After learning about all this fakery, it has taken all the interest out of these shows and I hardly ever watch one. My favorite show, of which I can't remember the name, was about a stylist who furnished very high end properties for sale in I think New York, and he had such great taste that everything he did was an inspiration, especially his use of large pieces of art, which really personalized the rooms. Every house or apartment he styled was very individual and so beautiful that I couldn't wait for the next episode. I wish there were similar shows, where a rather ordinary, uninspiring room was transformed into something unique and wonderful, without necessarily having to empty your bank account.

Writersblock, that's a very interesting story!

I rarely watch any of those shows, either...they all seem fake and the people are often extremely petty and whiny. And I also don't believe there could be that many very young people just starting out who can seriously have a budget of $500,000 or more for their first home.

Ingrid, I guess they will be on until people stop watching them. Then there will be a whole new crop of "reality" shows to take their places.

I heard on NPR the other day about a new "reality" show called DIY Permits. It's about the trials and frustrations of getting building permits! This one woman wanted to remodel her master bath and it was a long wait to get the permit. She went on and on about how this was ruining her life. Really? Puh-lease.

Donna

So true. I also heard that sometimes they would use the homes of friends of the couple as the choices even though those were not even on the market.

Sometimes I watch with Dh when it is about an area that we have never heard of and looks interesting. Now I have my doubts if any of this information is true.

I used to like to watch the decorating shows. One did a male/female take on design. An English fellow. He merged the masculine/feminine tastes of the couples.

Design on a Dime was fun. Chris Lowell was good too.

I used to watch Home Hunters but not much lately. I did like to see what Hillary did on Love it or List it, with the spaces. There was a time when everyone seemed to want to stay. Almost as if they had no intention of moving and just wanted Hillary there to redo their space.

They are taking a page from decorating and home magazines, and realtors too. I've known some of the houses in magazines, and they are very artful in showing the open land around a house when it really is quite congested, or a new or renovated home that is totally out of place in its surroundings or neighborhood.

When you see a room on the cover of a magazine, then the same room on the pages, you can see all the restaging, rearranging, and photoshopping that goes on.

As John Lennon said: "Nothing is real"

writersblock, that is some eye-opening info - thanks for sharing.

It's gotten to the point for me that I don't tune into the House Hunter type programs until the very end when they are making their decision. How many times do we have to go over and over each house they've toured and hear them make the same comments again during the proceeding 55min.?

It's television. They are shows on television. The reasoning around the Tiny House Hunter episodes are to show Tiny Houses. They have to add people (buyers) to form a story for the television show.

Personally, I don't understand why those wanting a Tiny House don't buy a camper....

Years ago on Sunday mornings there was an one hour television ad, "For Sale By Owner" for our area. Those using the "For Sale By Owner" area franchise could pay extra to have their homes filmed and highlighted on the show. Just video or pictures of houses being sold. I was able to get my real estate fix by watching that.

I quit watching after I babysat for a young couple who had bought a house, but who were on HH and pretending that the one they had already bought was one of their choices. The wife said to me that she had told her real estate agent that she had better not show her one for the show that she might like better than the one they bought. Sheesh.

I always wondered if anyone won the HGTV dream home...I saw that this year it was actually won by a guy in our state...so at least that much is real.

I don't know much, except that one of our contractor's guys told me he was working for an HGTV show once, the remodel part, and it was as heavily scripted as any other movie out there:) The guy told me not to believe anything on these shows. Not that I did:) It's just more calming to watch than, say, the news..

It's television. They are shows on television. The reasoning around the Tiny House Hunter episodes are to show Tiny Houses. They have to add people (buyers) to form a story for the television show.

Yes, but I don't see how "let's pretend to look at houses that aren't on the market with lots of fake arguments" is a more compelling narrative than "we want exactly the vacation cottage we want and here's how we got it".

