‘Shahs of Sunset’ Star Reza Farahan Reveals Why He’s Given Up His Life of Luxury To Move Into an ‘Embarrassing Old-Lady House’ in the Valley

“Shahs of Sunset” star Reza Farahan is forgoing his flashy ways to forge his own real estate empire in California’s San Fernando Valley, where he has taken up residence in a rustic dwelling he describes as an "old lady house" so he can earn a lucrative income by renting out his much more luxurious abode.

While the temporary relocation to the much more modest of his two homes in the area has required the reality TV star to sacrifice some of the more extravagant aspects of his day-to-day life, he reveals in the latest installment of Celebrity Sanctuary that the move is already paying off—literally.

“We actually own two houses on the same street across the street from one another, and I’ve just been stacking chips,” he tells Realtor.com®, noting that this business-first way of thinking was inspired by his father.

“I was raised by a Persian Jew who taught me you pay cash. You don't pay interest on credit cards. If you can't afford it, don't buy it. You don't lease cars, you buy them. You stack your chips. You buy real estate so when you're old, you have rental income because we don't have 401(k)s or pensions,” he says. “My family, they were immigrants, and so he instilled this in me nonstop.”

The 52-year-old reality TV personality and real estate agent purchased and renovated his first North Hollywood, CA, home during his nine-year run on the hit Bravo series that followed his tight-knit group of Persian-American friends, including Mercedes “MJ” Javid.

The property appeared in a number of “Shahs” scenes with Farahan and his husband of 10 years, Adam Neely, though it’s perhaps recognized more for being the site of an alleged trespassing and vandalism incident involving MJ’s ex-husband, Tommy Feight, than it is for the top-to-bottom modern makeover Farahan proudly completed there.

“The Tommy-scene house is [totally customized],” says Farahan. “We picked where the outlets were. We have waterfall edges on the countertops. Everything we wanted in a house is in that house.”

Farahan has since moved on from the fallout at that home in more ways than one: In addition to returning to reality TV on the new Bravo spinoff series, “The Valley: Persian Style,” he and Javid have repaired their friendship, and Farahan acquired and relocated to his second North Hollywood property, which he describes as a “quintessential valley California” ranch-style home that’s located steps away from his first one.

“The house that you're seeing on ‘The Valley: Persian Style,’ you've never seen before,” Farahan confirms about the 1948-built, three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 1,600-square-foot abode that has not yet been upgraded like his previous address or the dwellings his posh castmates call home.

“We live in a house that was not touched in 50 years, so it's kind of embarrassing because my castmates live in these gorgeous homes and we live in a house that needs a remodel like no one's business,” admits the author of “Memoirs of a Gay Shah: My Story of Family, Fame, and Becoming a King.”

In this edition of Celebrity Sanctuary, Farahan explains how embracing a more low-key lifestyle is helping him maximize the value both of his homes in the valley generate: As one earns him passive income, the other brings him peace, particularly when spending time in the unique den room located at the center of the house that he says truly centers him.

When I grew up, only the poor Persians lived in the valley—like my poor relatives who couldn't afford to live in Beverly Hills lived in the valley. Growing up and getting to a certain age, I realized that side of the hill, the energy was not the vibe that Adam and I wanted anymore. We wanted a much more suburban vibe.

I ended up selling a house in Toluca Lake proper, two blocks away from us, for $7 million, and I was, like, "This neighborhood is amazing." It’s so quiet. The streets aren't lined with cars back to back. People aren't whizzing through all the streets to get to where they were going. It just had such a calming vibe and exactly what I needed at the time. That's why we ended up moving to the valley.

Even though it's North Hollywood, we like to call it Toluca Lake. The area is called Toluca Woods, so it's like the bootleg version of Toluca Lake connected to Toluca Woods.

We bought our [first] house in [the] beginning of 2017 and spent a year renovating. We took it down to the studs. [In] 2022, we bought the house across the street.

We used to live in [the] beautiful house that we still own that we rented out to one of the victims of the Eaton fire, so they're living in our gorgeous, beautiful house, fully furnished across the street, enjoying a very beautifully remodeled home, and we live in a house that a beautiful, elderly woman lived in for 50 years.

