My favorite HGTV show is House Hunters International. What's your favorite episode? (merged)

[wackymother]

I like Adrian Leeds, the realtor in Paris. I like Richard, the realtor in the UK. I like when they go to Mexico. I like when they go to Europe. I especially like when they go to Asia.

I like when families from North Carolina move to Italy and complain about the tiny kitchens. I like when couples bicker their way through three magnificent places in South America.

Do you like House Hunters International, too? Which episodes do you like? Where would you move?

 

[wackymother]

My favorite is House Hunters International, but I also like most of the "Look at three places, choose one" shows. Not as crazy about the renovation shows, but some of them are okay. I kind of like Love It or List It. Which shows do you like?

 

[AnnaS]

House Hunters
House Hunters International
Mexico Life
Beach Hunters
Caribbean Life
Hawaii Life

I have watched a few episodes of other shows, - List it or Love it, Property Brothers, etc. etc. I get bored with these very easy.

Would love more traveling shows.

 

[DaveNV]

I'm kind of with Anna. I like the shows where people are house hunting in various places around the world. It's nice seeing new areas, and "revisiting" areas I already know.

Some of the renovation shows get to be kind of predictable. If the personality of the renovator isn't interesting, the show gets to be pretty tedious. "Love it or List It" is a show like that - I'm not a fan of the personality of Hilary, and find her to be pretty annoying most of the time. (Never mind that she ALWAYS says she'll do everything the homeowners want, then there is some hidden expense she didn't consider, she has an argument with her contractor, then she relents, and ultimately she has to give the homeowners something less than they expect. Formulaic, for sure. Do they never do a structural home inspection before agreeing on a project??)

Dave

 

[wackymother]

I'm kind of with Anna. I like the shows where people are house hunting in various places around the world. It's nice seeing new areas, and "revisiting" areas I already know.

Some of the renovation shows get to be kind of predictable. If the personality of the renovator isn't interesting, the show gets to be pretty tedious. "Love it or List It" is a show like that - I'm not a fan of the personality of Hilary, and find her to be pretty annoying most of the time. (Never mind that she ALWAYS says she'll do everything the homeowners want, then there is some hidden expense she didn't consider, she has an argument with her contractor, then she relents, and ultimately she has to give the homeowners something less than they expect. Formulaic, for sure. Do they never do a structural home inspection before agreeing on a project??)

Dave

We have an old house. We've done some pretty significant renovations. There is always some new disaster to be discovered.

 

[DaveNV]

I like when families from North Carolina move to Italy and complain about the tiny kitchens.

Yeah, what's with that? Don't people know that Americans are spoiled rotten in most things? If moving overseas, embrace the local situation. That's what makes it an adventure.

I saw a show the other day, (don't recall what series it was), where a woman who had been adopted as an infant in Ireland, was raised in the USA. Her lifelong dream was to live in Ireland near her extended birth family, who she had connected with. She finally gets her chance, and took her Los Angeles jerk of a husband with her. All he did was complain that every house wasn't up to HIS standards. He completely railroaded over everything she wanted, which wasn't very much. She only wanted to rent a classic Irish home with a view of the water. He wanted a totally Americanized house that had absolutely NONE of the things she was trying to connect with. He got what he wanted, and it looked like she got none of her wish list. It almost appeared like he was an abusive husband. Kind of a sad show, to be honest.

Dave

 

[wackymother]

There was one where the family was moving to Italy and the mother was a total grump. They got to one of the kitchens and she looked at the oven and said to the realtor, "I'm not going to be able to fit a Thanksgiving turkey in there." And the realtor made this very Italian gesture of "Hey," waving her hand and rolling her eyes. And said, "Hey. Maybe this year, you do a smaller turkey." We imitate that realtor all the time. "Hey. Maybe this year, you do a smaller turkey." It's a surprisingly useful phrase and gesture.