Annie, I believe that the past few years most winners have been taking the cash option instead of the house for the HGTV dream home, IIRC.

bpathome, it is pretty amazing what a good photographer can do. I had seen the Lake Worth cottages in the NYT feature and I was enormously curious about the amazingly beautiful bathroom they showed. What a comedown when I was actually in the house on a tour and it was like any other 5 x 8 with a glass sink. Personally I hate the current trend to use extreme wide angle lenses in RE photography. It seems to me that it wastes a lot of time when people get there and everything is too small and cramped so that both the customers and the agent could have saved themselves a trip.

It's just more calming to watch than, say, the news..

Sometimes, but it would be even more calming without the fake drama, no?

And that's one thing I will say about Sarah and Candace--they managed to make their shows very appealing (and I don't particularly like either of their styles but I liked their shows) without a lot of sturm und drang.

HGTV and the DIY station are purely advertisements set to a story line. None of it is REAL. Their prices are not realistic for the arm chair watcher, the decorating choices are not user friendly, they are shows one watches to DREAM of a life far far far from here.

I get that they aren't real, it is TV after all, but that's not the only problem I have with them. So boring because of all the repeat shots and narration, and then all the commercials, and the styles they show are extremely limited. I would actually be VERY interested in real remodeling, landscaping and redecorating shows, because honestly the stuff real people do is often much more tasteful than the display room fakery that is on TV and in the magazines. The TV show sponsors are obviously places like Home Depot, Target, etc., because they rarely show antiques or any type of really fine wood furniture. That's why I love perusing blogs these days, but I wish there were some better shows for streaming. My local PBS had a few good shows but I gave up TV due to the snore factor for me, so I do mostly streaming nowdays. Still, I loved it when I could just have those decorating and cooking shows on TV in the background while I did housework on Saturdays. But after a while, even at that level it was boring!

I would actually be VERY interested in real remodeling, landscaping and redecorating shows, because honestly the stuff real people do is often much more tasteful than the display room fakery that is on TV and in the magazines

Yes, for sure!

Until they see profits slide and/or viewership decrease, the management at HGTV will keep making the same shows under different names with different faces.

Yes..we don't have cable so I watch sometimes whatever is on Netflix streaming..so no commercials, and still all these endless repetitions are boring as hell. I hope TV watchers get to have better choice of the shows though?

I agree about the fake drama..if I want a drama, other than what life already gives, there are plenty of some very good books out there.

So no, not interested in drama, would love more details about design, dilemmas, solutions, etc. That somehow gets omitted.

To my surprise, I liked House Hunters Renovations a bit more than the other shows, because less drama, more details, and agents and designers are different each episode. More variety, more styles, more professional feel, more down to earth, even seems a bit more realistic..

Unfortunately they stopped at Season 1 (I think) on Netflix, so I've nothing to watch again..:)

Yeah, I was so disappointed in the movie version of Under the Tuscan Sun, although Diane Lane was very cute in it. I saw an interview with the director where she said, "Well, of course we didn't want to make a movie about home renovation," and I thought, "How stupid. There are at least as many people interested in home renovation as Romance these days, and hardly any movies to watch about that." What do they suppose sold so many copies of the book? (Hint: not Marcello--he wasn't there)

i liked HGTV when there were more decorating shows than real estate. i enjoyed Chris Madden, Alexandria Stoddard, Candice and The Furniture Show. learned a lot from that one.

Once in a while i watch House Hunters international, because it's interesting to see the foreign locations.

I've a bit of second-hand info on a few shows.

Love It or List It has been filming here over the last year or so. An episode of a house near me was being remodeled by Hillary while David took them out to see other houses on the market. Since it was filmed at the same time that I bought my 1939 house, I had actually looked at a few of the same houses that David took them to see.

My son knows a couple who was on the show here, too -- and they decided to List it--- and the agreement was that they couldn't put it on the market until after the show aired. I don't know how many months that was, but the show must have really given them a good deal to hold off selling for that many months when they had another house under contract.

