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Why I Love...property programmes

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen
  • Posted at 6:35pm
  • 22 May 2008
  • by KateCoffey-RT
  • 11 comments

Ever since Changing Rooms offered neighbours the chance to assault each other's houses with the help of gaudy interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, there has been a seemingly limitless demand for property-related reality shows. Our TV schedules are congested with copycat programmes on everything connected to the humble home. If property was really that exciting we'd all be estate agents. So why do we love them so?

Well, voyeurism is the obvious answer. That old parental caution "don't talk to strangers" seems to be part of our national psyche in adulthood. Thus our natural curiosity for seeing how people live is fulfilled not by knocking on the neighbours' doors to say hello (the very idea!), but by turning on the television and getting a celluloid tour of someone test-driving a new property in To Buy or Not to Buy. Or just witnessing the testing of a marriage courtesy of the husband's overenthusiastic use of a sledgehammer in DIY SOS.

At the other end of the scale, Grand Designs offers pure escapism for those of us who just love to marvel at rich people converting windmills and 16th-century castles into holiday homes.

There's a good deal of masochism involved in watching these shows. We all harbour pipe dreams of escaping the rat race and working hard on a tan in the Algarve. We may even have marked off a month of Sundays on the calendar for that very plan and arranged transportation by way of a flying pig. So why punish ourselves with programmes like A Place in the Sun? It's like watching someone upgrade from business class to business premier while you gape jealously from economy with your knees under your chin.

Yet the allure of moving abroad or, more fashionably, moving to the country remains. Thus we watch Escape to the Country with envy, wrapped up in some couple's search for the perfect thatched cottage and organic vegetable patch, secretly hoping they wake up in the dead of night to a neo-pagan ritual involving a burning wicker man.

Harsh? Well, there is a sadistic streak to viewing programmes like this - and this is the ultimate reason why we watch. All reality shows rely on the fact that people delight in watching failure. Take Property Ladder, where folk with the business acumen of an amoeba decide to do up a house and sell it for profit. They invariably sink all their funds into some ill-fated venture, resolutely ignoring Sarah Beeny's advice on getting a structural survey for the rickety shack they have purchased in some tumbleweed district of Kent, and then wonder why it gets repossessed and they wind up financially destitute.

Obviously, Location, Location, Location reigns supreme above all other property shows - if only because they have managed to make a programme out of a particularly irritating aphorism. We love Kirstie and Phil. They're so posh and scary, and they just love to upgrade people to better houses. We love it even more when they pick especially finicky couples who find fault with every property offered, as detailed in their faux-competitive voiceovers.

It's a futile business, this search for a "perfect" house. And it makes us feel a good deal better about our own humble abode. Home sweet home…

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Comments

  • Posted on 23 October 2009
  • at 6:40am
  • by glenda

Re-location and location location has gone tops with me now 'cos although that chap is very nice in escape to the country- if you can ignore his scruffy jeans - he just has NOT got the Cathy Gee factor, so Beeb get the lass back even if she costs more than he does. Keep up the great work Phil n Kirsty - your a great team.

  • Posted on 08 September 2009
  • at 4:20pm
  • by glenda

Je t'adore these prop.progs.Phil from L.L.is such a hunk.My fav. has to have been escape to the country tho. with Catherine Gee..she comes over with a super personality.Grand designs is wonderful too..but i've seen 'em all.More Rock n' Roll hotel type thingies would be nice b.b.c. Can we have a repeat of that one please ??

  • Posted on 08 August 2009
  • at 9:54pm
  • by beastyclarke

I adore escape to the country, but where oh where has Catherine Gee gone ? She was the MOST lovely presenter of it.That chap in location location..omg...what a hunk. In fact you could say I'm addicted to these property progs. Well let's talk about b.b.c.'s new 1 - Rock n Roll Hotel...I love it love it love it.Mark Fuller is a natural on it and the 2nd episode had me on the edge of my seat wondering what the heck could go wrong next for those poor builders.Mick the site manager?? made me laugh with his ' Every day's a bad day on this site ' and holding his head in his hands. The older gentleman doing the doors was from the old school bless him..I want Mick and that chap to build my next hotel if I win the lottery.Please b.b.c. give us more of these progs. Can't wait for the final episode.Well done b.b.c.1.

  • Posted on 05 August 2009
  • at 10:38am
  • by jane

I love property programmes, my favourite is Escape to the Country BUT I do hate not knowing if the potential buyers are going to purchase as with most programmes. Could there not be a follow-up?

  • Posted on 24 July 2009
  • at 4:09pm
  • by Sue

I love them too but The Home Show is my favourite

  • Posted on 20 April 2009
  • at 1:05pm
  • by David Hollins MBA

I loathe LLB in particular, but as Kirsty Allsop[ said she would eat her hat if property prices fell, could we see pics of her doing this in RT, rather than flogging her latest property.

I did enjoy this!

www.parkerchris.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/vocationvocation vocation.html

I hate these proeprty progs generally, not least as theor get rich quick style put ideas in my idiot neighbour's head, which only led to 18 months of fighting over a silly extension.

  • Posted on 06 April 2009
  • at 11:19am
  • by Richard

I have also developed a fascination for property shows. I think its because it lets you into peoples houses withouth having to go there in person. This tends to allow me to nose around at people's interior designs

  • Posted on 30 July 2008
  • at 12:46am
  • by Graham Brown

I'd agree that Grand Designs is possibly the best of the bunch, but your average Carole Vorderman/Smiley combo misled many homeowners into believing it was all about adding a water feature and conservatory to inflate your property price. Mistake: your own home is your biggest liability, not asset.

www.loveproperty.org

  • Posted on 11 June 2008
  • at 2:15pm
  • by Guest
A combination of illness and property prices has meant that I'll never be able to own my home. I hate property programmes.
  • Posted on 30 May 2008
  • at 10:48am
  • by sharpasDOH

I love homes under the hammer but all we are getting is repeats and my gripe is how can this information be up to date for the current market if it is out of date!

  • Posted on 29 May 2008
  • at 9:06am
  • by Helena Handcart

Actually, I'd argue that Grand Designs is not about rich people at all. Sure, you get the odd multi-million property development, but most of them come in well under the half-mill. Many of the developments are to provide a larger or better family home that suits the family, rather than the family having to suit a house-builder's idea of what a family home should be.

I love Grand Designs. It shows that fairly ordinary folk can have a go at getting their dream home. On the other hand, most of the other shows are just airtime fillers, as far as I can see. Just don't get me started on the Flog My Cash In The Boot Fair clones. X-(

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