Meanwhile, a lot of the realtors are not realtors. Some of the locations don't do real estate the same way we do, and in some locations there are no English-speaking agents who want to mess around with an unpaid gig for American TV. Sometimes the "realtors" are just someone's friend who wants to be on TV.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

I also like the House Hunters. Particularly the ones in beach locations (Caribbean, Mexico). Although I have no delusions about wanting to own in these places, it is fun to live through others and see how homes look in other places.

BTW...I have a friend who almost bought a home in the Caribbean and was talking to the show. Apparently the homes they look at are after they have bought their home and may not be the ones they initially considered.

I don't care for Love It or List It or the Brothers. I find them to be fake and I've heard that the Love It or List it are actors and not true renovators. My biggest gripe is that they frequently don't say what city they are in. It would be nice to know where they are so we can get a feel for the area. I suspect that many are in Canada because that is where HGVC is based - why hide it? I wouldn't think any less of it. In fact I might think more of it.

 

[beejaybeeohio]

Love HHI (like Hilton Head Island too)! I finally decided to DVR the series after on-demand w/ Spectrum stopped allowing fast-forwarding.
I do like Richard & Adrienne, too. I can't say which is my favorite episode, but my favorite locales are Europe, Australia and New Zealand. I especially like watching a show that is filmed in a place we've visited!

This series as well as several others on HGTV and a few on TLC, e.g. Say Yes to the Dress, take me to my happy place especially druing these high stress times.

 

[Rolltydr]

I don’t have a specific favorite episode but my favorite places would be Australia and Italy because they show a lot of coastal properties. The coastlines are so different but I love both.

As for least favorite episodes, any with an overbearing spouse and/or parent. I hate it when a mother (it seems it always the mother, not the father) tries to dictate what their son or daughter needs. And then, I hate it even more when the son/daughter listens!

 

[WinniWoman]

I like property brothers best , but also love it or list it and my lottery dream home and home town and house hunters.

 

[Luanne]

I love the agent in Paris as well. I also love House Hunters and the agent in I think it's Atlanta. She's had a couple of other shows as well. One was with first time flippers.

And yes I would get amused with U.S. couples moving anywhere else. They wanted "authentic" but with a large kitchen and bath.

 

[moonstone]

BTW...I have a friend who almost bought a home in the Caribbean and was talking to the show. Apparently the homes they look at are after they have bought their home and may not be the ones they initially considered.

Yes, we know people who bought a home in Belize and were on one of the shows (Beach Hunters or something?). They had already signed to purchase their house when the show was filmed, and one of the homes the real estate agent took them to view wasn't even one they had previously looked at. Of course the people look at many more homes than what are shown on the TV show. They were also given a 'script' to follow when talking about the homes. They weren't required to follow it word for word but very close. That is why you would often hear many couples say the same things like "I could see us spending time in this livingroom" or "I could see myself cooking in this kitchen".

We always laugh at all those people who just think they can pack up and move to another country. The show never talks about the immigration process or requirements needed to move there. Many countries have strict rules and procedures to follow and people cant just enter as a tourist and stay for an extended period of time.

The other thing we find odd when watching any of the house hunter shows where people are looking at condos is that they rarely talk about the condo fees. Every condo has fees and some are many hundreds of dollars a month, almost as high as a mortgage payment. The amount of the monthly fee would be a huge consideration for us, and most people, I would think.


~Diane

 

[wackymother]

I like property brothers best , but also love it or list it and my lottery dream home and home town and house hunters.

Oh, yeah! I forgot about My Lottery Dream Home. I like that one too. Partly because a lot of the lottery winners have fairly modest expectations and are being really careful with their money, so you see some very inexpensive homes in out-of-the-way places, and the host seems genuinely excited and enthusiastic about them.

 

[Talent312]

Renovation Island was hosted by a Canadian contractor and his designer wife.
From what I've read, it was pretty true to life, as they lived+worked at the hotel.
But it was largely finished by the time it aired, having been seen on Canadian TV.
They said they risked their own $$.

I liked these oldies... Before & After, Curb Appeal, and If Walls Could Talk.
House Hunters is sort of a guilty pleasure. Its faked, but I like seeing the locales.

