Flipping Shows Thrive Even in Down Market on HGTV and TLC
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You would think that when the housing market fell out the home fix it shows and home flipping shows would have seen their ratings drop. Well, we were wrong.
Home flipping shows have increased to over a million viewers an evening. The tone of the shows have changed with less than glorious endings for some of the participants, but the shows continue to be the darlings of the cable box.
It does make sense in a way. Such a large percentage of Americans own homes now and the dream of remodeling is the fodder of pillow talk. To dream about remodeling and improving ones home is in our DNA and these shows do feed the fantasy.
The audiences for HGTV and TLC, the two channels with the most so-called property programming, have grown steadily over the last three years. The reason appears to be their shift in focus away from buying real estate as speculative sport to more educational and emotional shows.
“If anything, there’s more interest than ever before, because of what’s going on in the market,” Jim Samples, the president of HGTV, said.
HGTV’s prime-time schedule — built around the shows “Designed to Sell,” “House Hunters” and “My House Is Worth What?” — now average more than a million viewers every evening.
Shows that were hallmarks of the bubble — like “Flip That House” (on TLC) and “Flip This House” (on A&E) — are still around, but have been retooled with less-than-happy endings. The TLC episodes are repeated several times each week and still draw an average of 700,000 viewers a showing. via NYTimes.com.
It probably is a really good time to buy real estate - monthly payments are about equal to market rents ...
The part about the inventory is right on but in my area they are mostly low end and beat up ...
I worked for this man, he is a great con man and has done this in more than States then ...
You're right. If you come from Central Jersey (as the Boss and I do), you go to Florida at some ...
Maybe it was kryptonite...
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I couldn't agree more.
The newspaper has always "stuck" it to the real estate agent with rates that were much higher ...
By the way, homeowners trying to get short sale approval should be aware that lenders are comparing the initial loan ...
Ouch! Thankfully I haven't come across anything like that yet. We normally don't have situations like that in ...
well, the guy was here illegally.
serves him right. 
BY USING FIRST CLAIM INSURANCE ADJUSTERS YOU WILL HAVE THE ABILITY TO LOOK AT YOUR INSURANCE SETTLEMENT AND REALIZE FIRST ...
Comment by jp moses | REI Tips on 16 June 2008:
The shows definitely feed our fantasy, as you said. But they’re not any closer to “reality” than they’ve ever been. It never ceased to make me laugh to see how the estimated “profit” for each deal almost always ignores soft costs completely.
…jp