. The listing said they had

upgraded

plumbing. It's already deteriorating.

Good old cast iron. Uh this looks like

it's uh probably just a roof drain

here. That's going to cost a few

dollars. So far, looks like I've got

peeling

plaster. And uh I don't know what to

call these single pane garden style

windows. Those don't look like they're

going to be fun to replace. Here's the

classroom. Now, one thing I noticed is

we did add fire sprinklers, but the iron

pipes are already pretty rusted out, so

we probably added them about 30 years

ago. Let's hope we don't have to rely on

them. Fire sprinkler plumbing is

extremely expensive, especially in a

masonry facility like this. And, you

know, some fluorescent lighting might be

nicer versus these $2 light bulbs. I'd

say this landlord cheaped out a little

bit. They did mention it needed a little

bit of TLC.

The building appears to be

deteriorating at the touch. No wonder

people were able to dig out of here.

It's just sand. Sand walls. Oh my god.

This is a waste drain almost what looks

like a cleanout opportunity. So waste

that comes down from the top goes in

this sort of reservoir bin here and

supposed to drain down this old cast

iron pipe. Uh and clearly we've got some

patchwork on over here. So, we'll have

to check in on the home inspection to

see, you know, what what kind of repairs

needed to be done here. But, uh, let's

just say, uh, so far, uh, we got a few

fire hazards and, uh, not a lot of

upgrades, eh? Yeah. Estimates so far

before coming here of restoring this

facility or somewhere around 250 million

to $1 billion to get this as a

functional supermax or maximum security

style prison. Unfortunately, the more I

go through this, the more I see attempts

uh at uh earthquake retrofitting this a

long time ago. You can see this plating

on both sides of the uh archway just to

support the structural integrity of

this. Remember, earthquakes, one of the

reasons we build out homes out of wood

in California is you get the sway left

to right. Uh and iron is really good at

supporting whereas masonry is not. Uh it

looks like uh earthquake retrofitting

was very much an afterthought here. And

a lot of it so far uh well, let's just

say

uh I don't think it's uh I don't think

it's going to last another earthquake

out

here. So far, everywhere I go on this

island, I see area close signs, and I

wonder

why. It looks like some of the storm

drains might end up having some roots in

the lines. Might have to try to camera

that line to see if we've got any root

issues on this one. Here's the vault

adjacent to the warden's office. A

little sterile. We went a little heavy

with the Swiss coffee semigloss. Looks

like we're uh full-on down plumbing in

this infrastructure here. And

uh been a while since we've had any uh

actual facilities here. Confederate

soldiers were also held here as

prisoners when the facility went from a

military barracks after the Civil War

and defense point to a prison. Mind you,

it was only a prison for 29 years, a

very short period of its existence. It

never reached its formal full capacity

of 360 inmates. probably because, well,

let's just be real, doesn't really seem

to be a facility that uh has gotten a

lot of love. Though, as I say that, I

see new drywall going in over here,

Jack. Some new electrical. There's my

fluorescent lighting. Let's go up. This

is This must be why the listing says

upgrades in progress. All right, Jack.

What do you see here next to the

warden's office over here? It looks like

we got some kind of radio control. A lot

of keys. A bunch of doors. A lot of

keys, light switches.

There's handcuffs on the typewriter.

There is or there are. There are. Oh,

okay. I'm just checking. Just checking.

H. Very interesting.

Even Even where the telephone is, the

wood is falling off the

wall. Enough for just over 330 inmates.

This is the A block. So, if you were a

prisoner and you were told to report to

the A block, here you go.

What is this? It's so long. This looks

like a way to access the utility areas

behind every cell, which I wonder I

think in the movie Escape from Alcatraz,

they showed inmates digging through the

wall, which we saw how soft and sandy

those walls were, right? And then

escaping through some of the utility

corridors behind the cells. Now,

technically, the prison says nobody has

ever successfully escaped, but three

people escaped and were never found.

Their bodies were never found.

The government says they're dead. Do you

believe the government?

Sometimes, you know, I'm going to have

to add this to the home inspection.

We've got some broken glass over here.

Uh, looks like an older louvered window.

You know, I I don't know to get a quote

for dual paneed windows over here. San

Francisco Bay. I don't know. Maybe they

don't need dual pane windows over here.