I didn't go for the "Crasher" shows... No one does a yard or kitchen in a weekend.

 

[wackymother]

Renovation Island was hosted by a Canadian contractor and his designer wife.
From what I've read, it was pretty true to life, as they lived+worked at the hotel.
But it was largely finished by the time it aired, having been seen on Canadian TV.
They said they risked their own $$.

I liked these oldies... Before & After, Curb Appeal, and If Walls Could Talk.
House Hunters is sort of a guilty pleasure. Its faked, but I like seeing the locales.

I didn't go for the "Crasher" shows... No one does a yard or kitchen in a weekend.

I have a friend whose daughter wrote a sentimental letter and got her on one of those "crasher" shows. They came in and redid...I think her living room?...in one day, while a friend distracted her. She said it was awful--they just yanked out everything and did (of course) a really crappy job of building a new room, because they only had about eight hours. All her precious things that she had decorating her living room, including valuable books and artwork, had disappeared when she walked back in to be surprised. She had to struggle not to cry on camera. (Later she found her things all thrown into cardboard boxes with no protection and tons of construction debris and plaster on top of them.)

 

[DaveNV]

I didn't go for the "Crasher" shows... No one does a yard or kitchen in a weekend.

And nobody chooses the stupid features they put in on some of those shows.

Dave

 

[slip]

I like the House Hunting shows and that includes the “Life” series shows, Caribbean,Mexico and Hawaii. But I like them more with more reasonable budgets. I don’t minds seeing the high end houses but I don’t like to see them all that way. I like it better when the two shows back to back will have one show high end and the other more reasonable.

 

[Panina]

I watched House Hunters when Suzanne Wang, I believe was her name, moderated it. She really it made it feel more personal then now. She passed young unfortunately.

 

[wackymother]

I watched House Hunters when Suzanne Wang, I believe was her name, moderated it. She really it made it feel more personal then now. She passed young unfortunately.

Oh, yes. Sad. They got rid of Andromeda Dunker a couple of years ago too. Now it's all very remote, unfortunately. I don't know why they think people want to have MORE focus on the home seekers.

 

[isisdave]

In the early days of HHI, it was a lot more about the cities, and I (as a TUGger)) really liked that, both for placed I'd been, and ones I wanted to go to. I even remember one episode where they chose "none of the above" and one or two where somehow they had four choices -- I think.

Lately, every single episode has a couple with drastically different wants. Town/country, house/condo, turnkey/fixer, whatever, and the show is more about how to accommodate that. Much less about the city, and nowhere as interesting to me.

 

[wackymother]

In the early days of HHI, it was a lot more about the cities, and I (as a TUGger)) really liked that, both for placed I'd been, and ones I wanted to go to. I even remember one episode where they chose "none of the above" and one or two where somehow they had four choices -- I think.

Lately, every single episode has a couple with drastically different wants. Town/country, house/condo, turnkey/fixer, whatever, and the show is more about how to accommodate that. Much less about the city, and nowhere as interesting to me.

I just saw one the other day that had four choices, which was weird but interesting. And there was one a long time ago where it was three choices and the buyer didn't like any of them, so they showed her a building lot, and she ended up buying that and building her own house.

You're right. I would like to see more of the cities. I saw one in Buenos Aires recently, and that was really interesting. I realized I had almost no idea what Buenos Aires looks like.

 

[Brett]

I'll go with House Hunters and Renovation Island
But lately I've been watching more DIY channel shows

 

[DaveNV]

I watched House Hunters when Suzanne Wang, I believe was her name, moderated it. She really it made it feel more personal then now. She passed young unfortunately.

I remember her. I didn't know she had passed. Sad.

Dave

 

[b2bailey]

I have watched many episodes of House Hunters, but eventually tired of self-centered wives who had to have giant closets, and granite countertops. And the silly people who disregarded an otherwise decent house because it didn't include a refrigerator.

Renovation Island was a novelty to watch. But I kept thinking somebody walked away from it many years ago -- will it be different this time?