TV shows feed buying, selling obsession
Fed by fears U.S. bubble bursting
Viewers still keen despite soft market
thestar.com
Jan. 21, 2006. 01:00 AM
TERESA WILTZ
THE WASHINGTON POST
This, people, is how you know the fearsome United States real estate bubble is finally bursting (as if the moss growing on your neighbour's For Sale sign wasn't enough of a clue): We're finally left with nothing to do but watch.
This collective lust for landholding, this pang for property, has morphed into a strange new obsession. Instead of shopping for a house, Americans are camping out in front of the telly, watching other people on the prowl for a place: House Hunters and What You Get for the Money on HGTV. And, Location, Location, Location from the BBC.
For a change of pace, we watch other people trying to get rid of their homes: HGTV's Designed to Sell and A&E's Sell This House and Flip This House (not to be confused with TLC's Flip That House). The Discovery Home Channel's Double Agents pits two realtors against each other. And for the truly desperate, there's Buy Me, HGTV's 30-minute cinema-verité excursion into the addled brain of the distraught homeowner trying to unload a money pit, and quick. Americans are glued to these TV shows and many Canadians are also hooked, thanks to an ever-expanding universe of channels.
These shows "are not really for people that are going to buy and sell a home," says Jeffrey Sconce, associate professor at Northwestern University's screen cultures program. "They're for people who have a fantasy of buying and selling a home.''
We've moved beyond the makeover mania of a couple years ago, when everyone was Trading Spaces and doing unto their neighbour what they would not do unto themselves — painting living rooms chartreuse and turning grandma's dining table into faux modern modular blocks. This isn't about designing on a dime or extremely redoing our homes.
In the past year, about 20 new TV shows have launched.
These shows are all about the minutiae of real estate, condensed into easy-to-digest, made-for-TV bites: Stomping around scary-looking fixer-uppers. Scoping out the mouldy tile in a "vintage" bathroom. Sitting out open houses while strangers turn up their noses at your rehabbed kitchen.
This being television, these shows are just a beat or two behind real time, a case of pop culture bringing up the rear in what economists like to call your classic lagging indicator: The U.S. real estate bubble's bursting, and now we have a slew of television programs coming at us, after the fact.
Never mind the softer market — which many real estate industry types deny — we're still obsessed. "All of America right now is having a love affair with real estate," says New York real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran, founder of the Corcoran Group.
Most Americans — almost 70 per cent — are homeowners. "Everybody's bought in," Corcoran says, "everybody's in the parade ... With so many people bragging at cocktail parties or at church how much their properties have gone up," it was just a matter of time before we'd see our personal obsession played out on the little screen, says Corcoran, who has her own real estate television show in the works. Plus, watching others suffer can be so darn compelling. Maybe this isn't destination TV — most shows air during prime time and are repeated during the week — but if you're surfing and happen to settle on one of them, it's hard not to get sucked in.
Observes Kent Takano, vice-president of programming for Fine Living: "We're all creatures of curiosity. It's very vicarious." Yes, it's window-shopping without leaving the comfort of the couch.
While the audiences for these real estate shows are small compared with network TV, they attract a middle-class demographic that advertisers desire, Sconce says, hence lots of commercials for Home Depot and Benjamin Moore paint.
At HGTV, three of the five top-rated shows revolve around buying and selling homes. In 2004, the channel had two real-estate-related shows. This fall, it added two more, Buy Me and What You Get for the Money. Next year, it will add four. And that's just on one network. Competitors have several others planned.
"Many of us are cynical," says Corcoran, who goes into production this month with her reality TV show, The Bubble. "We don't trust the stock market. We don't trust corporate America. We don't trust the government. There's a tremendous need to put your money into something you can put your hands on.'' |
