House Hunters - General Discussion

[Kimboweena]

Re: Brunswick County, NC family - were they able to evacuate with husband's $50,000 bourbon collection, or did it survive the hurricane?

 

[Grrarrggh]

That Austin 19-year-old would have been stupid to buy a condo where the bedroom has no window and it's across the street from Phi Delta Rape. 

[Empress1]

The long narrow hallway in the “party central” Austin condo was making me claustrophobic, as were the windows that opened to ... I don’t even know, a wall?

[Ohwell]

I missed the first ten minutes or so, but what job did the 19 year old have? 

[chessiegal]

14 minutes ago, Ohwell said:

I missed the first ten minutes or so, but what job did the 19 year old have? 

They said she worked in finance, IIRC.

[javajeanelaine]

I thought it was cybersecurity.

[Ohwell]

I was just wondering how much salary a 19 year old would be making to afford to buy a place at that young age.  I wonder if mom helped with the down payment. 

[doodlebug]

33 minutes ago, javajeanelaine said:

I thought it was cybersecurity.

It was cybersecurity.  She must be a very smart cookie to get a job like that at only 19, degree or not.  She also must be making a nice income to be able to afford a $300,000 house.  Good for her.  She kept saying it was her money, not her mother's; so either she inherited a down payment from a grandparent or something or she is very frugal and managed to save a bundle.

I can see why her mom was anxious about her living in the city, after all, she is just 19 but she obviously is very level headed and sensible or she wouldn't have finished her education so quickly.

My nephew attended community college classes in high school and got his associates the same week he got his high school diploma.  However, he liked college life and was a marching band geek, so he stayed 4 years.  The community college was in his hometown and high school students could enroll there for free to take classes that would count both for high school and college.  It is not uncommon these days.  My college room mate. back in the dark ages, graduated high school a year early at 16 and then finished college in 3 years and went on to medical school at 19, graduating in another 3 years at 22.  She was the youngest intern they'd ever had at the hospital where she trained.

Edited April 7, 2020 by doodlebug

[doodlebug]

14 hours ago, Kimboweena said:

Re: Brunswick County, NC family - were they able to evacuate with husband's $50,000 bourbon collection, or did it survive the hurricane?

 

For a guy who claimed he wanted to buy a fixer upper to get equity, it was kind of interesting to discover that he has a bourbon collection worth $50-60,000.  Differing priorities, I guess.  I didn't realize bourbon collecting was a thing, nor that people set aside rooms in their home for it.  Isn't liquor the definition of a liquid asset?  He was willing to invite friends over to deplete the bourbon collection, but didn't want to buy a place unless it needed heaps of renovation so they could make a big profit when they sold.  Weird.

[buttersister]

So weird. In keeping with his mantra, it's as if he bought them as an investment. Shaky at best, dude. One of the lamest plot lines I've seen in awhile (yeah, low bar).

[StatisticalOutlier]

20 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

I like her real estate agent too.   

I saw her actually laughing (presumably to the cameraman) as she was following the HHs back inside after the encounter with the heinously loud air conditioner.

 

20 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

I think the old real estate rule about location being everything is true, so I hope she finds something downtown.    I think once the washer/dryer hook up is added, the $10k price will be nothing compared to what that will add to value.   

Back in the 1970s, University of Texas students who didn't want or need or couldn't afford to live near campus lived just south of the river, along Riverside Drive.  There were enormous cheaply built apartment complexes out there--one apartment gets a small grease fire and the entire building burns down within minutes.  The UT shuttle bus ran out there. 

But then because of the cheapness, poor non-student families started moving in there, and the students migrated to newer and generally nicer giant apartment complexes in the northwest part of town, I'd say in the mid/late 1980s.  That's where this HH bought.

The apartments in that area were historically occupied by young adult singles.  But enough students moved out there that UT added shuttle bus runs to that area.  I'm not sure where the young singles went, now that I think about it.  Maybe they dispersed--this would be after AIDS hit, so maybe that scene dried up somewhat.

 

20 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

The second downtown condo was ridiculous.   The condo fee was huge, and the bedroom not even having a window means it's not a real bedroom either.   I'm glad the house hunter passed on that one.   

That condo wasn't downtown, even though that's what they kept saying.  It's in the West Campus neighborhood--west of the UT campus.  It's only about a mile from downtown, but it couldn't be more different.  Downtown condos are actually downtown, as in the central business district with high-rise office buildings.

For many years, West Campus was just fraternity and sorority houses, small two-storey apartment buildings, and houses that held lots of students or were actually cut up into apartments.  Then they changed the zoning, and much taller condo complexes sprung up all over that neighborhood.  And the condo she looked at was newer construction, so that bedroom without a window wasn't some sort of retrofit.  I guess it looked onto a breezeway or walkway, so you don't really want a window there, but it was very very odd.

I couldn't decide if I hated that long hallway.  I once had an apartment that was upstairs, and the door was at ground level and it opened onto the bottom of some stairs that went up into the living area.  It was really weird to go down those stairs to answer the door, but I kind of liked it.  So I could see feeling the same way about that hallway.

Also, I'm pretty sure the HOA included a parking space, which is not to be sneezed at with the density that area has now.

