The Money Mustache Community
Around the Internet => Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy => Topic started by: daymare on July 07, 2015, 06:33:57 PM
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Saw several people mention HGTV shows in the Big Houses thread -- I will confess, I really do love watching their shows (currently obsessed with the Scott brothers (Property Brothers, Buying & Selling, Brother vs Brother) -- miiight have a bit of a crush on Jonathan). They have some really hilarious non-HGTV appropriate humor on their social media, plus wholesome hilarious stuff like Toddler vs Toddler.
A lot of the shows really make me scratch my head - Everyone seems to pick the house with the most square footage - this is basically my nightmare, tons to clean and maintain and expensive to heat. Or when a couple has to come up with several thousand dollars for a renovation or closing costs or whatever (depends on the show and its premise). I always wonder, especially since these are often families with kids ... Gosh, how can you not have an emergency fund? How do you not have enough saved that you can weather a cost like that without stress?
House Hunters is basically a drinking game - drink whenever a couple want a game room, man cave, kid playroom, 2x as many bedrooms as people, when they say 'this master seems really small ... I don't think we can fit all our furniture", etc.
I recently binge-watched a bunch of Buying & Selling on hulu ... the premise is basically a couple wants to sell their house and move somewhere bigger/better. The hosts show them a bunch of new houses and renovate their current house for 10K to get the house sold for 30K more than its current condition. Hilarious how every time the owners decide that the house's value should be determined by what they need for a new down-payment. And basically, the show ends with a reveal of their newly renovated house, which looks a million times better because of updates, and also because the owners' ugly oversize and bland furniture is removed, as is all the CLUTTER. I always wonder - how come no couple realizes that their space can be a lot more functional/workable/beautiful if they put some effort in? Why does nobody change their mind and realize 'actually, our house fits our needs and we don't need to spend more money'?
Any hilarious (or ridiculous) moments you remember from HGTV shows?
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This isn't really "hilarious" so much as "predictable." DH and I used to watch "Love It or List It" pretty often, in which a decorator gets a budget to renovate the home and make the people want to stay, competing against a realtor trying to find their dream home and convince them to move. I probably didn't explain that well, but the point is that the renovation always goes WAY over budget and essentially the decorator cleans and paints because there's never money left after some surprise structural issue no one saw coming in the 80 year old house. Hubby and I decided people on the show just want to pay $50,000 for someone to declutter their houses. Can't even watch it anymore. :-P
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The worst Love It or List It is when they give one an increase in budget and not the other. I also find it funny that they don't factor in any increased value in their initial budget for the list it option.
I got sick of that show.
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and also because the owners' ugly oversize and bland furniture is removed, as is all the CLUTTER.
But then those same people will be house hunters who say, "But will our furniture fit?" while shopping for a new home.
Why is that in every single show, on their top 5 list of Most Important Things is whether or not their furniture fits?
I just want to shout, "Who cares?!?! If your furniture doesn't fit, then get rid of it!"
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I lost count of how many times people on House Hunters went over their "budgets." I'm always surprised when someone actually stays within the amount they said was their max at the beginning of the show.
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Oh, man, how many hours of my life have I wasted on HGTV? :-) One of my work friends and his wife were on House Hunters about five years ago. They were newlyweds looking to move out of their "tiny" apartment into a new home. In the episode, they had to keep bumping into each other in their old small kitchen, and my friend was definitely all about the "man cave," haha! Anyhow, he told us that to be selected for the show, you need to have your new home already under contract or closed. They filmed the entire episode in one weekend -- it might have even been just one day, but I can't remember -- and they were told to bring multiple outfits so that they could change and make it look like they were visiting the options and making their decision over multiple days. He said the money the network paid them was negligible. His wife just thought it would be a fun experience.
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Oh, man, how many hours of my life have I wasted on HGTV? :-) One of my work friends and his wife were on House Hunters about five years ago. They were newlyweds looking to move out of their "tiny" apartment into a new home. In the episode, they had to keep bumping into each other in their old small kitchen, and my friend was definitely all about the "man cave," haha! Anyhow, he told us that to be selected for the show, you need to have your new home already under contract or closed. They filmed the entire episode in one weekend -- it might have even been just one day, but I can't remember -- and they were told to bring multiple outfits so that they could change and make it look like they were visiting the options and making their decision over multiple days. He said the money the network paid them was negligible. His wife just thought it would be a fun experience.
So it's a fake reality tv show?
That's just lovely.
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Oh, man, how many hours of my life have I wasted on HGTV? :-) One of my work friends and his wife were on House Hunters about five years ago. They were newlyweds looking to move out of their "tiny" apartment into a new home. In the episode, they had to keep bumping into each other in their old small kitchen, and my friend was definitely all about the "man cave," haha! Anyhow, he told us that to be selected for the show, you need to have your new home already under contract or closed. They filmed the entire episode in one weekend -- it might have even been just one day, but I can't remember -- and they were told to bring multiple outfits so that they could change and make it look like they were visiting the options and making their decision over multiple days. He said the money the network paid them was negligible. His wife just thought it would be a fun experience.
So it's a fake reality tv show?
That's just lovely.
Wait, are there people who still think non-fake reality tv shows exist? ;-)
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The worst Love It or List It is when they give one an increase in budget and not the other. I also find it funny that they don't factor in any increased value in their initial budget for the list it option.
I got sick of that show.
The worst is that they keep hiring that designer. She hasn't had a single episode where she didn't blow the budget because of some unexpected cost.:)
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I still remember the House Hunters where the single, first-time home buyer was obsessed with getting a house that already had a doggie door for her dog. Like, that seemed to dictate which house she ended up buying. A $50 dog door that any one with a saw and a screw driver could install in half an hour.
Recently I've caught a couple episodes of the fixer upper show, and if the home owner has a $280K budget, and buys the house for $200K, they just have to use every cent remaining in their budget. In fact, part of the show is the designer saying "OK, I have 3K left, so do you want to spend it on X, Y or Z?" As if it would be a crime to leave ANY money available credit on the table.
Our realtors have been flabbergasted both times we bought houses at like half of what we were pre-approved for, but naturally a bigger sale = bigger commission, so it makes sense to upsell and not worry about how house poor the client will be with a mortgage payment that's half their take-home pay.
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Used to watch HGTV when we still had satellite TV. Now I watch it once in awhile at the gym. Mr. LC and I have been married for 30 years and we still don't have bedroom set. We have a dresser, bookcase and nightstand that are refurbished cast offs. We spent $26 on lumber to build the bed frame and topped it with a thick foam mattress. Works for us just fine.
The episodes that have my head shaking the most are the House Hunters that feature single people. Not sure I would want to risk a huge mortgage on a single income. I know people do it all the time but it feels too risky to me.
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The worst Love It or List It is when they give one an increase in budget and not the other. I also find it funny that they don't factor in any increased value in their initial budget for the list it option.
I got sick of that show.
The worst is that they keep hiring that designer. She hasn't had a single episode where she didn't blow the budget because of some unexpected cost.:)
"Oh no, something unexpected and expensive happened right after they saw the second house that they hated! If only I could have planned for this happening... every single episode."
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The worst Love It or List It is when they give one an increase in budget and not the other. I also find it funny that they don't factor in any increased value in their initial budget for the list it option.
I got sick of that show.
The worst is that they keep hiring that designer. She hasn't had a single episode where she didn't blow the budget because of some unexpected cost.:)
That's the thing I hate about that show: they portray both the designer and the real estate agent as completely incompetent. I want to watch shows like Holmes on Homes or This Old House where I can learn to do things correctly, not watch somebody fuck up! I'm surprised the designer and agent put up with it.
(Okay, I'll make an exception for Renovation Realities, but that's different...)
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I found it baffling when a woman went over budget on Tiny House Hunters. The initial goal was simply, downsize, affordable, and she still got sucked into the emotional higher cost purchase, instead of staying within/under budget! Though it was still a tiny movable house.
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What annoys me is they never focus on important things - is the neighborhood safe, what school district is the house in. Or you can tell that they were told to add things to their wishlist - stuff like a 'modern kitchen' even though they never even point it out during the 'tours'.
My favorite episode of house hunters, a Univ professor and SAHM with 2 kids, wanted to move closer to the university and get more space. Budget was like 350k. Sounds 'normal'. Fast forward to the end - 425K and 15minutes FURTHER away, but hey, this house had a pool and was closer to the SAHW's twice monthly mommy & me group. Now she only needs to drive 15minutes rather than 30min - and screw the dad who has to drive an extra 15min every day.
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Netflix has added a bunch of HGTV shows, so I am really enjoying watching them all. But they are generally NOT mustachian friendly! The one I was WTF! about what "Flea Market Flip". A guy took a dresser and made an "indoor stoop"- which was a set of stairs with the ugliest fur rug on them. Someone actually bought it- I wish I remember the price, but these things are always at least a few hundred dollars.
I read a blog once that said Love it or List it always films both endings and the producers decide what to use. Almost everything on HGTV is fake. (House Hunters they already have bought a house, and the house they tour may have not been available for sale when they searched; or could be their friends homes.)
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House Hunters International is awesome. Real estate porn and travel porn rolled into one. I drool.
Also, it seems a little more "real" than regular flavor House Hunters. Outside of the US, you just get what you get.
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House Hunters International is awesome. Real estate porn and travel porn rolled into one. I drool.
Also, it seems a little more "real" than regular flavor House Hunters. Outside of the US, you just get what you get.
I like international better too, if only because all the houses are different. Not sure it is more real, if you read blogs- a lot of those people are recruited for the show and have been in the house for years!
I always like when the realtor says "now this one is way outside your price range, but I thought you might like it." Which to me is code for "This show is fake anyway, so let's show the viewers an awesome house."
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House Hunters International is awesome. Real estate porn and travel porn rolled into one. I drool.
Also, it seems a little more "real" than regular flavor House Hunters. Outside of the US, you just get what you get.
I like international better too, if only because all the houses are different. Not sure it is more real, if you read blogs- a lot of those people are recruited for the show and have been in the house for years!
I always like when the realtor says "now this one is way outside your price range, but I thought you might like it." Which to me is code for "This show is fake anyway, so let's show the viewers an awesome house."
I agree that it's probably just as stacked. I meant that the dwellings seem more real. Generally not huge and wasteful.
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Netflix has added a bunch of HGTV shows, so I am really enjoying watching them all. But they are generally NOT mustachian friendly! The one I was WTF! about what "Flea Market Flip". A guy took a dresser and made an "indoor stoop"- which was a set of stairs with the ugliest fur rug on them. Someone actually bought it- I wish I remember the price, but these things are always at least a few hundred dollars.
FMF - so you go and buy a dresser for $200. The spend 2 days 'fixing' it, using 2 master craftsmen, add in a ton of wood and paint, new handcrafted metal feet, new glass top. Sell your new "distressed mid-modern historic table" for $400! Total profit: $200.... I mean nothing else costs any money, right?
That's what pisses me off. You spent an additional $150 in new materials/paint + 2 days working on the project, you actually lost money (after 'paying the craftsmen') but never on that show. Look how easy it is to make money!
Also - hit something with a chain for 15minutes to double the price since it is now 'distressed'. Just an FYI for anyone who cares.
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HGTV is dangerous if your Mustachian muscles are underdeveloped. Back in 2007 I was looking to upgrade the kitchen in my house. I was moderately spendthrift back then - saving 15% in the 401(k) but spending the rest; took out a new car loan but had paid it off and was still driving the same car a decade later; that sort of stuff. I'd been in the house for six years, and watching a lot of HGTV specifically on kitchen designs for a full year before I finally found a layout I liked.
But a year of watching these ridiculous upgrades in houses that cost 5x or more what mine does had screwed my whole perception of what a reasonable upgrade would be. As a result, I ended up taking out a HELOC and putting a $35k kitchen into my $100k home. In perspective with what I'd been watching for a year, it seemed cheap - but objectively it was absolutely insane. I have quartz counters, stainless steel appliances, and a $1400 glass backsplash. Any one of these details by themselves cost enough that even back then I would normally debate it quite a bit and more often than not decide I didn't need it. But once it was a "remodel" and I had the loan, it was all just a quick "Sure! Throw that in there.".
On the upside, it's been eight years and I still enjoy the kitchen every day. It looks awesome, and the layout is much more functional than the old one. But I could have gotten just as much enjoyment and spent much less. And if I hadn't been watching so much HGTV, I probably would have.
Wealth is always a relative thing. If you are blasted with constant images of people spending way more money than you do, it raises your expectation of where you "ought" to be. That's the whole point of advertising - and every show on HGTV is basically one big ad. I won't deny it's fun, though. I don't have television any more, but when I'm staying at my gf's house where she does, we still watch it. Sometimes to mock the consumer sucker mindset ("With this house I'll finally be able to be the father I want to be!" - actual quote), and sometimes just to see the fancy stuff.
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HGTV is really the only thing I miss from our days with cable TV. The shows are just so ridiculous. Pure entertainment value to see the stupid decisions people make over and over again. That and the great foreign locations on HHI. Happy that we'll have satellite TV next month once we FIRE (it's part of our condo fees where we're moving to) so I can watch it again.
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HGTV is really the only thing I miss from our days with cable TV. The shows are just so ridiculous. Pure entertainment value to see the stupid decisions people make over and over again. That and the great foreign locations on HHI. Happy that we'll have satellite TV next month once we FIRE (it's part of our condo fees where we're moving to) so I can watch it again.
I would mention that HGTV.com has streaming (and that some HGTV shows are on Netflix), but won't since I don't want to encourage anybody's habit.
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We had friends on House Hunters International who were renting an apartment in Kazakhstan. As the others had mentioned, they had already moved in when the show was filmed and never actually considered the other two apartments that were "shown". I enjoy many programs on HGTV, but it's important to realize how fake most of them are.
