He’s been well-known in his native New Orleans his whole life, but The Deed‘s Sidney Torres is becoming a nationwide fixture in the house flipping game. The multimillionaire scion of a family whose ties to the city go back generations, Sidney’s made fortunes a number of different ways. Now, he’s turning his benevolent eye to the reality TV game, and offering a twist on the standard renovation TV formula.
The new season of The Deed, CNBC’s high-profile attempt at capturing a piece of the HGTV pie, features Sidney using “his experience to guide rookie homebuilders and developers on what to do and what not to do, and what sells,” as he explained for The Advocate when the show debuted last year.
The biggest difference is that Sidney’s putting up his own money, essentially investing in those rookies as much as the rookies are in their house flipping projects. And there’s certainly no shortage of money to go around.
How did Sidney Torres make his money? How much is he worth?
Sidney told India Hicks that he’d made his first million by 23. According to the now-legendary story, Sidney wanted to try his hand at a quick house flip, but couldn’t afford the property on his then-meager salary. So his grandmother agreed to co-sign on the loan — and her $40,000 investment had become, by Sidney’s own estimate, a $100 million real estate fortune within seven years.
Of course, Sidney didn’t stop at that nice round figure. By The Deed‘s series premiere last spring, People reported that Sidney Torres IV’s fortune was a whopping $250 million, the majority of it coming from house flips and real estate investments on a grand scale. In 2013, for example, Sidney opened The Cove, a resort in the Bahamas that he also flipped himself.
Sidney Torres got his first taste of reality TV with a successful trash collection business
In addition to house flipping, Sidney’s other big venture has been garbage collection. Per The Advocate:
Hurricane Katrina created a different opportunity: garbage. [Sidney] founded SDT Waste & Debris Services and won contracts to clean the French Quarter. The company’s signature black trucks with the bull logo famously sprayed a “lemony fresh scent.”
Torres, soon dubbed “Trashanova,” managed to make trash collection glamorous. Kravitz and another buddy, Kid Rock, appeared in SDT commercials. Torres, with typical intensity, was not averse to getting his hands dirty.
In 2009, he shot a pilot for “Trashmen,” a proposed show about his SDT team’s exploits. It aired in early 2010 on TLC, but the network opted not to proceed with a full series.
Sidney sold SDT in 2011, and founded IV Capital, an investment firm, shortly thereafter.
But that wasn’t all. Sidney Torres’ net worth has also been influenced by his creation of a crime-fighting app, one that got a glowing review in the New York Times and has helped clean up the streets of New Orleans as figuratively as Sidney’s trash collection has done literally.
And let’s not forget that net worth estimates are subject to some fluctuation. While People said that Sidney Torres is worth about $250 million, Fortune was willing to go even higher, claiming that Sidney is actually worth something more like $300 million.
Speaking of houses, Sidey offered fans a tour of his own New Orleans home shortly before The Deed‘s series premiere last year:
Take a home tour with @sidneydtorresiv, host of our new show, @thedeedcnbc! #Periscope360 #TheDeedCNBC https://t.co/P3H3YUrQ53
— CNBC Prime (@CNBCPrimeTV) January 21, 2017
You can follow Sidney on Instagram here, and on Twitter here. And you can see Sidney in action when The Deed’s new season airs Wednesdays at 10 PM on CNBC.
(Photo credits: How did Sidney Torres make his money via Instagram)
John Sharp is a Starcasm editor. E-mail tips to john@starcasm.net or send on Twitter at @john_starcasm.
