Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed a discernible shift in priorities for prospective homebuyers in House Hunters and related shows? Rarely do I see whiny new grads talking about the need for two sinks in the bathroom and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. It seems like people in the shows I am watching are far more reality based, willing to make compromises, etc.
I’ve also noticed that people lately seem to spend a lot more time thinking about their pets and fenced in yards. I’m wondering how much of this is a reflection of the sustained downturn in the economy, and people are just being more rational. It used to be on older episodes people would go in with a budget, then end up buying a house 50k over budget. It happened so often that mom and I wished there was a follow-up show on all the old episodes to find out how many are now in foreclosure. But recently, it seems like most of the people profiled are more pragmatic.
Or maybe it is just me.
foodriots
They must be asking about extra storage for when the global food riots hit right?
Walker
I stopped taking House Hunters seriously after the episode set in Syracuse where the couple were looking at older houses and not once did the topic of heating costs come up.
foodriots
There is a horribly depressing show on Natgeo of paranoid gloom porn addicted idiots just like you who believe everything they see in the media. It’s called doomsday preppers. Totally your type of show.
danielx
It might have something to do with a lot of today’s new grads having the equivalent of a second mortgage payment in the form of student loan payments. Nothing to bring you down to earth like an additional $1000 a month in obligations.
Hawes
get out of the house, John…
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
We’ve also noticed that more of the flip-this-house shows are about trying to get the value of the house back up to what the owner originally paid for it, hoping to break even.
dr. bloor
I think it’s you. The day they show an episode in which the young, childless couple with a tiny dog says “you know, we don’t really 3200 square feet and four bedrooms with cherry and granite in the kitchen,” I’m going to plotz.
Don’t get me started on the virgin homeowners thing. I want to punch all of them in the neck.
Wazmo
The current upcoming generation, having seen what happened to their parents and their peers, is dramatically ratcheting back. Even with mortgage rates at their lowest in two generations, they have access to more news sources than previous generations had, and are deferring to wait and see how things shake out before settling down. If you think things are bad here, just watch what happens in Japan in the next 50 years.
cjdavis
Don’t fall for it John, House Hunters (and basically every ‘reality’ show on tv) is fake.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/06/14/house_hunters_is_fake_here_s_why_it_matters.html
http://consumerist.com/2012/06/just-how-fake-is-hgtvs-house-hunters.html
jl
@Hawes:
Second that. Maybe some rails to trails pet pics.
I will say, though, that when I watch the tube at my folks’ house, I am a sucker for the storage locker thing. Storage Raiders, or something? That is a cool show. My kind of people!
They had some kind of marathon storage locker show marathon when I was home awhile back and I just had to watch just one more episode.
But then, with tube on all the time at my folks home, anything to get away from Antique Roadshow and those BBC video dioramas with all the ‘looks’.
Walker
@jl:
Storage Wars. Watchin’ it on A&E right now.
Jager
A TV producer Mrs J has done business with is one of the producers of HH. The producer said they work House Hunters backwards. A couple buys a house and then the show creates a scenario where they appear to searching and confused, when in real life they already own the damn thing.
Gin & Tonic
@Walker: Right, because unlike House Hunters, *that* is real.
djork
GRANITE COUNTER-TOPS, BITCHES!!!!
The fetish for granite counter tops from the people on those shows is hilarious.
maven
Is this Housewives of House Hunters-or do I need to buy more tv?
jl
@Walker:
I agree with cjdavis that most of these reality shows are scripted and faked up. But not sure how they script Storage Wars. I assume most of the conflict stuff is scripted, but they have to go through how many lockers before they get an interesting one, or an entertaining bust?
I want to read an expose.
No, I want to work on the show. Is it set in CA all the time? Maybe I can apply for a part timer on the show it it’s always in CA. I could scout locker auctions.
They need to go to weirder CA places. The best they could do on the shows I saw was Santa Cruz. Yeah, maybe Santa Cruze is weird for, you know, the boondocks that hang onto the eastern side of CA, but dammit, we can do better. I hope.
Edit: for example, how about the desert, or Gold Country. That would be interesting.
El Cid
@foodriots: Sounds like someone needs to find the spinoff: Doomsday Preppies, about the 3rd or 4th generation established elites among the Doomsday Preppers who are sent off to elite Doomsday academies for, uh, oh, right, never mind, they all went nuts and went broke.
jl
@Gin & Tonic: Don’t go there, buddy. Storage Wars is for reals. I just has to be. I know it.
different-church-lady
I have spent a lot of time lately thinking to myself, “Who are the idiots who watch these shows?”
Walker
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t watch it for reality. I watch it for Barry, who is freakin’ hilarious.
MikeJ
I feel happy that I’ve never even heard of any of these shows.