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I like watching the Scott Brothers. They are funny and I love the transformations. One thing I really like is they work with "normal" people, meaning the people that do not have million dollar budgets. I also like how they give estimates on how much each room cost the people. The only thing I don't like is everyone wants open concept, which is not my thing.
Rehab Addict is another favorite because I like refinishing old furniture and it has always been a secret fantasy of mine to rehab an old farmhouse.
Most of the other shows I don't like too much. People always want bigger and farther commutes and several times they go over budget based on emotion.
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and also because the owners' ugly oversize and bland furniture is removed, as is all the CLUTTER.
But then those same people will be house hunters who say, "But will our furniture fit?" while shopping for a new home.
Why is that in every single show, on their top 5 list of Most Important Things is whether or not their furniture fits?
I just want to shout, "Who cares?!?! If your furniture doesn't fit, then get rid of it!"
I'd be perfectly willing -- even eager -- to ditch some of my furniture. For example, the computer desk at which I'm sitting right now is awful. I would like to replace it, but we're going to move in 2-3 years, and I won't do it until I know exactly what size space I'll have. I'm sitting in a $25 Goodwill office chair -- functional, but not something I love. I like my dining room table but could replace it with something else for a couple hundred dollars and be just as happy. Ditto for my sofa; I like it but could easily replace it.
But some of my other furniture, while not particularly valuable, holds sentimental value. I have my grandmother's old bed, a couple nightstands out of my grandfather's old hotel, an antique cedar chest. My husband loves our kitchen table because it was one of the first things he bought on his own, and he loves that it has lasted so long /has been a good investment.
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House Hunters International is awesome. Real estate porn and travel porn rolled into one. I drool.
Also, it seems a little more "real" than regular flavor House Hunters. Outside of the US, you just get what you get.
I like international better too, if only because all the houses are different. Not sure it is more real, if you read blogs- a lot of those people are recruited for the show and have been in the house for years!
I always like when the realtor says "now this one is way outside your price range, but I thought you might like it." Which to me is code for "This show is fake anyway, so let's show the viewers an awesome house."
I like the ones in the other direction, where the people claim to have a $500k budget and look at houses for $475k, $525k, and $350k, and buy the $350k house. Did you really have a $500k budget, or were you just trying to show off? And the reason for the $350k house is never "so we can stash away money" it's some half-assed attempt to justify why it's "better".
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This thread reminds me of the book The Millionaire Next Door, where the authors write that any actual show based on the showing off the lifestyle of a "typical millionaire" would be one of the most boring TV programs ever!
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What always gets me is when the family, for example, has a $300k budget, and looks at a house for $250k. Then they say stuff like "This house is way under budget so that leaves us $50k for renovations!"
Wait, what? It's not like you had $300k sitting around to begin with. Therefore, you don't just magically have $50k for renovations just because you didn't max out your mortgage. Are they taking out HELOCS or something?
This is pretty much the entire premise of Property Brothers -- we have a $300k budget, dream homes are $600k, so we buy a $200k house and spend the $100k difference on renovations. Aughhh where is the $100k coming from??
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This thread reminds me of the book The Millionaire Next Door, where the authors write that any actual show based on the showing off the lifestyle of a "typical millionaire" would be one of the most boring TV programs ever!
The main trouble is that we all got our concept of "millionaire" being a big deal from hearing about guilded-age industrialists, and then failed to adjust our terminology for inflation.
In other words, the show should be showing off the lifestyle of a "typical billionaire," not mere millionaire.
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What always gets me is when the family, for example, has a $300k budget, and looks at a house for $250k. Then they say stuff like "This house is way under budget so that leaves us $50k for renovations!"
Wait, what? It's not like you had $300k sitting around to begin with. Therefore, you don't just magically have $50k for renovations just because you didn't max out your mortgage. Are they taking out HELOCS or something?
This is pretty much the entire premise of Property Brothers -- we have a $300k budget, dream homes are $600k, so we buy a $200k house and spend the $100k difference on renovations. Aughhh where is the $100k coming from??
Had that exact discussion with my wife when we bought our new house. A $10k difference in purchase price is ~$100/mo or less on your mortgage, it doesn't magically deposit $10k into your bank account to make changes if you buy the cheaper one.
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The worst Love It or List It is when they give one an increase in budget and not the other. I also find it funny that they don't factor in any increased value in their initial budget for the list it option.
I got sick of that show.
They always think they improve the home value drastically.
The episode of this show that sticks out most in my mind was where the couple had $50k or something to do a series of renovations like finish the basement and open up the main floor. They try to get started on the renovations and low and behold they found asbestos, and I think mold and structural issues. Bottom line is that they blew the entire renovation budget and nothing got updated -- they just fixed a ton of structural issues neither they nor their inspector even know they had. Then came the "final listing" (their own house) and somehow their home value increased something like $75k...I laughed my ass off that they didn't even have the integrity to admit sometimes mistakes and shit happens and they spent $50k without getting a positive return on that investment. Last episode I ever watched.
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HGTV is dangerous if your Mustachian muscles are underdeveloped. Back in 2007 I was looking to upgrade the kitchen in my house. I was moderately spendthrift back then - saving 15% in the 401(k) but spending the rest; took out a new car loan but had paid it off and was still driving the same car a decade later; that sort of stuff. I'd been in the house for six years, and watching a lot of HGTV specifically on kitchen designs for a full year before I finally found a layout I liked.
But a year of watching these ridiculous upgrades in houses that cost 5x or more what mine does had screwed my whole perception of what a reasonable upgrade would be. As a result, I ended up taking out a HELOC and putting a $35k kitchen into my $100k home. In perspective with what I'd been watching for a year, it seemed cheap - but objectively it was absolutely insane. I have quartz counters, stainless steel appliances, and a $1400 glass backsplash. Any one of these details by themselves cost enough that even back then I would normally debate it quite a bit and more often than not decide I didn't need it. But once it was a "remodel" and I had the loan, it was all just a quick "Sure! Throw that in there.".
On the upside, it's been eight years and I still enjoy the kitchen every day. It looks awesome, and the layout is much more functional than the old one. But I could have gotten just as much enjoyment and spent much less. And if I hadn't been watching so much HGTV, I probably would have.
Wealth is always a relative thing. If you are blasted with constant images of people spending way more money than you do, it raises your expectation of where you "ought" to be. That's the whole point of advertising - and every show on HGTV is basically one big ad. I won't deny it's fun, though. I don't have television any more, but when I'm staying at my gf's house where she does, we still watch it. Sometimes to mock the consumer sucker mindset ("With this house I'll finally be able to be the father I want to be!" - actual quote), and sometimes just to see the fancy stuff.
Great points. We've done most of our home renovations ourselves (with hired contractor help as needed), which has saved us thousands of dollars over the years. Living in a working/lower-middle class neighborhood, we don't want to go overboard on high-end remodeling and risk losing lots of our financial investment when we sell the house.
I like to refer to HGTV as "The Envy Channel."
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Oh man, this reminded me of "Bang for your Buck". It compared 3 renovations of the same room at the same budget, then determined which one had the best ROI.
I think the show should have been renamed "Whose location is best?"
Because the house in the best neighborhood (if you knew the areas) ALWAYS won.
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This thread reminds me of the book The Millionaire Next Door, where the authors write that any actual show based on the showing off the lifestyle of a "typical millionaire" would be one of the most boring TV programs ever!
The main trouble is that we all got our concept of "millionaire" being a big deal from hearing about guilded-age industrialists, and then failed to adjust our terminology for inflation.
In other words, the show should be showing off the lifestyle of a "typical billionaire," not mere millionaire.
Pretty much. They typical millionaire these days is a guy like my dad. He has like 1.5 million dollars (great) but that funds the same 80k lifestyle that he has been living for the past 50 years. It is a nice life but you are not going to buy everything you want. He could buy the 100k car but just 1. They could fly first class instead of coach (but then they are taking 1 trip per year instead of 2). And so on. As a practical matter at age 70, if you haven't bought that stuff in the past, you probably aren't going to start doing it in the future.
You don't have to go up to billionaire level, but if you looked at the lifestyles of even the 50 million guys, you would start seeing the stuff like weekend sports cars, yachts, and so on. Maybe even 25 million. 600k/year is a lot of money to spend. You really have to try:)
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I love HGTV, but it's terrible to watch if you have envyitis or poor mustachian muscles. It's the only channel I cared about losing when we went cable-free, but I recently found I can watch some shows on HGTV and others on Hulu. I like it for pointing out cheap decorating ideas (e.g. can of paint transforming a room, a few pillows or pillow recovers rather than a new couch, etc) and reminding me that often the best decorating is simply decluttering and getting rid of crap or adding some color.
Love it or List it: Wildly unrealistic estimates of the value added, never the budget to fix the problems that are discovered in older homes (and best is when in "revenge" they pull the budget from the decorator and "give it" to the realtor). We liked to guess "which wish list items won't get done" and "what problems will be found". We stopped watching long ago because of the fake annoying squabbling and super scripted show.
House Hunters: As pointed out above, it's fake. A friend of mine was the "friend" for a single person on the show (as apparently they must have two people). You can play the guess which house they've already bought game, but it's just not really interesting.
Property Brothers: More realistic budget, good dynamic with the brothers. Thumbs up.
Buying and Selling: Not quite as good as Property Brothers.
Neither available on Hulu or HGTV :(
Brother v. Brother: Season 1 & 2 ok but 3 with just the brothers was much better.
Flip or Flop: Ok, just started watching on HGTV.
Design on a Dime: Interesting ideas at times with legit budgets. I like they seem to explain enough to do yourself, but I've never tried a project to know for sure.
Rehab Addict: Just seen a few, but I like that she respects the property and doesn't put modern into old buildings.
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House Hunters: As pointed out above, it's fake. A friend of mine was the "friend" for a single person on the show (as apparently they must have two people). You can play the guess which house they've already bought game, but it's just not really interesting.
I'm a huge HH fan, and don't really care if it's fake or not. Mostly I like to watch the people who have interesting budgets (either really high or really low) in interesting places. "which tract home to buy for $200k in Ohio" is dull, "I want a house for $3M/$150k in SoCal/coastal FL/CO mountains/historic New England town" is interesting. I basically tune out the people, and just like to see the various houses.
The one I could never get was Property Virgins, which was mostly in Canada. Seemed like every single episode was "I'm a barrista/my wife is a kindergarten teacher, our budget is $800k." Never figured that out. Nevermind SHOULD you spend that much, how in the world CAN you.
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House Hunters: As pointed out above, it's fake. A friend of mine was the "friend" for a single person on the show (as apparently they must have two people). You can play the guess which house they've already bought game, but it's just not really interesting.
I'm a huge HH fan, and don't really care if it's fake or not. Mostly I like to watch the people who have interesting budgets (either really high or really low) in interesting places. "which tract home to buy for $200k in Ohio" is dull, "I want a house for $3M/$150k in SoCal/coastal FL/CO mountains/historic New England town" is interesting. I basically tune out the people, and just like to see the various houses.
The one I could never get was Property Virgins, which was mostly in Canada. Seemed like every single episode was "I'm a barrista/my wife is a kindergarten teacher, our budget is $800k." Never figured that out. Nevermind SHOULD you spend that much, how in the world CAN you.
Yes, it's better when there are interesting locations (which is why the International one is better on the whole).
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House Hunters: As pointed out above, it's fake. A friend of mine was the "friend" for a single person on the show (as apparently they must have two people). You can play the guess which house they've already bought game, but it's just not really interesting.
I'm a huge HH fan, and don't really care if it's fake or not. Mostly I like to watch the people who have interesting budgets (either really high or really low) in interesting places. "which tract home to buy for $200k in Ohio" is dull, "I want a house for $3M/$150k in SoCal/coastal FL/CO mountains/historic New England town" is interesting. I basically tune out the people, and just like to see the various houses.
The one I could never get was Property Virgins, which was mostly in Canada. Seemed like every single episode was "I'm a barrista/my wife is a kindergarten teacher, our budget is $800k." Never figured that out. Nevermind SHOULD you spend that much, how in the world CAN you.
Yes, it's better when there are interesting locations (which is why the International one is better on the whole).
Some of the international ones are interesting, but lots of them are students and others looking for cheap apartments and such, which isn't that interesting to me. But the ones in Carribbean nations tend to be good.
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On long weekends when I dog sit for my neighbor, I am plastered to her cable tv, hgtv channel. Ermagod, I am an hgtv addict. It is fascinating and repulsive, all at the same time.
I love that chick in the Twin cities who renovates old houses and pays careful attention to original features. She is about the only one who actually teaches me something each time I watch.
I hate the house buying shows that center on new suburban construction. Those dwellings are so boring look all alike.
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What always gets me is when the family, for example, has a $300k budget, and looks at a house for $250k. Then they say stuff like "This house is way under budget so that leaves us $50k for renovations!"
Wait, what? It's not like you had $300k sitting around to begin with. Therefore, you don't just magically have $50k for renovations just because you didn't max out your mortgage. Are they taking out HELOCS or something?
This is pretty much the entire premise of Property Brothers -- we have a $300k budget, dream homes are $600k, so we buy a $200k house and spend the $100k difference on renovations. Aughhh where is the $100k coming from??
There are FHA-backed mortgages called 203K loans that will finance both the purchase of a fixer-upper and the renovations. I'm sure they don't work as fancifully as a House Hunters episode might suggest, but that's what you could do in real life!
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What always gets me is when the family, for example, has a $300k budget, and looks at a house for $250k. Then they say stuff like "This house is way under budget so that leaves us $50k for renovations!"
