It’s a new era of Selling the OC. After saying goodbye to some cast members (only one Alex standing!) and welcoming a few new faces, Season 4 was full of not-so-friendly competition, scandalous rumors, and, of course, multimillion dollar listings. But no one is more of a fan of this season than the CEO of The Oppenheim Group himself.
“This season, hands down, is the best drama and the best real estate that we’ve ever seen on Selling the OC,” Jason Oppenheim tells Tudum.
At the center of the drama and real estate Venn diagram was Alex Hall. Fresh off snagging the listing to Jason’s $15 million personal residence and feuding with new agent Ashtyn Zerboni, Alex got into a black car with the last words of the season: “I don’t really know what the future holds.” Tudum sat down with the cast to get all the answers to what’s happened since the cameras stopped rolling.
Keep reading to learn who was truly responsible for #FlirtGate, whether we can expect any wedding announcements soon, and if there are updates on the coveted listing.
Before Season 4 aired, the last we’d heard of Tyler was that he left The Oppenheim Group to join his family’s business. Well, he was back this season after more than a year of “soul-searching” following his divorce in Season 2.
“I had the whole world watching this public thing unfold, and there was so much pressure,” he says of that time in his life. “When your life is in a good place, you are more confident, you're able to communicate and handle situations better.” And boy did he have plenty of communication to catch up on.
At the start of the new season, word spread quickly (thanks to new cast member Ashtyn) that Tyler was dating someone else while he pursued Alex. Tensions were high as he began appearing at gatherings of mutual friends again. But things really came to a head when the two had a vulnerable and tequila-fueled conversation during Gio’s birthday trip. Apologies were made, but where do they stand now?
“After that conversation, we both just took a deep breath and were able to squash it once and for all,” Alex says. “I think that conversation maybe could have been had without so much alcohol involved, but I think that we were uninhibited, and it was heartfelt. It needed to be had if we were going to ever move forward and be in the same room together.” Tyler says he and Alex are finally on the same page. “We have talked about everything that ever needs to be talked about,” he says. “So everything is good, but I’m just very, very, very happy that this will-they-won’t-they story that has lingered for so long is finally over.”
Now that they’ve closed that chapter, Tyler is “very happily” seeing somebody. “We just have the most fun together,” Tyler says about his current partner. “It’s amazing when you find somebody with similar values, how much easier it is. I don’t feel like I’m having to make myself smaller in any way to make this relationship work.” In fact, it’s going so well that he proposed to his girlfriend, Hannah Morrissey, in October.
The season ends with Alex packing up her place in Orange County to move into a new home in Temecula with her boyfriend, Ian. And no, this isn’t the first time they’ve gotten together. (Ian and Alex briefly dated before Tyler entered the picture.) Unfortunately, not everyone is a fan of the new (old?) BF.
“[Alex] is lowering that bar way too far,” Gio said during the season. “He’s just a little puppy dog following her around, and maybe she’s dating the opposite of what Tyler is to try to get over him.” Regardless of anyone’s opinion, after Alex and Ian celebrated signing the papers on their new home (alongside Polly’s handsome birthday waiters), Ian floated the idea of marriage. So is there a plan to get married anytime soon?
Alex says they’re at a bit of a standstill given their “two completely different lifestyles.” With her two kids and work being based in the OC, the transition to living together in Temecula is taking longer than expected. “I’ve still got my place here in Orange County. We’ve also got the house in Temecula,” she says. “Trying to merge both [lifestyles] is what we’re trying to figure out right now. But everything’s going great, and I’m still very excited.”
Ashtyn found herself in the middle of a lot of drama in her first season. “I feel like maybe staying out of the drama would’ve been a better idea for me,” she says. “I am a little bit into gossip, clearly. But I think the takeaway is just really [to] keep your head down and sell real estate.”
One of the biggest rumors of the season started at Ashtyn’s baby shower, when the mom-to-be confronted Alex about Andrew, a mutual client. She claimed Andrew’s girlfriend, and a good friend of hers, was upset that Alex and fellow newbie Fiona Belle were flirting with him during a pitch for his listing — a listing Ashtyn and Kaylee were also interested in. When Fiona reached out to him via Instagram to get to the bottom of it, Andrew denied any flirting.
After the receipts were pulled up on her phone, Ashtyn says Andrew didn’t want to have “drama with the girls” and instead tried to “brush it under the rug,” which led to his denying he said anything about them in the first place. “I don’t think he realized that it was going to make the situation worse for me in the end,” Ashtyn says.
Alex and Fiona have a different perspective on the whole debacle. “I don’t think there’s any confusion,” Alex says. “I think that, unfortunately, the hard truth is that some people lie and get caught in their lies, and that’s not always pretty.”
Ashtyn blames the “miscommunication” on being “emotional” about Alex trying to “poach the listing.” “If I had known that it was going to bother [Andrew], I would’ve never even brought it up,” Ashtyn says. “But I think in the heat of the moment with Alex … I just word vomited and threw it on top just because I was upset, and [it] just kind of [inflamed] the situation.”
Kaylee feels a bit differently about any allegations of poaching. “I crank rentals and I have rented his property out multiple times, so he and I have a working relationship,” she says. With all the money she’d “funneled to him” over the years, she was disappointed he didn’t choose her as his listing agent.
Ultimately, Andrew signed with Ashtyn. “We are currently waiting for the market to kind of become just better,” she says. “It’s a little bit on the downside right now.” Also, she just had a baby! So she’s a little busy.
Yes, Gio Helou is still disappointed about not getting Cypress. “I think I deserved it as much as [Alex] Hall, if not more,” he says. “And it’s not so much the one listing. I felt like, for me, it was what that Cypress listing represented, as far as respect in Jason’s eyes.”
So how did Jason make the tough decision with all these “deserving” agents to choose from? “Gio’s career is already taking off. He is already super, super successful. I think Alex is just right on the precipice. So as much as it might not have been fair to everyone … I gave it to Alex because, one, she produces, and two, she works really hard and balances work-life very well. And I also just think that she could use the listing to help bolster her career.”
Polly Brindle admits she was probably too busy for another listing, but she’s “still furious about [Cypress].” Thank goodness she had some eye candy this season to distract her.
For years, viewers have watched Polly grow in her real estate career, but this season she got a little more personal with a certain mustached blonde. (Bravo fans might recognize Luke Gulbranson from Summer House.) “It was fun,” she says, but also “nerve-racking” to be vulnerable with a new person, especially on camera. “When you’re single for so long, you get set in your ways, and you’re like, ‘No, it’s got to be perfect.’ ”
The two were buzzing with chemistry last time we saw them, but while “Luke is great,” Polly is hesitant to take the next step until he moves closer. As of now, Luke is still in New York, but Polly hints, “Maybe that will change.”
Luke pivoted to real estate in May 2024 (working with Andy Cohen himself), so who knows? “I think he would be a great addition to The Oppenheim Group,” Polly says.
