A few years ago, during the height of the real estate bubble, my
husband and I set out to buy a house in an extremely glutted
market; “a buyer’s market,” we were told over and over again. I
can’t count how many times we shared a sardonic laugh over that
phrase as we slogged through hundreds of listings in our search,
which lasted over a year and finally ended with a great house. But
not before my better half — a most punctilious, financial man —
was tortured by the demands of an over-corrective mortgage
process.
Somewhere along the line, to ease our pain, we picked up the
habit of checking out the fare on HGTV, the Home & Garden
Television network, to see if our heroic struggles were shared by
other Americans. To some extent they were, but in most cases they
hilariously were not, though to be honest, most of the shows on the
network take place in the Great White North, so I don’t really
know. I do know that some of these programs are a real hoot and we
still watch some of them just for fun.
The first to catch our eye and probably the most popular is
House Hunters, which features couples visiting three
houses, then choosing the one that most fits their needs. We
watched with eager glee, these earnest home-seekers, almost without
exception give forth with the required HGTV groupspeak terms. Homes
must have ”hardwood floors throughout,” be “huge” and “amazing” and
my personal favorite, the ubiquitous proclamation that the kitchen
area MUST have an “open concept” so homeowners can “talk to our
guests while entertaining.” You could keep a scorecard on how many
times these often inapplicable platitudes are uttered, and never be
bored.
Along the same lines is Property Virgins, which, up
until the end of 2011 starred Sandra Rinomato, a Canadian real
estate agent who nurses first-time buyers through the perils of the
search and buy process. This is the show that most closely
paralleled our experience, though we didn’t need the sage advice of
Rinomato to point out the pitfalls of property ownership. In the
course of the program Sandra breaks down her charges from
starry-eyed romantics to battle-scarred veterans who have been
force-fed the dreadful realities of realty. The show always begins
with the couple strolling down some idyllic street in a “highly
desirable” neighborhood with a beaming Sandra, who soon crushes
their dreams by quoting the price range in their hoped-for utopia.
Were it up to me, Sandra would be in the U.S. Congress.
A startlingly tacky but curiously entertaining entry and one
most representative of all that is wrong with America and/or
Canada, is a show called My House, Your Money, which
chronicles the foibles of young people who are eminently
unqualified for home ownership, yet team up with enabling relatives
for financial support; kind of like the subprime collapse in
microcosm. This show was on prime time in the U.S. only briefly,
due I’m sure, to the too-bad-to-be-true characters: from spoiled
children who wouldn’t lower themselves to raise a paint brush, to
indulgent parents who feign horror at the boorish behavior of their
youngsters but usually hand over the do-re-mi by the end of the
show anyway. If, as I’ve felt, this show is totally scripted, the
writers should immediately receive a government grant for an
anthropological study of college campuses.
Probably one of the most popular, certainly among my friends, is
Love It or List It, which, along with megahit Holmes
on Homes, highlights the bottomless depths of the
ever-deepening pit of American and Canadian building codes. In
Love It, a family must choose between renovating their
current home — nearly always a cramped, row house — under the
auspices of designer Hilary Farr, or moving to a new one, hand
picked by realtor David Visentin. Although almost all of the
episodes are suspiciously alike, it’s worth watching to the end
just to hear David finally ask the homeowners: “Are you going to
list it?”
Still in all, our personal favorite has to be House Hunters
International. Conceived along the lines of “you are what you
eat,” this show features people who feel that immersing themselves
in new and often exotic locations will in some way help them to
absorb the local culture; perhaps by osmosis. And make no mistake
about it, the number one reason they seek abodes abroad is to
escape “uptight” environments like Southern California. Off they
rush with their children and upscale belongings — what do these
people actually do for a living? — to the coasts of Borneo or some
other such place to flee the evil influences of capitalism, only to
inform their native real estate agents that they must have western
toilets, dishwashers, and space for their king beds.… Talk about an
open concept!