Wait, what? It's not like you had $300k sitting around to begin with. Therefore, you don't just magically have $50k for renovations just because you didn't max out your mortgage. Are they taking out HELOCS or something?
This is pretty much the entire premise of Property Brothers -- we have a $300k budget, dream homes are $600k, so we buy a $200k house and spend the $100k difference on renovations. Aughhh where is the $100k coming from??
There are FHA-backed mortgages called 203K loans that will finance both the purchase of a fixer-upper and the renovations. I'm sure they don't work as fancifully as a House Hunters episode might suggest, but that's what you could do in real life!
We looked into one briefly, IIRC it was A LOT of hoops to jump through and we decided not to bother. I think it was something to do with requiring a contractor to do a lot of the work, not a DIYer.
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The one I could never get was Property Virgins, which was mostly in Canada. Seemed like every single episode was "I'm a barrista/my wife is a kindergarten teacher, our budget is $800k." Never figured that out. Nevermind SHOULD you spend that much, how in the world CAN you.
It wasn't just Canada, it was metro Toronto. Apparently, that's the Canadian equivalent of Silicon Valley or something.
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I love that chick in the Twin cities who renovates old houses and pays careful attention to original features. She is about the only one who actually teaches me something each time I watch.
That's Rehab Addict.
Her show is my favorite too. Though some parts of it annoy me. I care less about her personal life and would rather just see the renovation. Of course, I hadn't noticed so much of the personal stuff until I binge watched all the episodes Netflix had.
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Flip or Flop: Ok, just started watching on HGTV.
One of the few HGTV shows we watch pretty regularly. Our only issue with it is that the intro still paints it as if they're struggling to get by- when they've at times mentioned how many houses they are renovating at that particular time- like -EIGHTEEN- of them- and they seem to make an average of $40k or so per house. Even accounting for living in SoCal like they do, with each house taking conservatively 2 months, and assuming they only flip 10 in that time, that's still like $3.6 MILLION per year.
We've rather liked some of the competitive shows like last year's "Flipping the Block" and this year's similar "Beach Flip". Their budgets are kind of unrealistic given it looks like they get all their furniture and such from the sponsoring show for free (SWMBO noted in the commercial for the one this year- Wayfair I think?) that the throw pillow they highlighted was like $90 alone (they showed the website in the commercial).
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Design Star is also the only reality-type show I'll watch. Really enjoy that every year.
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I can't get over how few people are talking about liking Holmes on Holmes / Holmes Inspection, or Income Property.
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Jack, I was just going to post that no one had mentioned Income Property? That one has Mustachian elements, at least.
And I agree with others who say the whole channel is basically advertising for the remodeling industry.
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Holmes is my favorite!!! Love Income Property too, as well as Rehab Addict. Love the Brothers, but bored of their shows at this point.
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Jack, I was just going to post that no one had mentioned Income Property? That one has Mustachian elements, at least.
And I agree with others who say the whole channel is basically advertising for the remodeling industry.
I forget if it was HGTV or another channel, but there was 'Vacation home for free' show where people looked for and bought (usually fixer-uppers) vacation properties such that the income from renting them out the rest of the year that they weren't actually using the place would cover the cost of the mortgage and upkeep on the place. Always seemed like a pretty neat idea.
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I like watching the Scott Brothers. They are funny and I love the transformations. One thing I really like is they work with "normal" people, meaning the people that do not have million dollar budgets.
Most of the other shows I don't like too much. People always want bigger and farther commutes and several times they go over budget based on emotion.
I basically feel the same way - I think it would be wildly awesome if they came to the Boston area for their show in 5-ish years (if they're still doing their show) so I can be on Property Brothers and get their expertise/furniture/design skills.
I love HGTV, but it's terrible to watch if you have envyitis or poor mustachian muscles.
Couldn't agree more! I watch it mostly for entertainment and get some of the 'benefits' of luxe spaces without the cost. I love HH International for the same reason many have mentioned -- travel/real estate porn, more interesting/varied due to the exotic locations.
Property Brothers: More realistic budget, good dynamic with the brothers. Thumbs up.
Buying and Selling: Not quite as good as Property Brothers.
Neither available on Hulu or HGTV :(
I don't know if this is a good or bad thing to tell you ... but Buying & Selling is on hulu (the free version, I don't have a paid h+ account) - the episodes on HGTV you can't watch unless you have a cable package with HGTV, but ULive has a decent number of them, which are listed on the hulu B&S page. I actually prefer B&S to the Property Brothers show because I feel like I learn more about what make a home not sell, what are the improvements that increase the value the most, plus it's fun to look at pretty houses. Oh and I was really shocked to find that a ton of Property Brothers episodes are (in full) up on youtube. Also watched a few episodes of Fixer Upper there too.
I don't really mind that many of the shows are fake - in fact, it makes some of the stuff seem less ridiculous (ie, some of the over-budget homes on HH aren't actually being considered). I do sometimes feel crazy for enjoying a show that is suuuper formulaic and that is exactly like all the other episodes I've seen, just with different people ... but I really do love these shows. It's a costless (except I guess, the time-suck of it all) way to indulge in real estate, and I feel like I've definitely learned some things over the years.
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Oh man, this reminded me of "Bang for your Buck". It compared 3 renovations of the same room at the same budget, then determined which one had the best ROI.
I think the show should have been renamed "Whose location is best?"
Because the house in the best neighborhood (if you knew the areas) ALWAYS won.
Ohhh I think it's now "My House is Worth WHAT?!" There also one where they take an arbitrary amount of money and compare the kinds of homes you can in like SoCal, the Midwest US, and east coast or sometimes the gulf area. Those are pretty interesting.
Holmes on Holmes (make it right, Mike!) and Rehab Addict are probably my favorites now. I grew up in an old Victorian home like the ones often seen on Rehab Addict and I wish I'd known then what the house could have been.
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I like watching the Scott Brothers. They are funny and I love the transformations. One thing I really like is they work with "normal" people, meaning the people that do not have million dollar budgets.
Most of the other shows I don't like too much. People always want bigger and farther commutes and several times they go over budget based on emotion.
I basically feel the same way - I think it would be wildly awesome if they came to the Boston area for their show in 5-ish years (if they're still doing their show) so I can be on Property Brothers and get their expertise/furniture/design skills.
Oh, come on! Boston?! You live in the epicenter of the granddaddy of home improvement shows! Screw HGTV; get on This Old House!
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I don't know if this is a good or bad thing to tell you ... but Buying & Selling is on hulu (the free version, I don't have a paid h+ account) - the episodes on HGTV you can't watch unless you have a cable package with HGTV, but ULive has a decent number of them, which are listed on the hulu B&S page. I actually prefer B&S to the Property Brothers show
Who knew?! I just typed "HGTV" into Hulu to see what they had and B&S wasn't listed in the 5-6. I think I also put in Property Brothers (which they didn't have). And apparently I also get This Old House too.
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And apparently I also get This Old House too.
Everybody gets This Old House; it's on public television (see video.pbs.org).
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And apparently I also get This Old House too.
Everybody gets This Old House; it's on public television (see video.pbs.org).
Yup, saw.
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Flip or Flop: Ok, just started watching on HGTV.
One of the few HGTV shows we watch pretty regularly. Our only issue with it is that the intro still paints it as if they're struggling to get by- when they've at times mentioned how many houses they are renovating at that particular time- like -EIGHTEEN- of them- and they seem to make an average of $40k or so per house. Even accounting for living in SoCal like they do, with each house taking conservatively 2 months, and assuming they only flip 10 in that time, that's still like $3.6 MILLION per year.
We've rather liked some of the competitive shows like last year's "Flipping the Block" and this year's similar "Beach Flip". Their budgets are kind of unrealistic given it looks like they get all their furniture and such from the sponsoring show for free (SWMBO noted in the commercial for the one this year- Wayfair I think?) that the throw pillow they highlighted was like $90 alone (they showed the website in the commercial).
I watch Flip or Flop and like to see what neighborhoods/cities they're flipping as I live in OC. Definitely agree though, they have to be making out REALLY well, and $3.6M/year conservatively makes sense. Crazy.
As someone alluded to a drinking game above, you can definitely play when Christina mentions "granite", whines about paint colors, or trolls Tarek on the list price.
I'm always impressed how they generally seem to get offers at or above listing, when they list at the very top of comps.
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I love that chick in the Twin cities who renovates old houses and pays careful attention to original features. She is about the only one who actually teaches me something each time I watch.
That's Rehab Addict.
Her show is my favorite too. Though some parts of it annoy me. I care less about her personal life and would rather just see the renovation. Of course, I hadn't noticed so much of the personal stuff until I binge watched all the episodes Netflix had.
that's it, yes! Rehab Addict. She is great.
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I basically watched all of Holmes Inspection that was available Netflix between putting an offer in on my house and doing the inspection. I honestly think it helped me ask better questions and get more out of my inspection.
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Flip or Flop: Ok, just started watching on HGTV.
One of the few HGTV shows we watch pretty regularly. Our only issue with it is that the intro still paints it as if they're struggling to get by- when they've at times mentioned how many houses they are renovating at that particular time- like -EIGHTEEN- of them- and they seem to make an average of $40k or so per house. Even accounting for living in SoCal like they do, with each house taking conservatively 2 months, and assuming they only flip 10 in that time, that's still like $3.6 MILLION per year.
We've rather liked some of the competitive shows like last year's "Flipping the Block" and this year's similar "Beach Flip". Their budgets are kind of unrealistic given it looks like they get all their furniture and such from the sponsoring show for free (SWMBO noted in the commercial for the one this year- Wayfair I think?) that the throw pillow they highlighted was like $90 alone (they showed the website in the commercial).
I watch Flip or Flop and like to see what neighborhoods/cities they're flipping as I live in OC. Definitely agree though, they have to be making out REALLY well, and $3.6M/year conservatively makes sense. Crazy.
As someone alluded to a drinking game above, you can definitely play when Christina mentions "granite", whines about paint colors, or trolls Tarek on the list price.
I'm always impressed how they generally seem to get offers at or above listing, when they list at the very top of comps.
Yes, I'm always saying, "really?!" to my husband when they list at the top of the comps and there's some problem (busy street the comp doesn't have). In the case I'm thinking about, they borrowed money to do their all cash offer and paid $200 or so per day on it...then sat ~45 days before having to drop it. I felt vindicated. (I also wondered why the borrowed money interest didn't stop when they sold other properties they were flipping and freed up cash...but then that's tv.)
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And apparently I also get This Old House too.
Everybody gets This Old House; it's on public television (see video.pbs.org).
I didn't realize video.pbs.org was a thing. Nice!
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Holmes Inspection was my favorite and what got me on the HGTV realty shows in the first place
My husband and I spent two whole weekends binge watching that on Netflix. I think we know at least to never buy a row house in Toronto! :p
I thought it was really eye opening and educational. I would not have even have thought to look for a lot of the things that they found wrong. I recommend watching it to everyone.
As a mostly satisfied renter, HGTV simultaneously makes me want to buy and scared to death to buy.
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Oh man, this reminded me of "Bang for your Buck". It compared 3 renovations of the same room at the same budget, then determined which one had the best ROI.
I think the show should have been renamed "Whose location is best?"
Because the house in the best neighborhood (if you knew the areas) ALWAYS won.
Ohhh I think it's now "My House is Worth WHAT?!" There also one where they take an arbitrary amount of money and compare the kinds of homes you can in like SoCal, the Midwest US, and east coast or sometimes the gulf area. Those are pretty interesting.
No, that's a different show (but an interesting one, I think). In Bang for Your Buck, all the houses will be in the same city. So they'll do $30,000 bathroom renovations in Austin, or $50,000 Kitchen renovations in Tampa. And it always comes down to who has the best neighborhood, though the "experts" will critique the choices they made in the renovation.
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I forget if it was HGTV or another channel, but there was 'Vacation home for free' show where people looked for and bought (usually fixer-uppers) vacation properties such that the income from renting them out the rest of the year that they weren't actually using the place would cover the cost of the mortgage and upkeep on the place. Always seemed like a pretty neat idea.
I think that was HGTV. I laughed my ass off when it got to the end and he says to the new homeowner "Now, you can rent this for 12 weeks at $3,000 a week, or 16 weeks at $2,250 a week- which would you rather do?" As if the owner gets to decide that and not the market! Why not just rent it for 1 week at $36,000? That seems ideal.
What is the show with the Waco couple who does a house hunt and renovations? Even though they do the same style in almost every house, I find that one to be interesting too. And because it is Waco, none of the budgets are ever that insane.
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Holmes Inspection is/was (?) so great. But after watching I would become anxious about my entire house and had to stop watching. Mold, electrical, plumbing, oh God, ticking timebombs in the walls!
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Recently I've caught a couple episodes of the fixer upper show, and if the home owner has a $280K budget, and buys the house for $200K, they just have to use every cent remaining in their budget. In fact, part of the show is the designer saying "OK, I have 3K left, so do you want to spend it on X, Y or Z?" As if it would be a crime to leave ANY money available credit on the table.
I call Fixer Upper the "Oh, look at that nice maintenance free brick: Let's paint it" show. (Seriously: has there ever been an episode where they didn't paint over brick?) Yes, the concept of this one drives me mad. Never do they come under budget and reap the reward. It's always $X more to spend elsewhere.
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Oh man, this reminded me of "Bang for your Buck". It compared 3 renovations of the same room at the same budget, then determined which one had the best ROI.
I think the show should have been renamed "Whose location is best?"
Because the house in the best neighborhood (if you knew the areas) ALWAYS won.
Ohhh I think it's now "My House is Worth WHAT?!" There also one where they take an arbitrary amount of money and compare the kinds of homes you can in like SoCal, the Midwest US, and east coast or sometimes the gulf area. Those are pretty interesting.
