The only thing rising faster than UK property prices over the last few years is the hours of programming devoted to reality shows about buying or doing up homes. I was ill a few days and genuinely unable to get the energy to watch anything that required much thought so I ended up slumped in front of BBC daytime television watching this. The concept here is that the show selects a couple of homes that are up for auction. First we are shown around them (fixer-uppers at absolute best) before we then see what they go for at auction and, more importantly, who buys it. We then follow the buyers as they attempt to make money off the property market by doing it up and selling on.
The idea is basic and you really need to be interested in people buying houses which, to be honest, is threatening to replace the weather as the main topic of casual discussion in the UK so the audience is certainly there for it. And I suppose for that target audience who like watching things about buying houses then it might well do the job because that is what you get here. Personally I find the obsession all very depressing as the middle classes mortgage themselves to the hilt trying to climb the ladder while driving prices up and up to the point where those trying to join the property market have little if no chance to do so.
Aside from the vegetative state of watching other people do up houses there is really little else of interest here. Problem is, only the totally clueless end up losing money and it happens rarely in the show. The reason for this is not because anyone does anything decent (or plans to) with them but just because in the UK sitting in a house for a month and doing nothing sees your "investment" increase in value. In my own Northern Ireland property prices have risen by 76% between 2005 and end 2006 and it is now one of the most expensive places in the UK to buy a house (source BBC website 5th April 07). So actually it is pretty dull for us to hear their plans and then get them valued by experts (not that estate agents really have a formal training route to become "experts") because it is nearly always gone up. One could also question how much the casual viewer should care about the type of person playing the market to make money off soaring house prices certainly for me I didn't care.
The presenters are, well, what's the word? Oh yeah - ****s. They overegg everything because they seem to sense how inevitable and dull it all is. Horrid cheesy puns populate their scripts and they deliver them with the typical style of daytime television presenters just trying to stop themselves hating their jobs. Frantically dull property rubbish then that even the presenters know is a pointless hour of television not much of a recommendation is it?
