Real estate themes in the new season of "The Apprentice" are really hitting home this time around.

Given the source of much of his wealth and power, the show's host, real estate magnate Donald Trump, always puts realty aspects front and center during the competition among hopefuls looking to avoid getting the ax.

Season Three, for example, really turned the reality show into a realty show when five members of one team and three members of the other hailed from the world of real estate, most of them with residential experience.

The winner that season was revealed as the canny and cunning Kendra Todd, in real life an investor and managing broker of MyHouseRE.com, a Boynton Beach, FL-based firm offering investment advice and property matching services for its clients.

Todd also became the first woman to win "The Apprentice" competition.

This time around, there are fewer real estate professionals attempting not to get the pursed-lip "You're fired!" order to pack their bags.

However, instead of a stuffy board room in Trump Towers in Manhattan, the action takes place in the stuffy board room in a massive swanky mansion overlooking the City of Angels -- smog and all.

"The Apprentice" website offers a tour of the property.

Season Six, dubbed "The Apprentice Los Angeles" is the first time the show isn't filmed in New York City and comes with a haves-and-have not spin on the punishment doled out each week to the losing team.

Each week, the winning team not only gets a lavish victory celebration, but also a night to crash in the 14,000 square foot, 9-bedroom, 12-bathroom mansion-compound. The losers live in a small "tent city" in the backyard. In previous seasons both the winner and loser retired after each task to a hotel suite.

The mansion, like most mansions, is furnished with opulence. The best the tent city has to offer is outdoor plumbing.

Still, as any really homeless person will tell you, it's not easy getting up after a night in a tent and being competitive and productive.

In the new season's first episode, the first to get the boot was one of the five contestents with a real estate background.

So who are the real estate pros this time around to root for?

"We only give out first names of contestants for privacy reasons," says Jill Carmen with NBC's publicity office.

Representing five of the 18 contestants in the sixth installment of "The Apprentice", they are:

• "Aaron, The Adapter," 25, of Fredericksburg, VA, is a community sales manager for a Fortune 150 homebuilder.

• Martin, The Philosopher," 37, of Atlanta, GA, is a senior assistant city attorney responsible for real estate, communications, utilities and commercial transaction contracts and negotiations. After nearly bended-knee begging to stay, he was the first to hear "You're fired!

• "Frank, The Mouth," 27, Bronx, NY, is founder and CEO of a construction and real estate development firm.

• "Michelle, The Closer," 34, Los Angeles, CA, is a real estate remodel and design consultant and investor.

• "Nicole, The Dreamer," 25, Chicago, IL, is owner/broker of a commercial real estate acquisitions company and investor.

Tune in and see how the "home" team fares in the coming weeks.

Published: January 12, 2007

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.