No, that's a different show (but an interesting one, I think). In Bang for Your Buck, all the houses will be in the same city. So they'll do $30,000 bathroom renovations in Austin, or $50,000 Kitchen renovations in Tampa. And it always comes down to who has the best neighborhood, though the "experts" will critique the choices they made in the renovation.
My irritation with the comparison between houses in different cities, was that at the end they essentially concluded the cheaper location was automatically the better one, without considering or mentioning other factors (e.g. getting higher salaries in the HCOL area, or maybe jobs that don't exist in the LCOL place, and often the HCOL places also offers more in terms of culture/entertainment etc that may be valuable to someone). Normally there's more of a balance in the presentation.
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I call Fixer Upper the "Oh, look at that nice maintenance free brick: Let's paint it" show. (Seriously: has there ever been an episode where they didn't paint over brick?) Yes, the concept of this one drives me mad.
Ugh. I hate painted brick. All the other townhomes in my association have a pretty red brick fireplace. Someone decided to paint mine white in the mid-90's. It's a nice shade of dirty gray now...
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I caught a few minutes of a "house hunters" style show last night. They were buying a tiny house. In the 3-4 minutes I watched these fools said "this seems so small", "it's a bit tight", "how can we both fit in the bathroom", "where are we going to fit our king size bed".
WTF. Tiny houses are small? Who knew?
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As usual, I am late the the party. I have just now started watching these shows. I find them comforting in the same way macaroni & cheese is comforting.
I want to know if they all get to keep that coolass shit the decorators put in - I saw a couch on a show yesterday that almost made me hyperventilate!
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I also always wonder in "love it or list it" where they lay out $50-80k+ in rennos and ALSO are thinking of buying a new house. There simply can't be that many people who are that cash rich that can lay out that kind of coin AND THEN think of going and buying a new house right away instead. I always wonder "didn't you just spend all of your downpayment???"
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I also always wonder in "love it or list it" where they lay out $50-80k+ in rennos and ALSO are thinking of buying a new house. There simply can't be that many people who are that cash rich that can lay out that kind of coin AND THEN think of going and buying a new house right away instead. I always wonder "didn't you just spend all of your downpayment???"
Presumably they get it- and more- back when they sell the house they just spruced up.
I think most people get their downpayment from the sale of a previous house.
I know my neighbors were flabbergasted when I moved without selling my old house. They didn't understand how I could have money for a downpayment and didn't think 0% down loans were still around.
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Oh man, this reminded me of "Bang for your Buck". It compared 3 renovations of the same room at the same budget, then determined which one had the best ROI.
I think the show should have been renamed "Whose location is best?"
Because the house in the best neighborhood (if you knew the areas) ALWAYS won.
Ohhh I think it's now "My House is Worth WHAT?!" There also one where they take an arbitrary amount of money and compare the kinds of homes you can in like SoCal, the Midwest US, and east coast or sometimes the gulf area. Those are pretty interesting.
No, that's a different show (but an interesting one, I think). In Bang for Your Buck, all the houses will be in the same city. So they'll do $30,000 bathroom renovations in Austin, or $50,000 Kitchen renovations in Tampa. And it always comes down to who has the best neighborhood, though the "experts" will critique the choices they made in the renovation.
My irritation with the comparison between houses in different cities, was that at the end they essentially concluded the cheaper location was automatically the better one, without considering or mentioning other factors (e.g. getting higher salaries in the HCOL area, or maybe jobs that don't exist in the LCOL place, and often the HCOL places also offers more in terms of culture/entertainment etc that may be valuable to someone). Normally there's more of a balance in the presentation.
Yeah, I saw one while I was at the gym the other day, where the house closer to work was like $20K more, and they felt they couldn't afford it. Wouldn't the increase in commuting costs offset the tiny amount that $20K would add to what I can only assume is going to be a 30 year mortgage. Of course they went for more house, farther out.
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I also always wonder in "love it or list it" where they lay out $50-80k+ in rennos and ALSO are thinking of buying a new house. There simply can't be that many people who are that cash rich that can lay out that kind of coin AND THEN think of going and buying a new house right away instead. I always wonder "didn't you just spend all of your downpayment???"
Presumably they get it- and more- back when they sell the house they just spruced up.
I think most people get their downpayment from the sale of a previous house.
I know my neighbors were flabbergasted when I moved without selling my old house. They didn't understand how I could have money for a downpayment and didn't think 0% down loans were still around.
Yeah, that's presumably how it works I know, but in reality in these days where offers contingent on selling your prior place are not accepted, etc, it seems incredibly risky.
We bought our second house and still own our first which is rented out, and we can't count that rental income as income so we have to float both mortgages against our W2 income for debt:income ratios. Thank God we make a decent amount of money and didn't want to buy a crazy expensive house, because we've got a VERY high debt:income load now (again, not including the rental income which basically offsets the mortgage on house 1). Our two mortages together are about 3x gross income. Yikes.
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Yeah, I saw one while I was at the gym the other day, where the house closer to work was like $20K more, and they felt they couldn't afford it. Wouldn't the increase in commuting costs offset the tiny amount that $20K would add to what I can only assume is going to be a 30 year mortgage. Of course they went for more house, farther out.
That house might not have been available when they bought. (Or at all...)
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Yeah, that's presumably how it works I know, but in reality in these days where offers contingent on selling your prior place are not accepted, etc, it seems incredibly risky.
Yeah- except it is in Canada, and HGTV has clearly taught me I do not understand the Canadian housing market. (They seem to waive inspection to 'win' the house all the time, for instance.)
Besides, since they have a nicely remodeled house, wouldn't they just stay in it until they sell it, and then go find a new house to buy? (I guess that ruins the premise of the show that they buy the house David shows them... so within the context of the show, okay- the concept makes no sense. In real life though, the show is a total lie anyway.)
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I caught a few minutes of a "house hunters" style show last night. They were buying a tiny house. In the 3-4 minutes I watched these fools said "this seems so small", "it's a bit tight", "how can we both fit in the bathroom", "where are we going to fit our king size bed".
WTF. Tiny houses are small? Who knew?
haha, I saw that too. I thought it seemed to me that they didn't really want a tiny house... I was shocked they were thinking they needed two people in a bathroom at once. And I was amazed they kept talking about how the big one was a whole $7k over their budget and blowing it...but then given their woes over that, it seemed ridiculous to consider the one $17k over (and they hardly touched on it).
And my husband commented he thought their kitchen was bigger than ours!
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Yeah, I saw one while I was at the gym the other day, where the house closer to work was like $20K more, and they felt they couldn't afford it. Wouldn't the increase in commuting costs offset the tiny amount that $20K would add to what I can only assume is going to be a 30 year mortgage. Of course they went for more house, farther out.
That house might not have been available when they bought. (Or at all...)
But for sake of pretending that the house is actually on the market as the show represents... they ought to discuss the added cost of the commute vs. difference in the price of the house, rather than pretending that an extra half hour of commuting each day has no monetary cost.
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But for sake of pretending that the house is actually on the market as the show represents... they ought to discuss the added cost of the commute vs. difference in the price of the house, rather than pretending that an extra half hour of commuting each day has no monetary cost.
But don't most people pretend it doesn't? I think the notion that commute actually represents a cost is a very MMM realization.
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Flip or Flop: Ok, just started watching on HGTV.
One of the few HGTV shows we watch pretty regularly. Our only issue with it is that the intro still paints it as if they're struggling to get by- when they've at times mentioned how many houses they are renovating at that particular time- like -EIGHTEEN- of them- and they seem to make an average of $40k or so per house. Even accounting for living in SoCal like they do, with each house taking conservatively 2 months, and assuming they only flip 10 in that time, that's still like $3.6 MILLION per year.
We've rather liked some of the competitive shows like last year's "Flipping the Block" and this year's similar "Beach Flip". Their budgets are kind of unrealistic given it looks like they get all their furniture and such from the sponsoring show for free (SWMBO noted in the commercial for the one this year- Wayfair I think?) that the throw pillow they highlighted was like $90 alone (they showed the website in the commercial).
I watch Flip or Flop and like to see what neighborhoods/cities they're flipping as I live in OC. Definitely agree though, they have to be making out REALLY well, and $3.6M/year conservatively makes sense. Crazy.
As someone alluded to a drinking game above, you can definitely play when Christina mentions "granite", whines about paint colors, or trolls Tarek on the list price.
I'm always impressed how they generally seem to get offers at or above listing, when they list at the very top of comps.
It bothers the hell out of me when they price a house aggressively compared to the comps, and then still get multiple offers driving the price even higher. If you put an offer on a house that's way above the appraisal, your lender will expect you to make up the difference, effectively killing the deal if the buyer has a small down payment. Only once have I seen an episode where an appraiser warned them that the house wouldn't appraise for as much as they wanted to list it at. Are they just lying about the sale price? Are they lying about the comps to create more suspense? WHAT KIND OF TV MAGIC IS AT WORK?!?!?!?
Also, I can't be the only one who watches hoping to see them lose money on their flips, can I? The closest they'll ever get to that is ending the episode with the house still sitting on the market.
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You guys remember the TLC show a decade ago called - Trading Spaces? Wasn't that one of the first big ones.
Oh, the craziness.
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You guys remember the TLC show a decade ago called - Trading Spaces? Wasn't that one of the first big ones.
Oh, the craziness.
Yes!! I remember watching one where they glued hay to the walls and thinking that couple had to really hate their neighbors.
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Flip or Flop: Ok, just started watching on HGTV.
One of the few HGTV shows we watch pretty regularly. Our only issue with it is that the intro still paints it as if they're struggling to get by- when they've at times mentioned how many houses they are renovating at that particular time- like -EIGHTEEN- of them- and they seem to make an average of $40k or so per house. Even accounting for living in SoCal like they do, with each house taking conservatively 2 months, and assuming they only flip 10 in that time, that's still like $3.6 MILLION per year.
We've rather liked some of the competitive shows like last year's "Flipping the Block" and this year's similar "Beach Flip". Their budgets are kind of unrealistic given it looks like they get all their furniture and such from the sponsoring show for free (SWMBO noted in the commercial for the one this year- Wayfair I think?) that the throw pillow they highlighted was like $90 alone (they showed the website in the commercial).
I watch Flip or Flop and like to see what neighborhoods/cities they're flipping as I live in OC. Definitely agree though, they have to be making out REALLY well, and $3.6M/year conservatively makes sense. Crazy.
As someone alluded to a drinking game above, you can definitely play when Christina mentions "granite", whines about paint colors, or trolls Tarek on the list price.
I'm always impressed how they generally seem to get offers at or above listing, when they list at the very top of comps.
It bothers the hell out of me when they price a house aggressively compared to the comps, and then still get multiple offers driving the price even higher. If you put an offer on a house that's way above the appraisal, your lender will expect you to make up the difference, effectively killing the deal if the buyer has a small down payment. Only once have I seen an episode where an appraiser warned them that the house wouldn't appraise for as much as they wanted to list it at. Are they just lying about the sale price? Are they lying about the comps to create more suspense? WHAT KIND OF TV MAGIC IS AT WORK?!?!?!?
Also, I can't be the only one who watches hoping to see them lose money on their flips, can I? The closest they'll ever get to that is ending the episode with the house still sitting on the market.
There was one episode where they posted a loss of 3K. I was shocked to see....I also realize I have probably watched way too much of that show.
I love Fixer Upper mainly because I love her taste and want her to decorate my home and love Chip's wacky sense of humor. He really cracks me up.
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But for sake of pretending that the house is actually on the market as the show represents... they ought to discuss the added cost of the commute vs. difference in the price of the house, rather than pretending that an extra half hour of commuting each day has no monetary cost.
But don't most people pretend it doesn't? I think the notion that commute actually represents a cost is a very MMM realization.
That's kind of my point. They never discuss the other ongoing costs entailed in buying the various homes - commute and utilities make for boring TV I guess. The pros and cons of tearing out a "hideous" bathroom they just can't live with (that is, probably plain and serviceable) vs. the house on the noisy street are much more interesting.
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But for sake of pretending that the house is actually on the market as the show represents... they ought to discuss the added cost of the commute vs. difference in the price of the house, rather than pretending that an extra half hour of commuting each day has no monetary cost.
But don't most people pretend it doesn't? I think the notion that commute actually represents a cost is a very MMM realization.
That's kind of my point. They never discuss the other ongoing costs entailed in buying the various homes - commute and utilities make for boring TV I guess.
Well on HH, they do usually discuss if commute TIME is significantly different. They ignore the cost, because quite frankly, the cost is nowhere near as significant for most people as MMM likes to pretend it is.
For instance, I'm an extreme example. I recently traded a 30-mile one-way commute for a 7-mile on. I am not going to ride my bike, so either way it's by car. By far the biggest change is in gas, but even that isn't THAT much:
30 miles x 2 trips x 5 days x 52 weeks = 15,600 miles / 25 mpg = 624 gallons x $3 = $1872
7 miles x 2 trips x 5 days x 52 weeks = 3,640 miles / 25 mpg = 146 gallons x $3 = $437.
Difference is $1435/yr or $120/mo.
Is that nothing? Obviously not. Is it what I'm going to make a $XXX,XXX decision based on? Also no. Yeah, you can try to justify a bigger change based on the gov't mileage reimbursable rate, but really, most people will just change their lifestyle to accomodate (keep a car longer, for instance) rather than realize a large change in cost.
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One of the few HGTV shows we watch pretty regularly. Our only issue with it is that the intro still paints it as if they're struggling to get by- when they've at times mentioned how many houses they are renovating at that particular time- like -EIGHTEEN- of them- and they seem to make an average of $40k or so per house. Even accounting for living in SoCal like they do, with each house taking conservatively 2 months, and assuming they only flip 10 in that time, that's still like $3.6 MILLION per year.