House Hunters International -- A friend of mine bought an apartment in Paris and was on the show. The apartments were real and so was the renovation she did after selecting her apartment. I also know the realtor in Paris. Recently, on Facebook she asked if anyone was looking for a "castle" in France and wanted to be on the show.

Vacation Home Search -- this show is no longer on TV, but a local friend had purchased a vacation home in South Carolina. After they'd bought it, they were asked to be on the show and look at three homes--the one they bought and two that were on the market that they'd never seen before. So...that one was rather fake.

Sometimes, though, on HHI, you can tell that an apartment is a BnB type rental, so I suspect those are thrown in to give a choice and are not really for sale. It doesn't matter to me because I like seeing any house/apartment in western Europe to get my vicarious travel thrill.

I do wish they would show more of the area and spend more time looking at the baths and kitchens rather than the current format of tell one thing, commercial, repeat one thing, tell one new thing, commercial, repeat thing one and two, tell one new thing...blah, blah, blah...such a waste of time. They won't even show the bathroom in some cases.

Yeah, seriously on the repetition, does it cut down on production costs? They don't ever repeat stuff on the PBS shows, other than a recap on "This Old House" or whatever if the show is part of a multi-part series.

I think the HHI and HH may also depend on the realtor involved.

I get so many PBS stations here that This Old House repeats itself endlessly (on various channels), and I generally only want to watch an episode once. The people on HGTV tend to speak better (or more proper) English than the cast of TOH, and I appreciate HGTV for that. I get tired of hearing sentences begin with "What I'm going to next is I'm going to..." instead of "Next I'm going to..." I do not know anyone who talks like that - perhaps it is regional.

I am not really concerned with whether the shows on HGTV are real or fake - I watch them for entertainment value, and sometimes I learn something from them. It would be nice to know that they could stick to budgets when renovating, as that would make it more educational. Sometimes the budgets are way below the real cost. I did like Love it or List it better when it was in Toronto, mainly because I do not like the new "Mr. Clean" contractor - I miss Eddy. I will not watch the Vancouver version at all, even though I love Vancouver and used to spend my summers there when I lived in San Francisco.

I also enjoy reading the comments fromIMDB for LIOLI, at least more than the comments that I read here, as there is a wider variety of opinions expressed.

Dyh, I would like a property in France! Doesn't even have to be a castle-she would just need to convince my DH to move!

Wouldn't many of us, cyn427!

Who cares. I just like looking at houses. Makes no difference to me if it is pre-bought or not.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with dedtired. I just look at it as mindless entertainment. The repetition does get old, but it is what it is these days. HGTV used to be a lot better back in the early days, but their demographic appears to have shifted and I understand they're going to play to whatever they feel resonates best with the masses.

I used to love Decorating Cents with Joan Steffen. I especially liked the segment where they would take the home owner's stuff from different rooms and then redecorate a room. Seemed practical! Do any of you remember "Room By Room"? It was really cheesy, but I liked that one, too. I know all these shows are faked now, but I mainly watch them to see the before and after. I do wish they'd bring back more decorating shows vs. all the real estate shows. I'm really sick of House Hunters and never watch it.

Will the "Reality Shows" ever die? All of them are so hokey.

Will the "Reality Shows" ever die? All of them are so hokey.

Yes, sadly the ratings keep even the worst of them on air. The dumbing down of our viewing is world wide. Who do we blame for that?

I record HH International. I love seeing the homes in other countries, and I guess I just disregard the staged aspect of it all. Because it's recorded, I don't have to suffer through the commercials and recaps -- I can zip right through all of that. I'd say I can watch a 30-minute episode in about 15 minutes. The other HGTV show I watch is Fixer Upper, but that one's already been beaten to death around these parts.

The real estate market in my city is hot right now. Because everyone wants to be in the downtown or university neighborhoods, what once were $60,000 fixer-uppers are now $200,000+ fixer-uppers for anything under 2000sf. Renovated homes between the ages of 1900-1950 are going for $500-650k. When I look at the photos of these renovations, I can tell the flippers watched too many HGTV shows. They're removing the character in many cases. Sad.

