Jeff Lewis, the real-life obsessive-compulsive control-freak star of the new Bravo series “Flipping Out,” is that character. Intermittently arrogant, cutthroat and self-doubting, Lewis would seem unbelievable if he didn’t actually exist.

Lewis is a successful, risk-taking real estate investor who seems ever on the brink of financial ruin as he buys, remodels and sells high-end LA residential properties. He’ll buy a fixer-upper in a desirable neighborhood for $1 million, do a six-week remodel, and resell it for $1.5 million. He may juggle half a dozen properties at once, all in various states of remodeling.

Lewis's handful of assistants work out of his home office, one of the properties he’s hoping to flip, and they are his informal family, never mind that he seems to fire them time after time.

What makes “Flipping,” which airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m., so fascinating is that it works on almost every level.

It’s part character study, part family drama, part broad comedy. It’s even a good home improvement show, in the tradition of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and “Trading Spaces,” or better, A&E's "Flip This House."

And nearly every mesmerizing element of the series begins with Lewis, who, bizarre as he may be, is also a visionary when it comes to picking properties to flip and then flipping them successfully.

As "Flipping” opens, we meet Lewis and his helpers. There's his executive assistant, Jenni, also a voiceover actress, and Chris, who cleans properties for Lewis when he’s not auditioning for acting roles. He's also Jenni's husband.

Jenni's been fired two or three times but Chris estimates that he’s been fired six times in his seven years with Lewis.

We meet Lewis’s first house assistant, Stephen, as he's taking Lewis’s cat, Monkey, to his acupuncture appointments, and we're also introduced to the maid, Zoila. We learn that she tires easily, as when she moves a couple of pillows. (Some of these folks are almost as unhinged as Lewis.)

Part of the fun of "Flipping" comes from watching his put-upon staff bear up in the face of his exacting standards. He maintains copious lists of responsibilities that he passes out each day. Bottled water must be refrigerated with labels facing outwards. Stephen is instructed to explain the acupuncture procedure to the cat on the way to the vet.

Everyone is required to participate in pre-sale house blessings. Lewis believes one property may need an exorcism. Most of his employees take in Lewis’s demands with bewildered stares, followed by resigned shrugs.

Through it all, Lewis is ever on the verge of meltdown, which he tries to stave off with both a spiritual healer and a psychic, whom he asks for advice about property purchases. His love life appears nonexistent. His ex-boyfriend Ryan is now his business partner. Ryan seems to be the sanest person in Lewis’s life but even he can’t contain the guy’s manic energy.

"Flipping" is shot in a matter-of-fact, near-documentary style, with little visual fuss. The producers clearly realize there's drama enough in the wacky personalities and the anxiety-filled flipping process. They trust the cameras to take in the chaotic activity of Lewis's world as it actually happens.

The amazing thing is that this dysfunctional universe that Lewis has created produces gorgeous homes, his passion for creating stunning residences trumping his neuroses. At one point he says he’s fortunate to have found a business that, as he puts it, “validates and celebrates my disorders.”

Actually, he’s found two. The other is reality television.