Closet Flip Or Flop fan here. :)
I read or saw--don't remember which--an interview with Tarek El Moussa somewhere where he said that all their deals are done 50/50 with an investor, so that their actual "take-home" profit from the deals on the show are half the stated value, but that they don't bring this in to the calculations presented because it would make it too cluttered and confusing for the viewer. I get that, I guess--even though it's a little disingenuous, I'm still a fan of the show and really enjoy learning a thing or two between the lines.
They do occasionally show an investor that they work with (named Pete); he kind of makes me nervous, and I tend to tune out the episodes where they show him. I've actually stopped watching some of the other flip shows because of all the yelling and narcissism; I prefer ones like Flip Or Flop and Fixer Upper where people are nice and don't yell at each other and treat their spouses and kids with love and respect. Plus Chip Gaines is a HOOT. :)
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I call Fixer Upper the "Oh, look at that nice maintenance free brick: Let's paint it" show. (Seriously: has there ever been an episode where they didn't paint over brick?) Yes, the concept of this one drives me mad.
Ugh. I hate painted brick. All the other townhomes in my association have a pretty red brick fireplace. Someone decided to paint mine white in the mid-90's. It's a nice shade of dirty gray now...
Yeah, and I know of no way to remove paint from the brick that doesn't result in also removing the mortar. If you don't like the brick, why'd you buy the house?
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I call Fixer Upper the "Oh, look at that nice maintenance free brick: Let's paint it" show. (Seriously: has there ever been an episode where they didn't paint over brick?) Yes, the concept of this one drives me mad.
Ugh. I hate painted brick. All the other townhomes in my association have a pretty red brick fireplace. Someone decided to paint mine white in the mid-90's. It's a nice shade of dirty gray now...
Yeah, and I know of no way to remove paint from the brick that doesn't result in also removing the mortar. If you don't like the brick, why'd you buy the house?
Because I wasn't going to pass up a house that fit my needs and my budget in a great location because I didn't care for some of the design choices of the previous owner. The brick will be fixed/removed/tiled over/something when we get around to it. For now, I'm just going to sigh and move on.
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I call Fixer Upper the "Oh, look at that nice maintenance free brick: Let's paint it" show. (Seriously: has there ever been an episode where they didn't paint over brick?) Yes, the concept of this one drives me mad.
Ugh. I hate painted brick. All the other townhomes in my association have a pretty red brick fireplace. Someone decided to paint mine white in the mid-90's. It's a nice shade of dirty gray now...
Yeah, and I know of no way to remove paint from the brick that doesn't result in also removing the mortar. If you don't like the brick, why'd you buy the house?
Because I wasn't going to pass up a house that fit my needs and my budget in a great location because I didn't care for some of the design choices of the previous owner. The brick will be fixed/removed/tiled over/something when we get around to it. For now, I'm just going to sigh and move on.
Oops, I was actually picking on the people to buy the unpainted brick house then paint it. But sounds like a good plan for your place!
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A co-worker's son and daughter-in-law were just on House Hunters a few weeks ago. I was not as aware as many of you apparently are, and I naively thought that the people on the show were actually house hunting. I always thought it was strange how at the end, when they sit down together to discuss the features of the different houses, they are somehow magically always secretly wanting the same house. But when my co-worker told me they had already bought the house before they ever applied for the show, and then another co-worker said she knew someone else who had been on a while back and they also already owned the house, I admit - I kinda felt like I was finding out that Santa isn't real. Sigh. I really like HH, and now I just can't watch it. What a fraud. If you're gonna make a reality tv show, seems like it should be at least remotely real.
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I always thought it was strange how at the end, when they sit down together to discuss the features of the different houses, they are somehow magically always secretly wanting the same house.
I've seen two episodes where they actually couldn't decide between two houses so they purchased both of them. Ridiculous.
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A co-worker's son and daughter-in-law were just on House Hunters a few weeks ago. I was not as aware as many of you apparently are, and I naively thought that the people on the show were actually house hunting. I always thought it was strange how at the end, when they sit down together to discuss the features of the different houses, they are somehow magically always secretly wanting the same house. But when my co-worker told me they had already bought the house before they ever applied for the show, and then another co-worker said she knew someone else who had been on a while back and they also already owned the house, I admit - I kinda felt like I was finding out that Santa isn't real. Sigh. I really like HH, and now I just can't watch it. What a fraud. If you're gonna make a reality tv show, seems like it should be at least remotely real.
After watching enough episodes, the fakery becomes apparent -- all episodes come down to choosing among three -- and only three -- houses and there are never lost bidding wars, surprise problems revealed in inspections, problems with securing lending, or other failed contingencies. In real life people have more difficulty with choosing and adopting a puppy versus buying a house in House Hunters world! :)
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I always thought it was strange how at the end, when they sit down together to discuss the features of the different houses, they are somehow magically always secretly wanting the same house.
I've seen two episodes where they actually couldn't decide between two houses so they purchased both of them. Ridiculous.
Wahaaaat?
How does that even work? Live 6 months of the year in one and then switch to the other? Or are these vacation properties so now they have 3 houses?
Reminds me of when my freshman year roommate said "our New York* house". Not realizing people actually had multiple houses, I teased her about her funny phrasing...and thus learned her family owned 4 houses. One was in Utah I remember (skiing likely - she and her brother was exceedingly good). Yozers.
*or other, I can't remember
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I've stated this before, but my biggest pet peeve with house hunters is the HOA fees that are always glossed over and never factored into the equation. One option is like $1600/mo with no HOA fees and is right at the max budget. The other option is about $1600/mo plus additional HOA fees of $800/mo. Those options aren't comparable, and if the first is the max budget then the second shouldn't even be an option. Drives me insane to see those huge fees that increase the "max" budget by over 50% (and NEVER go away unlike a mortgage which eventually does) and it just gets glossed over like it's no big deal.
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My second biggest pet peeve is people nitpicking tiny fixable details, like paint. You are buying a quarter of a million dollar house, you should be painting the interior before you move in anyway. The current paint on the walls should not even be a consideration. Or granite counter tops. "I really like almost everything about this $300k house...if only it had granite counter tops. It's not like we could hire a company to come install the new granite counters we desire for a tiny tiny fraction of the total cost of the house though...better keep looking and consider other options with granite already preinstalled"
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I always thought it was strange how at the end, when they sit down together to discuss the features of the different houses, they are somehow magically always secretly wanting the same house.
I've seen two episodes where they actually couldn't decide between two houses so they purchased both of them. Ridiculous.
Wahaaaat?
How does that even work? Live 6 months of the year in one and then switch to the other? Or are these vacation properties so now they have 3 houses?
Reminds me of when my freshman year roommate said "our New York* house". Not realizing people actually had multiple houses, I teased her about her funny phrasing...and thus learned her family owned 4 houses. One was in Utah I remember (skiing likely - she and her brother was exceedingly good). Yozers.
*or other, I can't remember
One of the episodes the buyers were in Alaska and I can't remember the reason they bought both, I only caught the end of it as my wife was watching.
The other one though, it was a 60ish gay couple in Mexico/Caribbean. One of them wanted a small house in the hot part of town so they could enjoy the night life. The other wanted the larger, more secluded place a mile from town.
The plan was to stay in the city house for the weekend, then retreat an entire mile to the bigger place to spend their weeks. In their defense, the smaller place was like $80K and the bigger place was like $200K, so these weren't McMansions.
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A co-worker's son and daughter-in-law were just on House Hunters a few weeks ago. I was not as aware as many of you apparently are, and I naively thought that the people on the show were actually house hunting. I always thought it was strange how at the end, when they sit down together to discuss the features of the different houses, they are somehow magically always secretly wanting the same house. But when my co-worker told me they had already bought the house before they ever applied for the show, and then another co-worker said she knew someone else who had been on a while back and they also already owned the house, I admit - I kinda felt like I was finding out that Santa isn't real. Sigh. I really like HH, and now I just can't watch it. What a fraud. If you're gonna make a reality tv show, seems like it should be at least remotely real.
After watching enough episodes, the fakery becomes apparent -- all episodes come down to choosing among three -- and only three -- houses and there are never lost bidding wars, surprise problems revealed in inspections, problems with securing lending, or other failed contingencies. In real life people have more difficulty with choosing and adopting a puppy versus buying a house in House Hunters world! :)
You know, HGTV used to have a show that did include all that kind of stuff. I think it also focused on first-time buyers... maybe "My First Place?"
The other one though, it was a 60ish gay couple in Mexico/Caribbean. One of them wanted a small house in the hot part of town so they could enjoy the night life. The other wanted the larger, more secluded place a mile from town.
The plan was to stay in the city house for the weekend, then retreat an entire mile to the bigger place to spend their weeks. In their defense, the smaller place was like $80K and the bigger place was like $200K, so these weren't McMansions.
You've got to be joking! They were being outrageously stupid, and "but it's not a McMansion" is categorically not even slightly a defense.
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The other one though, it was a 60ish gay couple in Mexico/Caribbean. One of them wanted a small house in the hot part of town so they could enjoy the night life. The other wanted the larger, more secluded place a mile from town.
The plan was to stay in the city house for the weekend, then retreat an entire mile to the bigger place to spend their weeks. In their defense, the smaller place was like $80K and the bigger place was like $200K, so these weren't McMansions.
You've got to be joking! They were being outrageously stupid, and "but it's not a McMansion" is categorically not even slightly a defense.
Cheaper than a divorce?
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The other one though, it was a 60ish gay couple in Mexico/Caribbean. One of them wanted a small house in the hot part of town so they could enjoy the night life. The other wanted the larger, more secluded place a mile from town.
The plan was to stay in the city house for the weekend, then retreat an entire mile to the bigger place to spend their weeks. In their defense, the smaller place was like $80K and the bigger place was like $200K, so these weren't McMansions.
You've got to be joking! They were being outrageously stupid, and "but it's not a McMansion" is categorically not even slightly a defense.
Cheaper than a divorce?
Still not an excuse.
(Also, being a gay couple, there's a decent chance they weren't technically married.)
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The other one though, it was a 60ish gay couple in Mexico/Caribbean. One of them wanted a small house in the hot part of town so they could enjoy the night life. The other wanted the larger, more secluded place a mile from town.
The plan was to stay in the city house for the weekend, then retreat an entire mile to the bigger place to spend their weeks. In their defense, the smaller place was like $80K and the bigger place was like $200K, so these weren't McMansions.
You've got to be joking! They were being outrageously stupid, and "but it's not a McMansion" is categorically not even slightly a defense.
Cheaper than a divorce?
Still not an excuse.
(Also, being a gay couple, there's a decent chance they weren't technically married.)
Jack, how about this excuse: They wanted the bigger place so they could entertain their friends from the bars after hours. So they'd party in the city at the bars, then since the city place was so small they couldn't fit enough people, they had to buy the bigger place.
Still not good enough for you?
Yeah, I was shocked when I saw it. Unexpected to say the least.
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My second biggest pet peeve is people nitpicking tiny fixable details, like paint. You are buying a quarter of a million dollar house, you should be painting the interior before you move in anyway. The current paint on the walls should not even be a consideration. Or granite counter tops. "I really like almost everything about this $300k house...if only it had granite counter tops. It's not like we could hire a company to come install the new granite counters we desire for a tiny tiny fraction of the total cost of the house though...better keep looking and consider other options with granite already preinstalled"
While I agree with you 100%... I am amazed at the number of people that can't get past that. Seriously. I have heard many an acquaintance talk about that house we loved except for those awful blue walls...
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The other one though, it was a 60ish gay couple in Mexico/Caribbean. One of them wanted a small house in the hot part of town so they could enjoy the night life. The other wanted the larger, more secluded place a mile from town.
The plan was to stay in the city house for the weekend, then retreat an entire mile to the bigger place to spend their weeks. In their defense, the smaller place was like $80K and the bigger place was like $200K, so these weren't McMansions.
You've got to be joking! They were being outrageously stupid, and "but it's not a McMansion" is categorically not even slightly a defense.
Cheaper than a divorce?
Still not an excuse.
(Also, being a gay couple, there's a decent chance they weren't technically married.)
You know, living in MA, that never actually crossed my mind.
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I caught a few minutes of a "house hunters" style show last night. They were buying a tiny house. In the 3-4 minutes I watched these fools said "this seems so small", "it's a bit tight", "how can we both fit in the bathroom", "where are we going to fit our king size bed".
WTF. Tiny houses are small? Who knew?
I find the whole tiny house movement a hipster ideology more so than a practical usage of space and comfortably. My favorite lol episode was a young couple living in their parents house, looking to buy a tiny house to place in their parents backyard! LOL The dad on the show kept rolling his eyes every time they stepped into one.
Not a single person ever explained why a tiny house was better than an RV either especially when there were hauling fees attached to most of the bigger models.
HH is a fun way to view real estate from your couch, but very much predetermined for sure.
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I forget which show this was - I think House Hunters? A young couple was looking at houses in the Nashville area. They dismissed one house with 2 stories because going up and down stairs all the time would "get old."
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I forget which show this was - I think House Hunters? A young couple was looking at houses in the Nashville area. They dismissed one house with 2 stories because going up and down stairs all the time would "get old."
Using the stairs wouldn't bother me. What would bother me is the maintenance and expense of multizone climate control!
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I forget which show this was - I think House Hunters? A young couple was looking at houses in the Nashville area. They dismissed one house with 2 stories because going up and down stairs all the time would "get old."
Having lived in a 3-story (2 + basement), 1 story, and now a tri-level...they're right. Plus resale opportunities on a ranch are much better (lots of older people don't want stairs, lots of families worry about stairs + kids, etc).