But, uh, you got quite a few broken

windows. So, we're going to have to ask

for a credit back on this one. You know,

I'm going to have to put quite a bit of

blue tape out around on this one. Yeah.

I put some blue tape here, huh, Jack?

Yeah. Look at the old

radiator. So, an old radiator pumps hot

water uh through basically what are

these little pipes and then it radiates

heat.

people used to put their towels on them

to warm up the towels. Uh but the

problem was sometimes people um had uh

little floor heaters in their bathrooms

and they'd put a towel rack above the

floor heater and the floor heater would

get really hot. So what do you think

would happen when a towel used to be

hung in the 1950s on a towel rack above

a really hot heater? Uh it would dry. It

definitely would dry. But what happens

when it gets really dry and hot? Uh

It's destroyed. Catch us on fire. Bless

you.

But that's okay. You got this little

2-lb fire extinguisher here. You think

that's going to cut it? Dude, we have

bigger fire extinguishers at home than

this. You know, I think this landlord

once again cheaping out. Okay. Do we

have fire sprinklers here? At least I

don't I don't even see fire sprinklers.

Do you see fire sprinklers? No, I don't

see any fire sprinklers. I see conduit.

They prevent you from going up a ladder

by just putting glass on it. Plexiglass.

Um, I don't think you can do anything in

here. You just like, where do you even

sleep? You just sleep on the floor. Ah,

they would have probably rolled out some

kind of cloth bed. Oh, here. Here's an

example, Jack, of how you can sleep. Oh,

yeah.

Oh, I like how they have the paper sort

of mâe examples of people sleeping sort

of like they did in the escape from

Alcatraz.

Oh, see they have the hole. What? Right

there. See the hole in the wall where

you dig through the hole? Oh, yeah. to

escape. Yeah. And we saw how soft that

wall was. And it goes right into that

utility corridor. Probably right there.

How would they dig through it? Three

months. Three months to dig through it.

And then Yeah. Here's the utility

corridor. No. How would they dig through

it? Spoons. Spoons and tools that they

get from the machine shop.

[Music]

Jack, I'm not seeing a lot of upgraded

plumbing. I was promised upgraded

plumbing. Yeah.

This right here is the visitor booth.

So, prisoners would be able to walk up

to the visitor booth uh and then wait

for their family to show up. Hopefully,

uh the family would already be there.

You can't you can't walk over there. You

can't. Looks like the family's not

allowed on that side. Uh, clickbait

again. Once again, you know, we promised

visitor booths and uh, all we got is

more damaged glass. You know, that's

going to cost me at least another $90.

If I use my Lowe's Per pros discounts, I

might be able to get another $90 toilet.

But I got to install that, too. And you

know how hard it's going to be to

actually bolt a new toilet onto what I'm

assuming is some old nasty cast iron.

I'm probably going to have to dig down

and get myself a new sleeve in on the on

on the connections. It's crazy. It's

like a baby toilet. Well, cuz it's

broken. And every cell every single

cell. They promised me functional

plumbing. Yeah. Wow.

So the um this material has a lot more

rock in it, but I can also still with my

finger, just with my finger rubbing

this, I have bits and pieces of the

concrete coming off onto uh my hand. So

imagine you sit here with a spoon for 3

months, you probably get through it,

huh? Into the utility corridor just like

what we saw down below cuz of all the

moisture. That's crazy. Yeah. If it's

this bad on the bottom floor, I don't

suspect it's going to be better on the

upper floor. And I promise

renovations. So far, I'm not seeing

renovation. Where are the renovations,

Jack? 36 different prisoners attempted

to escape in 14 separate escape

attempts. It's because multiple

prisoners can try to leave at once,

right? One even resulted in the Battle

of Alcatraz. Gunshots, people killed. It

It got intense out here. Well, let's

just say um from an acquisition point of

view, this is uh this this might be more

than a wedge deal. This is turning into

quite the fixer

upper. Oh, look, Jack. The gun gallery.

In case there were violent outbreaks or

escape attempts, you could just shoot

from there. That's not fair. They they

got like that's a little unfair. Look,

they could literally get a view straight

down each of the blocks. All right. So,

the DB block is solitary, but they don't

have any electronics on these doors with

the exception of what appears to be a

bell switch. So, this was clearly added

afterwards, you know, after we invented

electricity. Uh, this would be a bell.

