House Hunters, please Buy Me: real estate shows

[Deleted]

brookie said:

Ugh. My bubble has been burst for "House Hunters" - not that I didn't suspect the fakiness. Sometimes, I swear it looks like the "hunters" and their agents are reading from a script that's either been cued on the floors or the walls of the house. And, I'm constantly yelling at the TV, "Ever heard of Home Depot? They sell paint and carpeting! You too can decorate your own new house, assholes!"

And I adore "Divine Design". To have Candace and the guys redo anything in my house would be a little slice of heaven. Does she work with the HO's budget, or is it provided by the show?

People are just LAZY. They don't want to paint and they cannot afford to go in and drop a bunch of cash on changing stuff because odds are, they are getting one of those no money down craptastic loans, and have no cash. Don't get me started on people in our neighborhood that will buy a 250,000.00 house and put three shrubs in the front yard. I know I am painting with a broad brush, but I just see it over and over again among the people I know.

[nitenurse]

Borokat, I know what you mean. We live in the "old" part of our subdivision (26yo houses). I cringe everytime I drive by the "new" part of the 'hood. No lawn, no fence, no nothing. But I see the boxes from the huge, flat screen TVs, the new cars in the driveways (and I mean at least two cars to every driveway).

As my dear old grannie would say "furcoat, no knickers".

[grumpygirl]

crankyoldbroad said:

My dream would to be able to hire Candace to come down here and redo any room in my house. She and her crew do some amazing stuff!

I want her to redo my whole house. Her stuff isn't weird or pretentious, it's just beautiful and comfortable. And I love Chico and the carpenter and all of them. Have you ever seen their hour-long "behind the scenes" show? It's a fabulous look at what it really takes to get the show on the air and how many dozens of people are working their butts off behind the scenes. They didn't even try to fake that the team of four do everything.

[Deleted]

Anyone else watching "Flipping Out"? I just finished watching my first episode. A psychic was taking the guy's cat to get acupuncture. This show is great. heh!

[grumpygirl]

whitefalcon said:

Anyone else watching "Flipping Out"? I just finished watching my first episode. A psychic was taking the guy's cat to get acupuncture. This show is great. heh!

It's a real estate show? I haven't heard of it.

[Deleted]

Yes, it's on Bravo. The main guy is a compulsive obsessive gay man who has worker-slaves surrounding him and doing his bidding. It's great, you have to catch it.

He has to have all his food labels facing out and everyone has to watch out for his cat or they get fired. Real Greecie fare. ;D

[grumpygirl]

whitefalcon said:

Yes, it's on Bravo. The main guy is a compulsive obsessive gay man who has worker-slaves surrounding him and doing his bidding. It's great, you have to catch it.

He has to have all his food labels facing out and everyone has to watch out for his cat or they get fired. Real Greecie fare. ;D

Oh, right, I saw the ads for it. The guy looks like a design nazi!

[Deleted]

borokat said:

brookie said:

Ugh. My bubble has been burst for "House Hunters" - not that I didn't suspect the fakiness. Sometimes, I swear it looks like the "hunters" and their agents are reading from a script that's either been cued on the floors or the walls of the house. And, I'm constantly yelling at the TV, "Ever heard of Home Depot? They sell paint and carpeting! You too can decorate your own new house, assholes!"

And I adore "Divine Design". To have Candace and the guys redo anything in my house would be a little slice of heaven. Does she work with the HO's budget, or is it provided by the show?

People are just LAZY. They don't want to paint and they cannot afford to go in and drop a bunch of cash on changing stuff because odds are, they are getting one of those no money down craptastic loans, and have no cash. Don't get me started on people in our neighborhood that will buy a 250,000.00 house and put three shrubs in the front yard. I know I am painting with a broad brush, but I just see it over and over again among the people I know.

Hey! We got one of those no money down loans!

But we got a loan for far far less than the mortgage company wanted us to take a loan out for. If we'd listened to him we would have been totally house poor. No money left over for anything.

In fact, we bought the cheaper condo in our building but could then afford to paint, get the closets done and buy window coverings whereas other people in our building spent more but one year later they STILL have those fake sticky paper window coverings up from home depot.

I think that's the problem with a lot of the home sales now. Just because you CAN get a loan for $400,000, doesn't mean you have to take a loan for $400,000.

[bitterntwisted]

Yeah, and because of the those loans the stock market is spinning out out control and foreclosures everywhere you look. Don't you just love capitalism?

These shows are my crack. I watch far too many flip this, flip that, cut the clutter, less is more, style of selling home shows then should be legal. There is this one show they have on BBC Canada called How to be a Property Developer, what a trainwreck. These people are given money to buy 3 properties to flip and make a profit and man are they useless. I can't believe that some people will just buy a property sight unseen or have no housing inspection and then be lumbered by a money pit.

[Mugsy]

It's hard to keep all these shows apart, since the names seem so similar. But someone mentioned one earlier that redoes a house for a couple hundred bucks to make it sell quicker, and one of the designer's "tricks" is to put a bedsheet over an old table. Why not just buy an inexpensive tablecloth? The price is about the same as a bedsheet and doesn't look so stupid. I don't understand why these potential buyers don't point at it derisively and say, "Look, they have a bedsheet on their table!"

And in Take This House and Sell It, the designer has a conniption about every little thing in people's houses, and redoes entire rooms (including buying new furniture!) to make the house sell, when a bit of decluttering would probably work just as well. Yet, in House Hunters, they often tour houses that have weird furniture or bright paint colours, and the potential HOs just say, "Well, we'd have to paint the living room."

Such a disparity is what is "necessary" to sell.