BTW, those old homes, renovated or not, aren't lasting two days on the market if the neighborhood is desirable. I'm no longer worried about going over budget on my 1939 house.

Great description RP! (I was going to abbreviate your screen name to RIP, but reconsidered!) And I totally agree with DYH, those shows have been the inspiration for the ruination of a lot of homes. I used to like to watch "Rehab Addict" but the selection was limited. (Google that one and you'll get some "interesting" links!)

Yes, that sounds like my area, too, dyhgarden. The most ironic of all to me is when they remove genuine MCM baths and such to create phony cheap pseudo MCM. It's simply awful what's happening to those poor houses. I looked at one yesterday where they had spray painted the original tub and put cheap HD special "travertine" floor tile all over the floor and walls. They always want a premium for doing stuff like that, too, whereas to me it's just additional work I'd have to do to tear it out.

ETA pic from listing. Ick!

Here is a cottage on the market, that was updated by HGTV Love It or List It. It is under contingency, on market for 20 days so far, including contingency time. I saw the episode and recognized it before reading the blurb. HGTV didn't strip it down too much -- but, I know this because I'd seen how it had already been stripped down before HGTV got there.

BEST OF WORLDS: Historical Trinity Park home w/charm updated by HGTV Love It Or List It design team. Fully renovated kitchen w/stainless appliances, quartz counter tops, custom cabinetry & center island w/seating. Remodeled bathrooms, built-in cabinetry in master. Large bonus room w/vaulted ceiling, recessed lights & French doors to large private fenced backyard w/custom stone patio. Hardwood floors, 2015 HVAC system. Appliances convey.

Oh, well. At least you could live in that if you didn't care about what had happened and it sounds like the worst was done before they got hold of it. Around here the problem is that what the flippers are doing actually makes the house less usable than it was before, aside from the shame of wrecking nice historic detail.

Yeah, that kitchen, but this is what they did to the kitchen in the one with the bath pic above. It wouldn't last 6 months if you tried to live with it and it doesn't do much to meet contemporary ideas, either:

The "we bought them second hand cheap who cares if they match" appliances are typical of an "upgraded" cottage around here.

Timely discussion .. I caught "Fixer Upper" on TV the other day, watched it while I was packing to move ... I can't believe they NEVER build a contingency fund into their renovations ... and they ALWAYS find issues that cost the homeowner more money. Just shook my head and turned it off ...

What I don't get about those shows, esp Property Bros is that Jonathan always paints the stained kitchen cabinets, and sometimes a horrible gray color. Some of these stained cabinets are beautiful. I've seen him paint beautiful cherry cabinets white or even black to "freshen them up". Painted cabinets are a lot harder to maintain than stained cabinets, because of nicks, dirt, fingerprints, etc. it reduces the value of the kitchen. That makes no sense to me at all.

All reality TV show are scripted and fake. Flip or Flop is in my area and the numbers that he used are ridiculously low.

For example, a laminated wood floor of 1500 SF only cost $1200 including demo, concrete leveling, material and labor. The best price you can pay for laminated simulated wood flooring is $1.99/SF. Craigslist discard overruns are $1.50/SF for material.

These shows sell illusions to the viewer and in many cases, cause problems when people believe they can match the show, i.e. Remodel homes at 30% of market costs.

The other funny thing about Flip or Flop is that they never factor in or mention permits. If you spend $50k like they supposedly did on some houses, depending on the city, the permit can be $5-8k. That's a substantial expense that is not factored in.

The only show I watch is the one getting all the flak here, Fixer Upper. Sure there is decision making made in advance, but I like the 'cast of characters,' Joanna and Chip. It's produced/directed/written in such a way that it doesn't come off as 'prepped' or maybe its *my* perception.