Uh, and it looks like there's a little

bell sitting on top of that electrical

junction box right here where a little

probably uh, you know, incandescent

light bulb would turn on. A bell would

ring implying that somebody wanted to

get in through this door. Here would be

your access to view who was trying to

get through the door, obviously. And

then it looks like you just had two key

locks to unlock the bolts of this door.

Uh, no electronics in this door at all.

It's just an iron door with two key

locks. And that's it. Looks like an

armored door from rust. It looks a

little like an armored door from rust.

And you can see this is where the uh

locks would go in. Again, downside, no

electronics. Although this looks like at

some point maybe they added some

electronics. So it's possible that the

top one here may have had a an addedon

electrical mechanism, but I would argue

that don't worked well anymore. Even

their construction site looks like it's

in decay. All right, Jack, you're on

recess. Go play tag with the prisoners.

There you go. There's your freedom.

I don't think this is very safe. I think

we could boost. Honestly, I think I

could boost you by you jumping on my

hands if I got on a knee right here.

Boosted you up. You grab onto this.

Freedom, baby. Yeah, freedom. It's not

even minimally secure. Fix her upper.

It's a fixer upper full of bird poop.

And look, did they disclose this repair?

Probably not. They have a new window in

here. And when I say new, it's probably

from the 80s. Wow. Old school metal

detector.

[Music]

Question for you. Has Has the Donald

Trump renovation started yet? No. No.

No. Okay. Next week. I don't know, sir.

No. Okay. All right. You know how many

hours it's going to take for me to

scrape all this off and try to level

this? I could either float new concrete,

but then I'm probably going to collapse

everything under new weight, or I'm

going to have to get a bunch of people

scraping this to try to level this out

to get some new flooring down. This is

This is unacceptable. You know, this

this seller is really uh cheaping out

over here. Oh, Jack, they have your

favorite

food. Steamed wheat. Steamed wheat. I

I'll tell you the things I like on

there. I don't know what steamed wheat

is. Neither do I. I I like scrambled

eggs. I like fresh milk. I like bread. I

like butter on stuff.

Uh,

how come they only have pictures of

knives? Yeah. Pretty sure all these

rusted pipes were just painted over. I

think I'm being scammed over here.

Somebody just came in here and sprayed.

Didn't even wipe the dust off.

Unacceptable.

Yeah. Mistake number one. New railing.

It's not brass. Have they ever been to

Trump Tower? Okay. We go gold. Gold. Not

this. Yeah. system like this. Oh, this

is the

laundry, man. Come on. That's how you're

masking off these windows. You know how

much labor goes into masking the windows

like this? You probably spent more labor

on tape at San Francisco wages than what

it cost to just replace the whole

freaking window. This is unacceptable. I

could get myself a window that size

contractor's warehouse special on the

discount rack. I don't know, 400 bucks.

Bet you they spent more money taping it.

So, that was the laundry. These are the

showers. So if you wanted to shower

around a bunch of other dudes, this is

the privacy you would have

gotten. What do you don't even want to

shower next to your brother? You want to

shower next to everyone?

Yeah, I'm I'm fine with showering next

to my brother now. Oh. Oh, what

changed? You know how many roots are

probably in this pipe? It looks like

they damaged the structural integrity of

the masonry foundation here. And that's

where one of my iron I-beams is resting

on. So, we've carved out the support for

the iron I-beam to run plumbing. What

are the structural engineers going to

think of this? What you say?

My say my iron.

Well, if we're going to buy it and

renovate it, you got to take ownership.

You say my, it's not yours yet. That's

true. We're going to buy it first. But

we got to negotiate credits cuz this is

much more of a fixer upper than we were

promised.

Is it fix or not a word? It's a

hyphenated set of two words. So, I don't

know about you, but I'd say uh the

plumbing might be suffering a little bit

of a a derangement offset over

here. Coffee time. Let's go get coffee.