Walker
@jl:
People claim it is not scripted. Whatever. What is true is that they get paid at least 10k an episode (revealed in Dave Hester’s salary fight). So the whole won/lost money thing is moot.
The biggest problem with the show is that they take them at their word for what something is worth. They regularly overvalue electronics, so who knows what else they do?
rageahol
perhaps more to the point:
who gives a rat’s ass, you puke-faced gargoyle?
PeakVT
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Denial is a grave mental disease.
jl
@Walker: Barry is the older dude with the white pompadour, ‘tude, and cheezy clothes? I only watched one night, but he scored the coolest stuff. First couple of half hours he was the sad sack loser, then he scored.
Fine drama.
danielx
@foodriots:
I dunno about food riots, as such, but considering how much of the country’s corn and soybean crops are being toasted to a crisp by the drought – sharply higher food prices are probably in the near future.
Walker
@jl:
Yes that is him. He is a “plant”. Friend of the producer who was into antiques, but never did storage lockers before the show. The others own thrift stores were they sell the stuff they get. Thrift stores with websites (where you can buy stuff from the show), so they appear legit.
jl
Cole: I was explaining to Walker how I would audition for Locker Wars and it got marked as spam. I think because I was explaining how my expert cursing would get me on the show.
And it was marked as spam.
What kind of full service blog is this, anyway?
dr. bloor
@different-church-lady: That’s Doctor Idiot, thankyouverymuch.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m waiting for the housing bubble to reinflate so I can get me one of those $800,000 1940’s 2 bedroom A-frame houses 45 minutes from work. Those were the days.
dr. bloor
@Walker: My favorite, and obviously the One Who Is Not Like the Others. I particularly liked the episode when he needed to have a drum kit appraised, so he took it to his friend, Stewart Copeland.
Walker
@dr. bloor:
Ah yes. The one where the kit wasn’t worth a lot, so he had Stewart sign them to put him in the “win” category.
EDIT: My wife’s favorite is when he found the vinatge meat slicer which he took to Fabio from Top Chef to be appraised.
Left Coast Tom
First, as you’ve already been told, get yourself outside.
Second…as someone whose only exposure to the shows you’re talking about has been from relatives in MI telling me how insane we are in CA, I can believe a few notes of seriousness might be invading the scene now. I’m reading local articles about soaring rents w/ a flat housing market w/ a major offered explanation being that the bust left a lot of people without sufficient credit to buy, but the economy is picking up.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
So….I heard that the WSJ (don’t expect me to link to it) had another abysmal op-ed about how useless and stifling gubment is,, trying to insist that private industry and ONLY private industry is responsible for the internet, and that government could never ever ever create something so awesome because all the gov’t does is steal steal steal and kill kill kill.
Kevin Drum had a comment regarding it all:
The big problem is? Conservatives already believe liberals say this all the goddamn time. And hell, media acts like it too, just like every other goddamn thing conservatives say libs do.
Democrats haven’t bothered to sniff at gun control for 20 years: Conservatives say ‘DEMS WANNA STEAL ALL YER GUNS AND MAKE YOU A SERF!!’ Media says ‘Are Dems really extreme on gun rights?’
Dems worry how bad climate change is. Conservatives say ‘DEMS FULLA GREEN FASCISM!!!!’ Media says ‘Are dems beholden to green interests?’
Conservatives get to take the extreme position on everything because they cast Dems and Liberals as taking the opposite extreme on EVERYTHING, or otherwise being the opposite extreme on everything, and media parrots it and only ever takes to fucking task Dems when they supposedly take an extreme position that isn’t even being fucking spoken except by hysterical conservatives. While the GOP gets to be as batshit insane as fucking ever, which is ok because ‘Dems do it too!’
I mean…fuck, look at Aurora. Nothing’s going to be done, that’s apparent, but the galling thing is just how fucking much I end up hearing now how ‘This never would’ve happened if everyone’d been packing!!!’ and as stupid as that is and taken to task it is, it’s still treated as more credible than even the most fucking tepid forms of gun control that amounts to ‘we should make gun buyers go through more checks so we can trust them’ but gets characterized as ‘OBAMA GONNA TAKE ALL YOUR FUCKING GUNS, THE COMMIE!!’
Biscuits
Yes! Barry of storage wars! If he’s not overpaying for some piece of poo locker, he’s almost killing himself emptying it. Now that’s entertainment.
Anya
What do people think about Wisconsin state Sen. Tim Cullen quitting the Democratic caucus? Any Wisconsinites here? What would this mean for the dems hold on the senate if Cullen becomes an independent?
jl
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik: WSJ editorial page fits into reality shows, surely. But the characters are flat. Nobody like Barry on Storage Wars.
Or that goofy Hester dude, I think he is the self proclaimed storage connoisseur who runs around in the silly little uniform with a crew?
