TV's Hot Properties: Real Estate Reality Shows

Or, as the narrator intones at the show's end in a classic Rod Serling timbre:

"High expectations and economics often clash in the real estate market. . . . Buying and selling your home is more than just a business transaction. It's a roller coaster of emotion."

Which is exactly why it makes for good TV, says HGTV President Judy Girard. "Real estate lends itself very, very well to television. It touches people. It's storytelling at its best," she says. "It's a framework where people are bringing their lives, their hearts and souls into buying a house or selling a house."

Observes Kent Takano, vice president of programming for Fine Living: "We're all creatures of curiosity. It's very vicarious. It's window-shopping without" leaving the comfort of the couch.

While the audiences for these real estate shows are small compared with network TV, they attract a middle-class demographic that advertisers desire, Sconce says, hence lots of commercials for Home Depot and Benjamin Moore paint.

At HGTV, three of the five top-rated shows revolve around buying and selling homes. In 2004, the channel had two real-estate-related shows. This fall, it added two more, "Buy Me" and "What You Get for the Money." Next year, it will add four more, including "International House Hunters" (the titles of the others have not been announced), where yuppies from around the globe hunt for a home, for a total of eight shows. And that's just on one network.

Coming on Bravo: "Million Dollar Listing: Hollywood" is what the network describes as "a six-episode original series chronicling the high-stakes, cutthroat world of real estate in a thriving market."

Fine Living has two in the hopper, scheduled for early 2006 release. One will focus on architecture, the other on the "science" of real estate, the anatomy of the deal.

Yes, Takano says, the network is cutting "this pie thinner and thinner . . . ." But, he adds, "we're trying to skin it one more time. We think we're going to do great."

Even demi-celebrities are getting in on the act. The Learning Channel recently launched "The Adam Carolla Project," where the host of Comedy Central's "Too Late With Adam Carolla" (a former carpenter) guts his childhood home with the goal of flipping it for more than $1 million.

"Many of us are cynical," says Corcoran, who goes into production in January with her reality TV show, "The Bubble." "We don't trust the stock market. We don't trust corporate America. We don't trust the government. There's a tremendous need to put your money into something you can put your hands on."

Earlier this year, Vincent Hurteau, a D.C. real estate broker and president of Continental Properties, started shopping around a show he calls "Unreal Estate." His idea: Each episode would take viewers to a different city, contrasting the most expensive house in the city with what you can reasonably expect for your money -- say, a Dupont Circle mansion vs. a Brookland three-bedroom.

"A lot of people go to open houses," Hurteau says. "They love to see how other people live. And they love to know what things cost. Open houses are a way to that. Now they can do that on TV."

Hurteau started peddling his show around in the spring of 2004. And then the real estate market heated up. And then he got so busy working on real estate dreams, he says, he became too busy to pursue his small screen ones.