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I forget which show this was - I think House Hunters? A young couple was looking at houses in the Nashville area. They dismissed one house with 2 stories because going up and down stairs all the time would "get old."
Having lived in a 3-story (2 + basement), 1 story, and now a tri-level...they're right. Plus resale opportunities on a ranch are much better (lots of older people don't want stairs, lots of families worry about stairs + kids, etc).
Meh. I grew up in a 2 story. I have a 2 story again. Doesn't bother me at all. My dad is 86. Just within the last month he has started being bothered by it -- but for the previous 50 years it hasn't bothered him a bit. (And if he can ever get his heart to stay in a normal rhythm, I think he would again not be bothered by it.)
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My second biggest pet peeve is people nitpicking tiny fixable details, like paint. You are buying a quarter of a million dollar house, you should be painting the interior before you move in anyway. The current paint on the walls should not even be a consideration. Or granite counter tops. "I really like almost everything about this $300k house...if only it had granite counter tops. It's not like we could hire a company to come install the new granite counters we desire for a tiny tiny fraction of the total cost of the house though...better keep looking and consider other options with granite already preinstalled"
While I agree with you 100%... I am amazed at the number of people that can't get past that. Seriously. I have heard many an acquaintance talk about that house we loved except for those awful blue walls...
You're coming from a mindset of: I'm buying a $300k house and just put down $60k as a downpayment and spent another $5k on closing costs, what's another $400 on some paint for a fun way to break in my first weekend in my new place with my spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/etc? After all, the mortgage, and taxes, and insurance, and maintenance slush fund is only 33% of my net income...I can spare the money to make it look great.
Most non-mustachians are coming from the mindset of: I just had to go borrow $15k from my parents and all my friends to come up with this ridiculous 5% downpayment, but thankfully the seller agreed to kick in $5k in closing costs if I offered $307k. My mortgage alone is going to be 40% of my net income, and then damn taxes and insurance and PMI is going to make it like 50% of my income (houses don't need repairs). I just don't have another $5k to pay a bunch of painters to come in and paint all my walls, or $20k to bring in a contractor to rip up my countertops (and cabinets too, because why not?) and replace them with granite.
If you stand in their shoes for a minute, you can understand why a house has to be perfect at purchase...and then you can proceed to pummel them in the face until they understand how foolish they are.
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I think it's more like "Uh, I already bought house #2, so I have to come up with some silly reason for not buying house #1 and house #3, which are in all respects basically just as good. So, uhh...paint color. Yeah."
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AH013, I think you nailed it!
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I especially like the business models of those like the Scot brothers or the Waco couple (who are really cute, btw) where they are profiting not only from your business as your (buyer's) agent but also as your contractor.
So when Drew shows them a $900k house that they can't afford ("YOUUU, can't afford this house..") I go in my head "he'd make only 27k commission off of that sale. Now, they go buy a house for 500k (15k commission) AND they spend 100k on the renovation. Total revenue for the brothers: $115k."
Granted, the contracting job's margins are much lower than the realtor commissions but still, that's a pretty smart move. Same deal with the Waco couple...
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I doubt he's taking a commission at all actually.
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My second biggest pet peeve is people nitpicking tiny fixable details, like paint. You are buying a quarter of a million dollar house, you should be painting the interior before you move in anyway. The current paint on the walls should not even be a consideration. Or granite counter tops. "I really like almost everything about this $300k house...if only it had granite counter tops. It's not like we could hire a company to come install the new granite counters we desire for a tiny tiny fraction of the total cost of the house though...better keep looking and consider other options with granite already preinstalled"
While I agree with you 100%... I am amazed at the number of people that can't get past that. Seriously. I have heard many an acquaintance talk about that house we loved except for those awful blue walls...
You're coming from a mindset of: I'm buying a $300k house and just put down $60k as a downpayment and spent another $5k on closing costs, what's another $400 on some paint for a fun way to break in my first weekend in my new place with my spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/etc? After all, the mortgage, and taxes, and insurance, and maintenance slush fund is only 33% of my net income...I can spare the money to make it look great.
Most non-mustachians are coming from the mindset of: I just had to go borrow $15k from my parents and all my friends to come up with this ridiculous 5% downpayment, but thankfully the seller agreed to kick in $5k in closing costs if I offered $307k. My mortgage alone is going to be 40% of my net income, and then damn taxes and insurance and PMI is going to make it like 50% of my income (houses don't need repairs). I just don't have another $5k to pay a bunch of painters to come in and paint all my walls, or $20k to bring in a contractor to rip up my countertops (and cabinets too, because why not?) and replace them with granite.
If you stand in their shoes for a minute, you can understand why a house has to be perfect at purchase...and then you can proceed to pummel them in the face until they understand how foolish they are.
While I don't disagree with you... some people can't even SEE the house in their heads with that $400 fix. I'm not even talking about whether they have time or money to make it happen. It's just an awful house with bright baby blue walls. That's why real estate agents want all houses painted some bland off-white. No one seems to have the imagination to see past a few basic flaws.
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I don't recall the name of the show, but it had to be one of the first renovation shows on TLC where they gutted the house and brought the family back for the big reveal. Almost every single time they repainted and decorated the kid's rooms to reflect their interests at that exact moment like all pink and unicorns for the girl or blue and baseball for the boy. You guys realize they'll have completely different interests in a year or two right? Some of the renovations were structural which made the house unique - and not in a easily resold kind of way. Later on I read a couple articles where many families that were on that show had to sell their home because they could no longer afford to live in it due to the upgrades.
I tried to watch a couple of the "flipping" shows, but that petered out fast. Like many reality shows they're formulaic and go through their scripts like a checklist. One of them was "Flipping Vegas" with a neurotic flipper and his flighty decorator. Every episode he'd start off optimistic and have these can't-lose plans, then by the second commercial break there are structural and contractor problems and now he's screaming at the camera that he's blown his budget and he'll lose money on it (every single time). And of course he has to have a couple mandatory disagreements with the decorator who always goes behind his back to implement her grand ideas. One episode they walk into a house they both loved, she said she couldn't see anything wrong with it, then as soon as they start work on the house she's taking a sledgehammer to the staircase muttering how much she hates it. I can't remember the other show, but it was a tall wrestler-looking guy and his shorter and thinner business partner. The big guy has some anger management issues which included him blowing up at a code enforcer who put a 30 day hold on their property (because the big guy was being an ass) which the shorter partner just glossed over. If I had an angry partner costing me money I'd drop him, not pretend it's not a problem.
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I doubt he's taking a commission at all actually.
IIRC, he is not the one actually acting as the realtor in the transaction. (I KNOW the Property Virgins lady doesn't- she often wasn't licensed in the area she was filming- so maybe that is what I am thinking of.)
While he is a real estate agent, for the sake of the show, he's just acting. They use their own agent to finish deals.
My husband can't watch Property Brothers because of how they start with the "dream" property. He is of the belief that it is an absolute shit move to show a buyer anything above their price range. Even though the entire premise of the show is "your price range won't get you what you want, so buy a fixer upper and we'll make it what you want."
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My husband can't watch Property Brothers because of how they start with the "dream" property. He is of the belief that it is an absolute shit move to show a buyer anything above their price range. Even though the entire premise of the show is "your price range won't get you what you want, so buy a fixer upper and we'll make it what you want."
Speaking of that, everyone knows what you're doing, including the potential buyer. Can we stop that already. Unneccessary.
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My husband can't watch Property Brothers because of how they start with the "dream" property. He is of the belief that it is an absolute shit move to show a buyer anything above their price range. Even though the entire premise of the show is "your price range won't get you what you want, so buy a fixer upper and we'll make it what you want."
Speaking of that, everyone knows what you're doing, including the potential buyer. Can we stop that already. Unneccessary.
Yep. I sing the angelic, heavens opening "LAA!" sound when they show that house.
I just want to go on one of these shows to say, "Oh you found mold/bad wiring/foundation issues? I rather expected that because of X, Y or Z. How much extra? That sucks, but that's why I have a built in contingency fund. Ok." And NOT flip out over a budget increase and have the funds to pay for it.
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My husband can't watch Property Brothers because of how they start with the "dream" property. He is of the belief that it is an absolute shit move to show a buyer anything above their price range. Even though the entire premise of the show is "your price range won't get you what you want, so buy a fixer upper and we'll make it what you want."
Speaking of that, everyone knows what you're doing, including the potential buyer. Can we stop that already. Unneccessary.
Yep. I sing the angelic, heavens opening "LAA!" sound when they show that house.
I just want to go on one of these shows to say, "Oh you found mold/bad wiring/foundation issues? I rather expected that because of X, Y or Z. How much extra? That sucks, but that's why I have a built in contingency fund. Ok." And NOT flip out over a budget increase and have the funds to pay for it.
I thought part of that bit was so that the designers could have a better understanding of what the buyers actually valued(must haves) vs just having a laundry list of wants.
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I forget which show this was - I think House Hunters? A young couple was looking at houses in the Nashville area. They dismissed one house with 2 stories because going up and down stairs all the time would "get old."
I live in Nashville, and we are selling our two story and buying a ranch house (mainly because we can sell and almost pay cash for the new house), but I will NOT miss having a two story house. It's especially not fun when you have small children that are on the second floor.
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One of the few HGTV shows we watch pretty regularly. Our only issue with it is that the intro still paints it as if they're struggling to get by- when they've at times mentioned how many houses they are renovating at that particular time- like -EIGHTEEN- of them- and they seem to make an average of $40k or so per house. Even accounting for living in SoCal like they do, with each house taking conservatively 2 months, and assuming they only flip 10 in that time, that's still like $3.6 MILLION per year.
Closet Flip Or Flop fan here. :)
I read or saw--don't remember which--an interview with Tarek El Moussa somewhere where he said that all their deals are done 50/50 with an investor, so that their actual "take-home" profit from the deals on the show are half the stated value, but that they don't bring this in to the calculations presented because it would make it too cluttered and confusing for the viewer. I get that, I guess--even though it's a little disingenuous, I'm still a fan of the show and really enjoy learning a thing or two between the lines.
I saw a recap episode recently where they talked about some of the things that don't make it into the episodes. They mentioned a house where on the episode they claimed they made something like a $30k profit, but actually there was a massive lien on the house that they had to pay, so they ended up losing money it.
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The worst Love It or List It is when they give one an increase in budget and not the other. I also find it funny that they don't factor in any increased value in their initial budget for the list it option.
I got sick of that show.
The worst is that they keep hiring that designer. She hasn't had a single episode where she didn't blow the budget because of some unexpected cost.:)
That's the thing I hate about that show: they portray both the designer and the real estate agent as completely incompetent. I want to watch shows like Holmes on Homes or This Old House where I can learn to do things correctly, not watch somebody fuck up! I'm surprised the designer and agent put up with it.
(Okay, I'll make an exception for Renovation Realities, but that's different...)
Holmes on Homes or That Old House - those are my shows too. BBC UK has a couple of homes shows we adore - or did adore until I couldn't stream it anymore. ;)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006vb2f
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006pnjk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b062rfkr
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You guys remember the TLC show a decade ago called - Trading Spaces? Wasn't that one of the first big ones.
Oh, the craziness.
Yes!! I remember watching one where they glued hay to the walls and thinking that couple had to really hate their neighbors.
I only saw a few episodes and none of the finished renovations were ones that I would want to keep. I kept thinking - how easy would it be to rip all that out after the film crew left? Moss on the bedroom walls - that was the one I remember. She glued moss to the walls.
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I forget which show this was - I think House Hunters? A young couple was looking at houses in the Nashville area. They dismissed one house with 2 stories because going up and down stairs all the time would "get old."
Using the stairs wouldn't bother me. What would bother me is the maintenance and expense of multizone climate control!
Easier to clean the gutters yourself on the single story...
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You guys remember the TLC show a decade ago called - Trading Spaces? Wasn't that one of the first big ones.
Oh, the craziness.
Yes!! I remember watching one where they glued hay to the walls and thinking that couple had to really hate their neighbors.
I only saw a few episodes and none of the finished renovations were ones that I would want to keep. I kept thinking - how easy would it be to rip all that out after the film crew left? Moss on the bedroom walls - that was the one I remember. She glued moss to the walls.
LMAO of the gluing of crappy material to the walls and hating your neighbors, I forgot about Paige and her crew of wacky designers! Who all seem to have gotten their own HGTV shows at some point.
I recall in one episode of Trading Spaces, they decided to add a wall to a room, and they made it out of cardboard. They had a small budget on that show, like $1K, I think? Still, a cardboard wall?
Oh, and on another note, Mike Holmes is my TV boyfriend. I love him and his shows, you learn a lot from him. Same goes with Income Property. And the snarkiness on Renovation Realities is awesome. Hubby & I crack up all the time on their graphics budget, I think sometimes they just ship a camera to the homeowners and ask them to send back the footage!
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Well on HH, they do usually discuss if commute TIME is significantly different. They ignore the cost, because quite frankly, the cost is nowhere near as significant for most people as MMM likes to pretend it is.
For instance, I'm an extreme example. I recently traded a 30-mile one-way commute for a 7-mile on. I am not going to ride my bike, so either way it's by car. By far the biggest change is in gas, but even that isn't THAT much:
30 miles x 2 trips x 5 days x 52 weeks = 15,600 miles / 25 mpg = 624 gallons x $3 = $1872
7 miles x 2 trips x 5 days x 52 weeks = 3,640 miles / 25 mpg = 146 gallons x $3 = $437.
Difference is $1435/yr or $120/mo.
Is that nothing? Obviously not. Is it what I'm going to make a $XXX,XXX decision based on? Also no. Yeah, you can try to justify a bigger change based on the gov't mileage reimbursable rate, but really, most people will just change their lifestyle to accomodate (keep a car longer, for instance) rather than realize a large change in cost.