You put Barry and Hester on the WSJ editorial page and I will watch it. Hester for laughs, and Barry for real life street grit. Yep, I would watch it.
Zam
As a recent grad who is friends with many recent grads I can tell you most of us are concerned about finding a steady job. Some may have bought houses already and be pushing out kids, they might think more into this kind of shit, but most don’t. In fact at 25 I can think of only one person I am well acquainted with who bought a house and is having his first child without help from his parents. In fact now that I think about it I hate everyone who has a house other than this man, all these fucks working part time jobs getting a house and lording it over me, fuck them.
jl
@Left Coast Tom:
It is totally messed up. Empty houses in foreclosure, and where CA economy is looking up, insane rental market due to people who cannot get into houses. A disgusting mess.
Willard will fix it even better, I am sure.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@jl:
Bleh. It’s an open thread, and fuck it, politics is as fake and infuriatingly vapid as reality shows tend to be these days.
Narcissus
Storage Wars has to be fake. Otherwise they run the risk of popping open some storage container to find some homeless family who lost their home in the real estate bubble.
different-church-lady
@Narcissus: Crossover synergy! Genius!
tratclif
I caught part of one episode of some Storage Wars type show where they were doing shipping containers at a dockyard somewhere. One container was supposed to be infested by rats, but the rats were clearly confused pet store rats. So the producers of the show know what’s in the storage units before shooting starts.
Wazmo
Wingnut Twiiter post of the day, causing massive bitchslapping of tweeter:
Ash Can
@Wazmo: I just saw that on LGF. Bitchslapping would be a big step up from what this comment deserves.
burnspbesq
If you’re a Springsteen fan, be sure to read David Remnick’s profile in the current issue of the New Yorker.
Soonergrunt
@Wazmo: what a pathetic pissant.
If anybody died saving anybody else, for any reason, that pretty much solidly implies that the deceased savior believed the person worthy of such sacrifice.
It is not for us to question that decision.
Allen
@Walker: Don’t talk about heating costs to me. Used to have a 1937 house with a 700 gallon fuel oil tank. Only heated to 60 for about 3 hours a day. Went through a tank of oil in 2 months and this was during the second oil crisis.
mai naem
I like watching HH Intl, HHDomestic not so much. I always wonder how the HH Intl couples manage to work the move out financially and the other practicalities – work visas and healthcare, legalese of owning real estate in another country. I watched a younger couple in Scottsdale. The woman came across as a bimbo and seemed to be only interested in the house being newer. I don’t get this new new new crap. IMHO, the older houses are better built structurally with better basic materials with the exception of insulation which can be added on. Anyhoo, I was pleasantly surprised when they went with the older one that according to them needed work(granite countertops!!!) Also too, have any of these idjits looked into the care of granite. So much more work than other materials. Also stainless steel appliances. OMG. Stainless steel appliances show up any stupid little ding/dirt. Call me old fashioned but I’d go with almond/white for cleaning purposes. I find black a pain in the ass too.
scav
@Wazmo: Odd too that any women saving other people were clearly capable of being ignored. Their deaths don’t have to be lived up to in his eyes. Twisted fuck.
NotMax
It’s preordained programming designed to be voyeuristic, with more than a soupçon of selectively edited humiliation sprinkled throughout.
Eventually the programmers will skip the facade and go directly to something rank like, maybe, Undie Wars.
Or So You Think You Can F*ck.
“Meet our team of expert judges.”
different-church-lady
@NotMax:
Maytag repair man coulda used some of this place.
Allen
As this is an open thread, I just have this observation. Just finished watching an episode of “History Detectives” and they had a segment about “KKK Records” (yes that KKK) where they discussed the KKK of the 20s’. The writings, etc. of the KKK back then and Republican party of today are indistinguishable. I urge anyone who can catch a repeat of this show to watch it. And I am not just some left coaster venting his indignation at this similarity, Oregon is far from innocence in it’s relationship with the KKK. And there are a lot of people here who blame liberals for laws that are holdovers just want to make me scream when I hear them talk, and I’ve lived in Oregon all but 9 years of my life. Moved here when major cities still had “sun downer” laws.
Narcissus
Seriously even though I hate reality TV I would try out like a dozen times for So You Think You Can Fuck.
Or maybe to do what Nick Cannon does and just introduce the guests even
I’m not picky
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
The US had Paddy Chayevsky to predict the future with Network, but the UK had Nigel Kneale and “The Year of the Sex Olympics.”
It’s actually a little frightening how prescient Kneale was.
Larkspur
I have never watched any of the house-related reality shows. Escrow, mortgages, APRs, points, balloon payments: it’s all noise to me since I’ve never bought a dwelling, nor do I ever expect to. Me and that kind of money are unmixy things.