More I look at this, the more I think

what we really need to do is just scrape

it and start over. I mean, you've got

netting on the side of the building

here. You know why there's netting on

the side of the building? It ain't for

birds to get in the windows. It's

because they're so worried about more

rocks of the side of the walls falling

off and then hitting tourists. It's

crazy. This would fail. The Meet Kevin

home inspection. This is even worse than

what you would want in a wedge deal

because again, you got to scrape it and

start over. You can see over here at the

end, probably to get people nicer

pictures, you've got uh what looks like

at least repainted and patched up

plaster over here. But this this is a

disaster. Scrape it, start over. And at

that point, why build for what's going

to at least in the 1950s cost three

times as much money per head at a prison

than any other prison in the United

States. Why? Because you got to boat in

troops and supplies. Wait, wait. Let's

look at on the map. Let's see if it says

Yeah, go ahead. Look at the map.

So, keep that in mind. It cost three

times as much back in the 1950s to ferry

in water, propane, food, inmates. They

hold the Alcatraz triathlon here because

the water's not actually that cold.

People think the water is as cold as the

Titanic. It's somewhere between 50 to

60° out here. Technically, you won't get

hypothermic in that water. for up to

potentially two hours. The rock was

initially used as well, nothing until

the governor of Mexico actually

requested a private land owner build a

lighthouse on the facility in exchange

for getting the entire rock for free.

That's right. The governor of Mexico

gave the rock, the entire island away

for free in exchange for a lighthouse.

And in 1846, after the treaty of

Guadalupe Herago, where we ended the

Mexican-American War, what we ended up

finding was the facility was sold again

for

$5,000 after the federal government took

it. They sold it for $5,000 to a private

individual, but that individual never

got paid because the Filillmore

administration revoked the deal. And

that family spent over 40 years in court

unsuccessfully trying to get their

$5,000 payment for the island, which is

now federal property. And in the 1860s

became a Civil War facility with over

105 cannons. Cannons. So I have a real

estate startup. It's called House Hack.

And I'll tell you, there's one thing you

don't want to get yourself into. it's a

fixer upper that costs too much money

because obviously your ROI is going to

be negative. But sometimes it becomes

even impossible to determine what your

ROI is. The infrastructure has been here

so long that the electrical conduit is

rotting away. So, uh I don't know that

there's anything left functional here

that we can actually still use. Man,

look at this. Every portion of the

property is falling apart. It's

remarkable.

Remarkable. See, the best kind of fixer

upper is a fixer upper. You can go in,

do paint, carpet, light fixtures,

plumbing fixtures, kitchen, bathroom.

Done. This is roof, windows, walls,

foundation, core plumbing, core

electrical,

uh, fire, sprinklers. Everything that

you need here is old, decrepit, and

falling apart to the point where it

makes more sense to just net off the

pieces that are falling apart than

actually fix it. Hey, Jack. Yeah. The

bathrooms are in such bad condition that

they have to close the bathrooms for

repairs and they installed portaotties

instead. That's how bad the condition of

this facility is. They don't even have

bathrooms for the tourists that raise

this facility over $60 million a year in

tourist revenue. Oh wow. And there's a

container ship. I wonder if that came

from China. Hey, we better collect our

tariffs on that. Yeah, they had to add

temporary framing just to keep the

archway up because the concrete on this

island is all trash. If people were able

to dig out of it with spoons over 70

years ago, probably more like 90 years

ago, what do you think the condition of

the concrete is today?

Uh, even worse. We found the most

valuable thing on the entire island. It

is the warden's

vehicle. The rest is a tear down. Donald

Trump's got a lot of work cut out for

him. That's what I'm talking about. Face

mask optional, baby.

And you have to have gloves. You have to

have work boots, safety glasses, hard

hats. But what does it say about the

mask? Optional. Thank you, Jack. We got

weeds coming out of the gutters.

Might have uh more problems than we

bargained for. Where are the gutters?

All the way up the top. Oh, yeah.

Where's the broken glass on the windows?

This is not what I was pitched. Okay.

Expectation versus reality. here. I get

a little bit of mildew on the walls.

When I get over there, I get netting. I

get falling concrete. I get broken

windows. You know, this this is a trick.

It's clickbait. It's Look at that. It's

like they got a new apartment building

right there. That's not what I saw over

there. Look, it's clickbait water. Yeah.

Why not advertise these things that you

told us here? I feel like nobody else

knows about this. We'll we'll try a

little advertising and see how it goes.

Congratulations, man. You have done so

much. People love you. People look up to

you. Kevin Praath there, financial

analyst and YouTuber, Meet Kevin. Always

great to get your take.