Agree 100%.
I don't like cycling to work (for various reasons) and my 4 mile commute costs me less than $2 a day in fuel. $2 is less than half of the bus fare, plus driving takes 10 minutes as opposed to an hour because the bus stop is a mile away, plus I'd have to transfer. I also value my time and spending $2 a day to save an hour and 40 minutes of commute time is a no brainer.
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Anybody watch the landscaping shows? Since I no longer have cable, I don't know if they're still on. I enjoyed watching the people on Curb Appeal fix up houses or sometimes a whole block.
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But for sake of pretending that the house is actually on the market as the show represents... they ought to discuss the added cost of the commute vs. difference in the price of the house, rather than pretending that an extra half hour of commuting each day has no monetary cost.
But don't most people pretend it doesn't? I think the notion that commute actually represents a cost is a very MMM realization.
That's kind of my point. They never discuss the other ongoing costs entailed in buying the various homes - commute and utilities make for boring TV I guess.
Well on HH, they do usually discuss if commute TIME is significantly different. They ignore the cost, because quite frankly, the cost is nowhere near as significant for most people as MMM likes to pretend it is.
For instance, I'm an extreme example. I recently traded a 30-mile one-way commute for a 7-mile on. I am not going to ride my bike, so either way it's by car. By far the biggest change is in gas, but even that isn't THAT much:
30 miles x 2 trips x 5 days x 52 weeks = 15,600 miles / 25 mpg = 624 gallons x $3 = $1872
7 miles x 2 trips x 5 days x 52 weeks = 3,640 miles / 25 mpg = 146 gallons x $3 = $437.
Difference is $1435/yr or $120/mo.
Is that nothing? Obviously not. Is it what I'm going to make a $XXX,XXX decision based on? Also no. Yeah, you can try to justify a bigger change based on the gov't mileage reimbursable rate, but really, most people will just change their lifestyle to accomodate (keep a car longer, for instance) rather than realize a large change in cost.
Well, if you take into account the interest paid on any loans one may have taken on for the car, wear and tear on the car (as in depreciating "asset"), additional maintenance (oil change, tires, etc.) and repair fees, and insurance (based on what you drive, you may have to take on comprehensive/collision coverage), it does add up.
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Anybody watch the landscaping shows? Since I no longer have cable, I don't know if they're still on. I enjoyed watching the people on Curb Appeal fix up houses or sometimes a whole block.
My ex GF used to watch landscaping shows all the time, so I saw a few. They once had a one hour special where they went back a year or 2 later to see what some yards looked like. I originally thought "cool...now we can see how nice they look after the plants have had a chance to grow in a little bit."
Sadly, the majority of them had been ignored and were in almost as bad shape as when they first showed up. Obviously, they had bad landscapes in the first place because they were too lazy to take care of the place. That didn't change once the camera crew left and their nice new landscape projects received the same maintenance as the old ones.
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Anybody watch the landscaping shows? Since I no longer have cable, I don't know if they're still on. I enjoyed watching the people on Curb Appeal fix up houses or sometimes a whole block.
My ex GF used to watch landscaping shows all the time, so I saw a few. They once had a one hour special where they went back a year or 2 later to see what some yards looked like. I originally thought "cool...now we can see how nice they look after the plants have had a chance to grow in a little bit."
Sadly, the majority of them had been ignored and were in almost as bad shape as when they first showed up. Obviously, they had bad landscapes in the first place because they were too lazy to take care of the place. That didn't change once the camera crew left and their nice new landscape projects received the same maintenance as the old ones.
Yep. That's what happened to the house Curb Appeal did in my neighborhood. : (
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You guys remember the TLC show a decade ago called - Trading Spaces? Wasn't that one of the first big ones.
Oh, the craziness.
Yes!! I remember watching one where they glued hay to the walls and thinking that couple had to really hate their neighbors.
I only saw a few episodes and none of the finished renovations were ones that I would want to keep. I kept thinking - how easy would it be to rip all that out after the film crew left? Moss on the bedroom walls - that was the one I remember. She glued moss to the walls.
LMAO of the gluing of crappy material to the walls and hating your neighbors, I forgot about Paige and her crew of wacky designers! Who all seem to have gotten their own HGTV shows at some point.
I recall in one episode of Trading Spaces, they decided to add a wall to a room, and they made it out of cardboard. They had a small budget on that show, like $1K, I think? Still, a cardboard wall?
Oh, and on another note, Mike Holmes is my TV boyfriend. I love him and his shows, you learn a lot from him. Same goes with Income Property. And the snarkiness on Renovation Realities is awesome. Hubby & I crack up all the time on their graphics budget, I think sometimes they just ship a camera to the homeowners and ask them to send back the footage!
Yeah, they got 1,000 dollars and a weekend to severely mess up a room in your house. I loved that show... someone on Buzzfeed thoughtfully made a list of the worst five. I guess at one point Hildy put a mural of herself
(http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr06/2013/4/8/19/enhanced-buzz-5066-1365463536-10.jpg)
And yes, I will watch any show with Mike Holmes on it.
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You guys remember the TLC show a decade ago called - Trading Spaces? Wasn't that one of the first big ones.
Oh, the craziness.
Yes!! I remember watching one where they glued hay to the walls and thinking that couple had to really hate their neighbors.
I only saw a few episodes and none of the finished renovations were ones that I would want to keep. I kept thinking - how easy would it be to rip all that out after the film crew left? Moss on the bedroom walls - that was the one I remember. She glued moss to the walls.
LMAO of the gluing of crappy material to the walls and hating your neighbors, I forgot about Paige and her crew of wacky designers! Who all seem to have gotten their own HGTV shows at some point.
I recall in one episode of Trading Spaces, they decided to add a wall to a room, and they made it out of cardboard. They had a small budget on that show, like $1K, I think? Still, a cardboard wall?
Oh, and on another note, Mike Holmes is my TV boyfriend. I love him and his shows, you learn a lot from him. Same goes with Income Property. And the snarkiness on Renovation Realities is awesome. Hubby & I crack up all the time on their graphics budget, I think sometimes they just ship a camera to the homeowners and ask them to send back the footage!
Yeah, they got 1,000 dollars and a weekend to severely mess up a room in your house. I loved that show... someone on Buzzfeed thoughtfully made a list of the worst five. I guess at one point Hildy put a mural of herself
Hildi was the WORST designer on that show! The most stupid rooms she did were: (1) the circus tent room in which she filled the entire floor of the room with sand, like a beach, and (2) the hay room in which she glued tons of hay all over the walls.
(http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr06/2013/4/8/20/enhanced-buzz-20526-1365467385-0.jpg)
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Anybody watch the landscaping shows? Since I no longer have cable, I don't know if they're still on. I enjoyed watching the people on Curb Appeal fix up houses or sometimes a whole block.
Because of this thread I cruised Hulu last night after I got home. There are some landscaping shows. Go to TV > genres > lifestyle.
There are also some shows from the DIY network too. I like DIY as much as HGTV but never had the network when we had Dish satellite (until maybe 2011 when we "cut the cord").
On a side note: had to travel for work this weekend. After work Sat night in the hotel, I tried to watch TV. Tried. No channel guide built into the TV so I had to channel surf old school style to look for something to watch. There were SO many commercials on the different channels that I could loop the dial without ever seeing anything I wanted to see and commercials. I'm exaggerating a little but it seemed like 5 mins of TV and 4 mins of commercials and then repeat. Every commercial break the narrator would recap the show up to that point and burn a minute or two. My resolve to remain "unplugged" is recharged. ;) Finally landed on two shows and I flipped back and forth.
All I could think of was "we used to PAY for this nonsense???"
I wonder if viewer subscription numbers will shrink in favor of Hulu and Netflix type services. If they do - will the commercials go up in number to generate the lost revenue? Or - will the price of buying air time to air a commercial shrink and invite alot of smaller businesses to advertise leading to more commercials thus hastening the networks' demise.
FWIW it seemed the radio in my work truck was the same way. At one point a classic country channel I landed on had two songs, commercials for several minutes, two songs more, repeat. I heard six songs before I lost the signal. We normally use satellite radio if we travel in our own car.
If I accept driving the work truck cross country next year - our satellite radio is going with me.
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Well, if you take into account the interest paid on any loans one may have taken on for the car, wear and tear on the car (as in depreciating "asset"), additional maintenance (oil change, tires, etc.) and repair fees, and insurance (based on what you drive, you may have to take on comprehensive/collision coverage), it does add up.
Depends. I bought a $1500 car this spring. '99 Malibu. I made a couple hundred in optional repairs (spark plugs, fluid changes, etc) and did the work myself. It will need an oil change probably twice a year. Insurance is near nothing (liability only). And tires are needed once every five years or so. If kept in good condition it'll always be worth north of $750. We don't drive it that much per week b/c our commute is short. We have a second vehicle (Honda) that is driven about the same number of miles (we carpool but divide our vehicle use to spread the miles around).
If I was driving a 2013 ACME Family Hauler EX then yeah - depreciation plays into the figures. I think the key is minimize the number of miles built into your lifestyle/career. B/c the miles are piling on, you aren't wearing stuff out as fast, not as much fuel to purchase, and you can get by driving an older car for years and years.
Anyhow our transportation cost is low but we drive less than ten miles each way and we carpool.
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Hildi was the WORST designer on that show! The most stupid rooms she did were: (1) the circus tent room in which she filled the entire floor of the room with sand, like a beach, and (2) the hay room in which she glued tons of hay all over the walls.
(http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr06/2013/4/8/20/enhanced-buzz-20526-1365467385-0.jpg)
I seriously would worry about my insurance company canceling my home insurance if they found out we had hay or dry moss glued to the walls.
I'd let Mike Holmes and crew work on our house in a second. Very few of the rest. The two twin brothers also - to a point.
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Hildi was the WORST designer on that show! The most stupid rooms she did were: (1) the circus tent room in which she filled the entire floor of the room with sand, like a beach, and (2) the hay room in which she glued tons of hay all over the walls.
(http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/webdr06/2013/4/8/20/enhanced-buzz-20526-1365467385-0.jpg)
I seriously would worry about my insurance company canceling my home insurance if they found out we had hay or dry moss glued to the walls.
I'd let Mike Holmes and crew work on our house in a second. Very few of the rest. The two twin brothers also - to a point.
I wouldn't be worried about the work the brothers would do, but it doesn't seem like they go out of their way to maximize value the way Holmes does.
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I wouldn't be worried about the work the brothers would do, but it doesn't seem like they go out of their way to maximize value the way Holmes does.
I'd only let Holmes work on my home if he was working for free with donated goods.
We've learned some EXCELLENT techniques from him- but the reason he maximizes value is that he maximizes cost. He goes WAY overboard, and it is often truly not necessary.
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I lost count of how many times people on House Hunters went over their "budgets." I'm always surprised when someone actually stays within the amount they said was their max at the beginning of the show.
And the equally silly "necessity": We must stay right here in our beloved neighborhood.
If I were determined to move, and this was my "necessity", I wouldn't need a real estate agent. Even though I live in a big neighborhood, I could manage to go up and down every street and see what houses are for sale. I'm thinking it'd take, oh, 30 minutes.
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I wouldn't be worried about the work the brothers would do, but it doesn't seem like they go out of their way to maximize value the way Holmes does.
I'd only let Holmes work on my home if he was working for free with donated goods.
We've learned some EXCELLENT techniques from him- but the reason he maximizes value is that he maximizes cost. He goes WAY overboard, and it is often truly not necessary.
Do a Google image search for Mike Holmes memes. Many of them poke fun at how his "Make it Right" is way overboard.
On another note, he's got a new show coming out soon, I'm looking forward to it! There will be some educational elements in it for sure. It's the Mike Holmes way..
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My second biggest pet peeve is people nitpicking tiny fixable details, like paint. You are buying a quarter of a million dollar house, you should be painting the interior before you move in anyway. The current paint on the walls should not even be a consideration. Or granite counter tops. "I really like almost everything about this $300k house...if only it had granite counter tops. It's not like we could hire a company to come install the new granite counters we desire for a tiny tiny fraction of the total cost of the house though...better keep looking and consider other options with granite already preinstalled"
While I agree with you 100%... I am amazed at the number of people that can't get past that. Seriously. I have heard many an acquaintance talk about that house we loved except for those awful blue walls...
And that kind of thing really happens IRL. I see people here in my 'nabe reject houses because they don't have a garage.mforbgods sake, just build one. But I've also learned that people do not have the cash to build a garage. Or to put in granite counter tops. Or to repaint (it's $5000!for a mcmansion).
Madness.
🐭
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I wouldn't be worried about the work the brothers would do, but it doesn't seem like they go out of their way to maximize value the way Holmes does.
I'd only let Holmes work on my home if he was working for free with donated goods.
We've learned some EXCELLENT techniques from him- but the reason he maximizes value is that he maximizes cost. He goes WAY overboard, and it is often truly not necessary.
Do a Google image search for Mike Holmes memes. Many of them poke fun at how his "Make it Right" is way overboard.
On another note, he's got a new show coming out soon, I'm looking forward to it! There will be some educational elements in it for sure. It's the Mike Holmes way..
I guess by maximize value I meant spend it on stuff that matters, not furniture/decoration. But that said, I don't think I've ever actually seen anyone on his shows buy furniture...
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I wouldn't be worried about the work the brothers would do, but it doesn't seem like they go out of their way to maximize value the way Holmes does.
I'd only let Holmes work on my home if he was working for free with donated goods.
We've learned some EXCELLENT techniques from him- but the reason he maximizes value is that he maximizes cost. He goes WAY overboard, and it is often truly not necessary.
Do a Google image search for Mike Holmes memes. Many of them poke fun at how his "Make it Right" is way overboard.