When we found out she was selling it, I told Adam I ran some numbers and I'm, like, "Honey, if we buy the house across the street and we rent our house out, because of the down payment we put on the house and the fact that we paid cash for all the remodeling and pool and additions and everything, they will pay for us to live across the street. We need to buy that house.” 

I left her a little Post-it note. I was, like, "I don't know what it looks like on the inside. It doesn't matter what you want to sell it for, I'm buying your house." She called me. We wrote an offer sight unseen. We bought the house, and we just painted it, put new flooring in, and we moved in.

We were doing Airbnb on the fancy house, and it started to become too much work. Then, when the show was about to start, we were like, “Airbnb is too much work, so let's find a long-term tenant.” We put the house that we used to Airbnb—the nice one that we bought in 2017—on the market as a fully-furnished rental. Because it had been [an] Airbnb, it had everything in it.

We met this amazing couple who had lost their home in the Eaton fire, who have [now] become friends of ours, and they live directly across the street. We have dinner with them. They're the loveliest couple. So they live in our beautiful house, and we live in the old-lady house.

When we bought [the old-lady house], after we put the down payment, we had, like, $400,000 left over. The house had a huge garage and a recreation room of about 1,000 square feet, and so we were, like, “Let's convert that into an ADU and my mom will move into it." 

We spent $400,000 building the most beautiful ADU, and when we were done, my mom goes, "I don't want to move to the valley."

We have a tenant in [the] ADU paying us $3,500 a month, so we're renting across the street and we're renting in our backyard, but you wouldn't know because we live on a corner and we put a wall in between our yard and the ADU, so you don't even know that there's another house back there.

In the old-lady house, it's old-lady style. It’s, like, living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, TV room—everything's separate. There's no big, open space. If you're in the kitchen, you can't talk to the people in other parts of the house. 

But there's this one room in the heart of the house that's a family room, TV room, den, and my husband and I, we watch TV in that room. It is the quintessential old-lady den. It's paneled with wood paneling. It's white all the way around.

It has a fan that, literally, you could maybe fly to Las Vegas on this fan! It is so disproportionate to the size of the room. Every single room in our house—instead of a light fixture—has a ceiling fan with lights in it. It's laughable. It desperately needs an upgrade, but I love every single thing about it.

There's glass sliders out to our backyard, and there's 47 other doorways. There's a door to the primary bedroom. There's a door to another bedroom and a door to the hallway. It's literally in the heart of the house, and it leads to all the other parts of the house.

It's not very big. We painted it white. It was very, like, honey-colored wood with a heavy, heavy shellac on it before we painted it white, but it just makes me feel so good.

The reason why I love it, it has a shelf. It's got paneling that we painted white, but it has a shelf maybe 6 to 10 inches below the ceiling. It's got this little ridge all the way around the room, and every knickknack, frame, little tchotchke that we purchased on trips, all the little trinkets and gadgets that are important to us, line the shelf that wraps around the room. 

The piece of art in the room is a photo I painted in 1979 after we had just gotten to America. It was framed and hanging in my parents' house, and now it's hanging in our room with all of our belongings. 

We sit in this room. My husband and I watch TV in that room, and Marty, our dog, sits on the couch. It's the place I feel the most comfort, at ease. I feel recharged. All these little things that I love looking at, it's the reason why I love that room. It just, it feels like home in that room to me.

Any time I need to recharge, like when I get home, I kick off my shoes, I take all of my clothes off, and I just sit in my underwear on my couch with my dog. 

Just being in that room, surrounded by all of these objects that are really meaningful to me, from little stuffed animals that Adam has given me from Valentine's Day to seashells that we collected with one another in Kauai and Hawaii on a trip, to awards I've gotten, family photos of both of our families—they're just all there, and they energize me.

They fill me back up because I'm out in the world, I'm showing houses, I'm shooting TV shows. I expend a lot of energy, and sitting in that room and just being in a space with all of these things that are special and meaningful to me, just recharges me and gives me the energy I need to go back in the world and do it all over again.

This house, the way it is right now, it’s so not who I am. But the way the house functions for what my husband and I are doing for our future makes so much sense for us. Adam and I have been saving up for a really massive remodel that we plan to do in the very near future.