Also, I don’t have cable TV. But when I am house-sitting and there is cable, I love me some What Not To Wear, Fashion Police, I Shouldn’t Be Alive, When Vacations Attack, and oh dear god, that Bio Channel series I Survived…, which I think means I am depraved.
As for the Taranto thing, I think he’s alluding to or riffing on the theme of “women and children first”, which MRA types think is a cruel anachronism, seeing as nowadays women get all the good stuff and best jobs and attention, while men are reduced to wretched second-class citizenship and yet still they are expected to protect women. It’s all just so unfair, especially since each of those guys probably had to pay for her movie ticket too.
At least that’s what it smelled like to me. Icky.
David Koch
He wears the worst toupee
Gypsy howell
@tratclif:
Sorry to burst all the bubbles of you Storage Wars fans, but of course it’s scripted and fake. One of my kids is good friends with the producer. He salts the storage lockers with “finds” to keep it exciting. If it helps to maintain your enjoyment, the regulars on the show are apparently unaware of this. I find that to be the funniest part of the show.
Schlemizel
John – its a “reality” show. That means even if the words falling out of the people on screen are their own (usually they are not – either the show is scripted or ‘directed’ where the participants are coached to act in specific ways) they are heavily edited to create the “reality” the producers think will draw the most eyeballs.
If they appear to be different to you its only because thats what the show wants you to see.
Schlemizel
@Gypsy howell: GEE! You mean people don’t default on their $100/mo locker payment when they have $5000 in casino chips in there? Or thousands of dollars worth of merchandise? Color me shocked.
Fraud Guy
They more than make up for it with the new “Million Dollar Rooms.”
Last night’s episode was a $78 million estate with a 1 million gallon manmade trout pond, in addition to the 350,000 gallon, cross-shaped, infinity edge swimming pool (which sits between the $5 million guest house and the main house). Also shown was two+ story office/library, with stained glass sunlights between the beams of the coffered ceiling, as well as the leather wall coverings attached as panels to the walls with the bases of bullets (think nailhead leather furniture but on the walls, with bullet casing bases). Because the owner likes guns.
bob h
In the old days, when you had real inflation and salaries were going up, it made a lot of sense to get in a little over your head on houses. Most certainly that philosophy is out.
Maude
@mai naem:
And the rippled fridge surface keeps all that goo and you have scrub it out.
Maude
Maybe there will come a show that has someone ask if the place comes with xtra tar paper.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Fraud Guy: Million Dollar Rooms.
OK, I must watch this.
hep kitty
For a completely different perspective, you really need to watch “Hoarders” – just sayin’
Uncle Ebeneezer
Me and the lady are big fans of House Hunters International. What can I say, it’s a great way to see the world from your couch (also: big ups to Rick Steve’s travel show on PBS.) The houses in Europe are SO MUCH cooler than the dreck that people usually look at in the US. We know it is mostly BS. The couples always have a list of attributes that they say are really important, but then when they make the decision, they often-times choose based on an attribute that had been previously unmentioned for the first 20 minutes of the episode. Also too, I know people who work as writers in reality shows so I know how much scripting is involved.
Does anybody out there watch Property Brothers? We dig that one too although it’s super-formulaic, and you can often tell which property the couple chose based on the demo footage that they show at the beginning. Anyways, it’s still a fun show. Except one thing that sticks in my craw. 1.) Every episode features a scene where the Bros take the couple to a “dream home” that is way out of their budget, in order to show them that they need to buy a fixer-upper and renovate. But these couples have obviously SEEN this show before, no? Yet they’re always surprised!! Sometimes the couple says they don’t know if they are interested in a renovation….but it’s a renovation show! Ok, done ranting.
rdale
I’ll confess to liking HH and HHI, and Storage Wars, and the A&E version, Auction Hunters. My wife loves just about anything on HGTV, so what the hey; she wont’ watch the Military or History Channel, so there we are. I like Property Brothers too; the one I have the beef with is Love it or List it. Very formulaic; every show they have some feuding couple, one of whom wants to move and the other stay. The real estate agent finds them houses to move into, all of which they complain about until the last one. The real problem, though, is the with the designer. They give her this big wish list of all the changes they want made, but inevitably they find some structural problem with the house that means they can’t do any of the requested changes. I’ve thought there should be a contest for what major problem will keep the designer from following their wish list: toxic waste? Unexploded ordnance? Ancient Indian burial ground? Sinkhole?
Uncle Ebeneezer
@rdale: That sounds similar to the Property Brothers scenario. They find a house. Jonathan (construction bro) comes up with a plan that involves knocking down a wall. The couple buys the house. Then as reno begins, he mentions concerns that there might be structural issues (or asbestos, or wiring etc.) involved in removing the wall. Shouldn’t that have been mentioned before the couple buys the house and included in the possible budget? (I’m sure it actually IS, they just film as if it’s a new problem.)