On another note, he's got a new show coming out soon, I'm looking forward to it! There will be some educational elements in it for sure. It's the Mike Holmes way..
I guess by maximize value I meant spend it on stuff that matters, not furniture/decoration. But that said, I don't think I've ever actually seen anyone on his shows buy furniture...
The buying furniture thing always bugs me. We're going to move and want all new furniture since our old stuff works fine now, but not in the new house. And can it be very time dependent so it looks dated in 4-5 years. Also, please don't take my life into account that much, we want it to look nice, not be useful.
The only show I've seen it done 'right' on is Income Properties, where the guy rents the furniture so the pictures show better, but I'm still figuring that it is 100% "for TV" since a lot of people don't like to see a remodel stop at "well it's complete, just add your old furniture back". I get that a lot of shows are about design, but stuff like the Brothers and the Waco people shouldn't focus that much on design. I feel it really take away from the remodel aspect.
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If you look closely at the itty bitty print in the credits or online, you'll see that sometimes the furniture budget is given to the couple by the show.
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If you look closely at the itty bitty print in the credits or online, you'll see that sometimes the furniture budget is given to the couple by the show.
Ohhh that makes sense. I always wondered why they were buying 3,000 dollar sofas for a whole house remodel that had a 30,000 dollar budget...
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One of the few HGTV shows we watch pretty regularly. Our only issue with it is that the intro still paints it as if they're struggling to get by- when they've at times mentioned how many houses they are renovating at that particular time- like -EIGHTEEN- of them- and they seem to make an average of $40k or so per house. Even accounting for living in SoCal like they do, with each house taking conservatively 2 months, and assuming they only flip 10 in that time, that's still like $3.6 MILLION per year.
Closet Flip Or Flop fan here. :)
I read or saw--don't remember which--an interview with Tarek El Moussa somewhere where he said that all their deals are done 50/50 with an investor, so that their actual "take-home" profit from the deals on the show are half the stated value, but that they don't bring this in to the calculations presented because it would make it too cluttered and confusing for the viewer. I get that, I guess--even though it's a little disingenuous, I'm still a fan of the show and really enjoy learning a thing or two between the lines.
They do occasionally show an investor that they work with (named Pete); he kind of makes me nervous, and I tend to tune out the episodes where they show him. I've actually stopped watching some of the other flip shows because of all the yelling and narcissism; I prefer ones like Flip Or Flop and Fixer Upper where people are nice and don't yell at each other and treat their spouses and kids with love and respect. Plus Chip Gaines is a HOOT. :)
Ah, interesting. We just now started recording the 'follow-ups' shows that they're now running, should be fun to see. We're also liking that they've also had several outright or near FLOPS in this most recent season. We used to watch Fixer Upper a lot more religiously- and still DVR it- but have fallen behind a lot more on it.
I'm assuming one of the other flip shows with the 'yelling and narcissism' is 'Flipping Vegas'? We loved that show simply for how ridiculously staged everything HAS to be and waiting to see what absurd thing will be 'wrong' with the house they've bought or what ridiculous car he'd show up in. We've been sad there haven't been any new episodes for a while.
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Ah, interesting. We just now started recording the 'follow-ups' shows that they're now running, should be fun to see. We're also liking that they've also had several outright or near FLOPS in this most recent season. We used to watch Fixer Upper a lot more religiously- and still DVR it- but have fallen behind a lot more on it.
I've watched the two that have aired so far; it's fun to see the extra footage and the aspects of the deal that they didn't show in the original. It's a little cringe-worthy to watch sometimes because it is so OBVIOUSLY scripted, but every now and then you can just barely catch them cringing/eye-rolling, too, which was hilarious to see; DH and I got a good laugh out of that. :)
I'm assuming one of the other flip shows with the 'yelling and narcissism' is 'Flipping Vegas'? We loved that show simply for how ridiculously staged everything HAS to be and waiting to see what absurd thing will be 'wrong' with the house they've bought or what ridiculous car he'd show up in. We've been sad there haven't been any new episodes for a while.
Yup, that's one of them. I also stopped watching Flipping Boston and whichever one of them has Armando Montelongo (Flip This House, maybe?). Just too much yelling, too much being mean to spouses and business partners, too much being hateful and disrespectful to contractors for my taste, even if it's scripted. ;-)
You're definitely right about the formulaic nature of the shows, though; I often say things like, "oh, here's the part where they discover an unexpected expense" and "oh, this is one of the first two houses; they can't possibly like this one, because it isn't the third house yet." ;-)
I've learned something from every episode of the various shows I've seen; I'm planning on flipping a house next year and it's good to watch people do what they do as a fly on the wall. Of course, "reality TV" isn't Reality, but even so there are lessons to be learned, even if they're just between the lines.
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You guys remember the TLC show a decade ago called - Trading Spaces? Wasn't that one of the first big ones.
Oh, the craziness.
I loved Trading Spaces, especially since I knew Vern Yip, the little ripped Asian designer, in college. We worked on the student newspaper. He was a cartoonist, very talented guy, and no matter what idea you assigned him - no matter how half-baked or dull -- he'd attack it with crazy enthusiasm. Just like he did on Trading Spaces. I wish I could bring half the passion to my work.
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You guys remember the TLC show a decade ago called - Trading Spaces? Wasn't that one of the first big ones.
Oh, the craziness.
I loved Trading Spaces, especially since I knew Vern Yip, the little ripped Asian designer, in college. We worked on the student newspaper. He was a cartoonist, very talented guy, and no matter what idea you assigned him - no matter how half-baked or dull -- he'd attack it with crazy enthusiasm. Just like he did on Trading Spaces. I wish I could bring half the passion to my work.
OMG, Vern was my absolute favorite! I also really liked Laurie. I started watching from the very beginning, when Alex was the host, and I remember it took me a good season or so before I was finally convinced to like Paige as host, too. Ah, college memories :-)
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and also because the owners' ugly oversize and bland furniture is removed, as is all the CLUTTER.
But then those same people will be house hunters who say, "But will our furniture fit?" while shopping for a new home.
Why is that in every single show, on their top 5 list of Most Important Things is whether or not their furniture fits?
I just want to shout, "Who cares?!?! If your furniture doesn't fit, then get rid of it!"
That was actually a question I had in buying my house. Specifically, I wanted to make sure there was somewhere the sofa bed (http://p-fst1.pixstatic.com/5245cf46dbfa3f2d150000e4._w.474_h.470_s.fit_.jpg) would fit, since there isn't a guest bedroom. It's a small house, so I needed to make sure it was possible to put a couch that shape in the living room without blocking either the front door or the basement stairs.
Never did find a place to put the nightstand. Instead I have a 1x6 mounted on the wall next to the mattress (overlapping the bed frame, which doesn't reach the wall because the baseboard is in the way, and thus if I put my glasses on the bed frame directly, they frequently end up under the bed, and if I could see them to find them, I wouldn't need them). Nightstand + dresser got me $30 on Craigslist, though, so hey, that offset the cost of wood to put shelving in the bedroom.
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HGTV is dangerous if your Mustachian muscles are underdeveloped. Back in 2007 I was looking to upgrade the kitchen in my house. I was moderately spendthrift back then - saving 15% in the 401(k) but spending the rest; took out a new car loan but had paid it off and was still driving the same car a decade later; that sort of stuff. I'd been in the house for six years, and watching a lot of HGTV specifically on kitchen designs for a full year before I finally found a layout I liked.
But a year of watching these ridiculous upgrades in houses that cost 5x or more what mine does had screwed my whole perception of what a reasonable upgrade would be. As a result, I ended up taking out a HELOC and putting a $35k kitchen into my $100k home. In perspective with what I'd been watching for a year, it seemed cheap - but objectively it was absolutely insane. I have quartz counters, stainless steel appliances, and a $1400 glass backsplash. Any one of these details by themselves cost enough that even back then I would normally debate it quite a bit and more often than not decide I didn't need it. But once it was a "remodel" and I had the loan, it was all just a quick "Sure! Throw that in there.".
On the upside, it's been eight years and I still enjoy the kitchen every day. It looks awesome, and the layout is much more functional than the old one. But I could have gotten just as much enjoyment and spent much less. And if I hadn't been watching so much HGTV, I probably would have.
Wealth is always a relative thing. If you are blasted with constant images of people spending way more money than you do, it raises your expectation of where you "ought" to be. That's the whole point of advertising - and every show on HGTV is basically one big ad. I won't deny it's fun, though. I don't have television any more, but when I'm staying at my gf's house where she does, we still watch it. Sometimes to mock the consumer sucker mindset ("With this house I'll finally be able to be the father I want to be!" - actual quote), and sometimes just to see the fancy stuff.
Prior to purchasing my house I loved watching HGTV but then reality set in. I could not afford to A. Purchase the type of home featured on HGTV. B. I just did not have the money or the energy to do those things. So I stopped watching.
I was better off.
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Prior to purchasing my house I loved watching HGTV but then reality set in.... So I stopped watching.
I was better off.
Could be worse - I only watch discovery channel mega engineering.
Now my driveway re-surfacing includes a new subway tunnel and is $5bn over budget.
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Mike Holmes is a very good presenter (well spoken and engaging),and I was lucky enough to get a chance to hear a 45 min presentation last year. Even though he was strongly pitching 3M furnace filters, he made some very valid points. As a business man he is very smart marketing his brand. He spoke about how there are currently works in place for developing "Holmes approved Homes" to reassure people they are buying homes built to his standards. He was also talking about higher standard tradespeople education that is also currently under way, where they would run with the moniker that their training and work is up to his standards and expectations. While I would love to buy one of those homes, I'm also scared of how hefty the price tag would be for the associated name.
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Speaking of Mike Holmes, I came across this Home Free (http://www.fox.com/article/home-free) show on Fox the other day. Recorded it, haven't watched it yet, so don't know yet how good it is. May be an option for a home show fix off cable.
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HGTV is showing a marathon of people buying islands today....because who doesn't need their own island?
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If you have Ion Life (usually a sub-channel of Ion itself available over-the-air) they air Home To Go, which is an older show from HGTV that has a lot of DIY projects that look to be pretty mustachian.
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Only thing good about hgtv is some of the ideas you can get or by seeing how "projects" have turned out. I've actually learned a few things from a few of the tips and tricks on some of the shows.
However, I think it's all fake and totally overboard with regard to costs.... $10-30k to remodel a kitchen? (I know people spend that or even more but really?!?)
How do they find all these people with 2-3mm "budgets" to buy islands??? Or an extra $300+k for a weekend or summer home near the water? Its insane.
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However, I think it's all fake and totally overboard with regard to costs.... $10-30k to remodel a kitchen? (I know people spend that or even more but really?!?)
I bought appliances, pretty middle of the road (whirlpool brand, nothing super special) for about $4500. $1700 fridge, $1100 oven, $300 microwave, $700 dishwasher, $500 delivery/setup, plus tax. That's half the $10k budget and it doesn't touch ANYTHING else in the kitchen. (the only other things I did in the kitchen was new cabinet pulls for ~$100, new outlets/switches/fixtures/plates for maybe $150 (white/white to grey/stainless, makes a HUGE difference) and a steam clean/regrout of the tiles ($250 or so). Touch cabinets/countertops/backsplash and you're at that $10k number EASY. $30k+ is harder, that's either going real high-end on the cabinets, appliances, and countertops, or making structural changes to walls and such.
How do they find all these people with 2-3mm "budgets" to buy islands??? Or an extra $300+k for a weekend or summer home near the water? Its insane.
Islands is somewhat silly, but I know plenty of people who bought vacation homes in various places, and basically all it costs them is the downpayment. Lay out 20%, and then rental income can often easily cover the mortgage/taxes/insurance/upkeep if you buy correctly. It's actually a pretty saavy way to fund your retirement home. I know a guy who got pretty substantial employer stock grants and bonuses, and wasn't happy with the direction of the company, so he would cash it all out and buy up property. He's got over $1M of vacation property that rented just a few weeks a year is self-sustaining (taxes, insurance, and upkeep), and the stock he sold to buy it would be nearly worthless today.
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However, I think it's all fake and totally overboard with regard to costs.... $10-30k to remodel a kitchen? (I know people spend that or even more but really?!?)
I bought appliances, pretty middle of the road (whirlpool brand, nothing super special) for about $4500. $1700 fridge, $1100 oven, $300 microwave, $700 dishwasher, $500 delivery/setup, plus tax. That's half the $10k budget and it doesn't touch ANYTHING else in the kitchen. (the only other things I did in the kitchen was new cabinet pulls for ~$100, new outlets/switches/fixtures/plates for maybe $150 (white/white to grey/stainless, makes a HUGE difference) and a steam clean/regrout of the tiles ($250 or so). Touch cabinets/countertops/backsplash and you're at that $10k number EASY. $30k+ is harder, that's either going real high-end on the cabinets, appliances, and countertops, or making structural changes to walls and such.
How do they find all these people with 2-3mm "budgets" to buy islands??? Or an extra $300+k for a weekend or summer home near the water? Its insane.
Yep - $10-30k pretty easily. At our old condo we did a ~$25k gut renovation on a small kitchen. $7500 to fixing plumbing issues, take out the wall heater that was inside the cabinets and put in a proper baseboard heater instead. $7500 for stock cabinets. $2500 for one slab of granite. Took down a small wall, had to pay $1k for a stamp on a paper proving it wasn't load bearing. We took the kitchen down to the studs, so the rest was removal of the old kitchen, adding framing (it was a kitchen in an old building w/o 2 by 4s on that wall), tiling, painting, etc. Fridge (stainless steel but under $1k), dishwasher (bosh stainless steel, maybe $500), stove, tiles (we got cheap ones) were separate.