It’s a dangerous world out there, as we know from years of television viewing. Better to cocoon, avoid contact with fellow humans and focus on home, sweet home.
That’s the antisocial message embraced by the wave of home shows taking up residence across the TV grids. The buzz, and the ratings, indicate Americans can’t get enough news from the home front.
Clearly, PBS’s “This Old House,” granddaddy of them all, was onto something.
Nowadays, the tone is less reverential toward old properties and more geared to instant gratification. Make a killing on flipping! There’s also a sense of guilt-free runaway materialism; witness HGTV’s popular series “I Want That!” (“I Want That! Baths,” “I Want That! Kitchens” and so on). While TLC holds the title to “Shalom in the Home” and “Trading Spaces,” dealing mainly with interiors, HGTV is pumping up the real estate action.
Next week the flooded market of shows dedicated to redecorating, trading, remodeling and otherwise upgrading our personal spaces will become even more dense when HGTV introduces a block of programs designed to encourage the national obsession with buying, selling and dreaming about real estate.
Forget “reality TV,” it’s time to move on to “realty TV.”
“Property Buzz,” a quarterly special, will be introduced by a 90-minute installment, at 7 p.m. Sunday on HGTV. The special will track real estate trends from building “green” or environmentally friendly homes to the newly popular process of auctioning homes, to prefab construction.
“Hot Zips,” a series analyzing neighborhoods by ZIP code and what makes them desirable, previews at 8 p.m. Monday on HGTV. Philadelphia, it turns out, is the most inexpensive urban area in terms of real estate bargains.
“National Open House,” comparing the going rate of real estate in towns and cities across the country, previews at 7 p.m. May 21 on HGTV. The camera snoops through a range of budgets, $150,000 to $1 million.
These shows join the boom in realty-centric offerings on the network, including “Designed to Sell,” “House Hunters,” “Curb Appeal,” “Buy Me” and “What You Get for the Money.” On “What You Get …” one week it’s $400,000, the next it’s $900,000, with samplings from markets around the country. The answer is, what you get after peering into the higher end is inevitably a disappointment.
Then there’s nonbuyer’s remorse: If only we’d bought that fixer-upper in an iffy neighborhood a decade ago …
So much real estate, so little time. Settle deeper in the La-Z-
Boy and plan your property portfolio.
Gas prices are out of control, global warming continues and nobody is saving enough for retirement, but your home is your castle. It’s also probably your most important investment. HGTV knows that, and so do advertisers who can’t wait to chime in with all the paint, bath fixtures and tile you could want.
If you’ve ever been transfixed by the intricate dance performed by prospective buyers and real estate agents in the series “House Hunters,” you know how addictive this genre is.
TV learned long ago that the magic of before-and-after photos is endlessly thrilling. Naturally, HGTV has built whole series around it (“Before & After”). This sort of quick visual payoff is also the theme of how- to shows like “Weekend Warrior” (concrete patch to lush Japanese garden in a couple of back-breaking days, narration edited to eliminate the inevitable cursing). If one hour is good, three is better.
These mesmerizing programs are cheap and easy to produce, and dangerously easy to watch. People who swear they don’t turn on the television make exceptions for these guilty pleasures. All these realty TV offerings successfully fuel the American dream of bigger, better, more curb-appealing, value-increasing home ownership.
Beyond property lust, there’s solid information here. Tips on how to shape up a house to sell with minimal investment, and what kinds of mortgages make sense are pitched by folks in the business. Of course, it’s more fun to skip the rational advice and simply imagine being a real estate mogul, dabbling in the condo market in Miami, rowhouses in Baltimore, Victorians in Denver and McMansions everywhere without ever leaving the couch.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
