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House Hunters
1999 · TV series · documentary · 22 min episodes · 282 seasons
Hosted by Suzanne Whang, the show takes viewers behind the scenes as individuals, couples and families learn what to look for and decide whether or not a home is meant for them. Focusing on the emotional experience of finding and purchasing a new home, each episode follows a prospective buyer and real estate agent through the home-buying process, from start to finish.
2 positive3 neutralfrom 5 commenters
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5 comments on Hacker News
There’s something to this.
I had a period where I’d play old episodes of Mr. Rogers while working.
When one of my kids was an infant, the only thing that would get him back to sleep in the middle of the night was watching shows like House Hunters on HGTV.
Something about the chill vibe, people interacting kindly and relatively quietly, nice scenery, no music or sound effects, longer durations without cuts.
Contrast this with, say, Sports Center on ESPN, where it’s a constant blitz on the senses.
Let's be real about Netflix: after looking like it was going to disrupt the media conglomerates, I now think that all it has managed to do is wake the sleeping giants. Long-term, I am bearish on Netflix. I would go as far to say that Netflix is slow-declining its way into being eventually acquired by a member of the big six.
Here are the issues:
First: it's basically the most expensive streaming service, topping out at $18/month.
Hulu's most expensive plan is $12. Discovery+ is $7. Disney+ is $8. HBO Max is $15. Paramount+ is $10. (All prices ad-free plans)
I think an argument could be made that all or nearly all of those services are offering a better content library at a lower price when compared to Netflix.
Discovery+ especially...holy hell if you are into reality shows it's endless. And it's $7. I would pay $7/month just for access to every House Hunters episode imaginable without ads, lo and behold my dream came true.
Netflix is doing this clickbait stuff because their content sucks. Clickbait is what you do when your content doesn't speak for itself.
Sure, every content business has to make a "headline" to draw your attention. But when you see a "clickbait" headline in something like The New York Times you know you're being drawn into something that can be potentially rich in effort, and therefore the term "clickbait" doesn't really apply. At least there's an article behind the hook. "Clickbait" more specifically means you're being tricked into visiting something that everyone knows definitely sucks, including its creator.
Netflix knows their content sucks, and I'm not sure they care or can think of a viable business model to improve it.
The problem is that the people putting together these scenarios almost exclusively live on the coasts, where $270k/year can be average more often.
But just watch a TV show like House Hunters, and see how many people in America are struggling to buy a house that costs about the same as what people on the coasts spend on a fancy new car. There's your "average" person. There was one episode a few years ago where a guy in Atlanta had a budget of $46,000. Yes, just $46k for a condo. It was small, but it was home.
It should also be of no surprise that the politicians view $270k as an "average" family. They're all completely out of touch. Remember back in the early 90's when Bill Clinton said that anyone making $200k/year was technically a millionaire, because there's no reason they couldn't save a million dollars in five years. Red or blue, they're both clueless.
> It's also easy to oversell (to yourself) the value of a room having a movie mode. Most smart home features are 'nice to have', not worth a lot of messing around and cash.
My girlfriend used to occasionally watch a show about house-buying (House Hunters). In general the show wasn't terribly interesting, but the real estate agents featured sometimes had some interesting tips.
One of those tips was to carefully consider not just how you will use a feature of a house (like a pool, or guest bedroom), but how often you will use it. Apparently people spring for expensive extras like pools and outdoor living spaces because they imagine how great it will be to have family and friends over for picnics, etc. But then they do it once, and never again because it is a huge inconvenience. Same goes for "mother-in-law suites" and spare bedrooms. People tell themselves it will be wonderful to have family stay with them, but the family members only visit once a year (if that), so a hotel is actually more economical (or just have someone sleep on the couch).
I tend to think of "smart house" features in this way. Every once in awhile I would appreciate having my living space adapt to my needs or respond to remote commands, but 99.99% of the time, it just doesn't matter. The light switch is right next to the door, I can stand up to close the shades, and thermostats have been programmable for decades now.
Eventually we'll probably come up with something that works even better (just like the programmable thermostats were a strict improvement upon their predecessors). But things like converting the light switch to an "app" or controlling the AC with a rudimentary geo-fence aren't it.
If anybody wants to do a little virtual house hunting for no-coast housing, I highly recommend the show "House Hunters" (the International version "House Hunters International" is also great) on HGTV. They also have some similar companion shows like Property Virgins, Hawaii Life, "Buying and Selling" and "Property Borthers" and it's pretty informative as to what local markets are like all over the place.
The format is basically the same every show, somebody wants to move someplace, in 30 minutes they give a brief description of what they're looking for and their budget to a real estate agent. The agent then shows them 3 homes in the area. They pick one of the homes and then finally you see how they've moved in and decorated the place 2 or 3 months later. Along the way you get to see a little bit of the area they're looking in.
The other shows have similar, but slightly different formats or spins on the basic concept. But House Hunters has the show format down to a concise science.
There are episodes where my jaw absolutely drops to the floor seeing how much house and property they can get for their money. For what my garage costs I've seen people get 2 floor 2500 sq ft homes with a detached garage structure and half an acre.
Of course other places are equally depressing and have pretty much destroyed life-long dreams to move to a nicer climate for retirement. However, House Hunters International has shown me some new candidates that look like they'd work very well on a retirement income.
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv40/videos/index.html?xp=hh