Hey--I haven't been watching much lately, but realized that they're mentioning specific neighborhoods again.  Hallelujah!

[KLovestoShop]

The cowboy from Texas is a giant jerky, pain in the ass. He looked a lot older than the girlfriend, and has been stringing her along for years.  And then they go to a house where he got engaged to his first wife, on the same property.  Don’t blame her for eliminating that house.  And when she talks about marriage and children, he responds “Sad but true”. She needs to run away. 

[LittleIggy]

34 minutes ago, KLovestoShop said:

The cowboy from Texas is a giant jerky, pain in the ass. He looked a lot older than the girlfriend, and has been stringing her along for years.  And then they go to a house where he got engaged to his first wife, on the same property.  Don’t blame her for eliminating that house.  And when she talks about marriage and children, he responds “Sad but true”. She needs to run away. 

I was wondering how much older he was than her. Were they buying the house together?  After three years, if he hadn’t put a ring on it, then she should move on.

Austen: Hope she popped open that bottle of bubbly after mom left! 😏

[cameron]

7 hours ago, KLovestoShop said:

The cowboy from Texas is a giant jerky, pain in the ass. He looked a lot older than the girlfriend, and has been stringing her along for years.  And then they go to a house where he got engaged to his first wife, on the same property.  Don’t blame her for eliminating that house.  And when she talks about marriage and children, he responds “Sad but true”. She needs to run away. 

Total male jerk, especially when he pouted about taking off his boots and then preceded to grind his spurs into the wood floor.  She should just run and run fast.

[chessiegal]

Didn't the Texas girlfriend say she didn't know he had been married before? After 3 years? With all that land and money, why didn't he just build a dream house on the property he had? The whole storyline made no sense.

[doodlebug]

19 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

Didn't the Texas girlfriend say she didn't know he had been married before? After 3 years? With all that land and money, why didn't he just build a dream house on the property he had? The whole storyline made no sense.

I think she was saying that she knew about the wife, but had no idea about the proposal and photo shoot on the ranch they were looking at, and, since he knew the property and the area, she wished he had told her before they went to see it.

On the one hand, it was interesting to see people hunting for a different kind of home; not too many people out there looking to spend $2 mil on a ranch; so I liked seeing what sorts of things they were looking for in a property.  However, on the other hand, it seemed obvious that rude cowboy was significantly older than her and less than enthused at the thought of marrying her and having a family.  She seemed like a lovely person, and cute, to boot; I hope she gets a clue and moves on.

Edited April 8, 2020 by doodlebug

[StatisticalOutlier]

18 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

Didn't the Texas girlfriend say she didn't know he had been married before?

No, it was the man of the couple who was showing them houses who didn't know.

 

10 hours ago, KLovestoShop said:

And then they go to a house where he got engaged to his first wife, on the same property.  Don’t blame her for eliminating that house.  

He said it's where he had his engagement "pitchers" taken, not where he got engaged.  So I'm assuming the location offered the Panhandle version of the distressed downtown alley that city dwellers use. 

 

2 hours ago, cameron said:

Total male jerk, especially when he pouted about taking off his boots and then preceded to grind his spurs into the wood floor.  She should just run and run fast.

I didn't notice any spurs, and was impressed that he could get his boots off just by stepping on the back, like I do with my tennis shoes.  It was always a sitting-down two-handed contortious operation for me.

And to be fair, it was his floor at that point.  But I agree--not a good look.  Although I rather enjoyed watching a grown man pad around a house in his sock feet while wearing a giant cowboy hat.

 

10 hours ago, KLovestoShop said:

And when she talks about marriage and children, he responds “Sad but true”. She needs to run away. 

I don't know which is more annoying--a woman who won't shut up about having kids or a man who keeps acting like he's being dragged into it against his will.  I have an idea--both of y'all shut up and find someone who's on the same page.

To make things worse, I spied two Whataburger cups in their truck, and I'm not in Whataburger country these days.  What I wouldn't do...

[Ohwell]

Eh, the Texas cowboy was a jerk but I wasn't feeling it for her either.  I had the feeling that he was the one with most of the money.  She knew what she was getting into. 

It was interesting to see those properties though. 

[cameron]

20 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

No, it was the man of the couple who was showing them houses who didn't know.

 

He said it's where he had his engagement "pitchers" taken, not where he got engaged.  So I'm assuming the location offered the Panhandle version of the distressed downtown alley that city dwellers use. 

 

I didn't notice any spurs, and was impressed that he could get his boots off just by stepping on the back, like I do with my tennis shoes.  It was always a sitting-down two-handed contortious operation for me.

And to be fair, it was his floor at that point.  But I agree--not a good look.  Although I rather enjoyed watching a grown man pad around a house in his sock feet while wearing a giant cowboy hat.

 

I don't know which is more annoying--a woman who won't shut up about having kids or a man who keeps acting like he's being dragged into it against his will.  I have an idea--both of y'all shut up and find someone who's on the same page.

To make things worse, I spied two Whataburger cups in their truck, and I'm not in Whataburger country these days.  What I wouldn't do...

He definitely was wearing spurs on his boots.

[CrazyInAlabama]

The male realtor is the one that said he didn't know the house hunter man was married before.  However, the long term girlfriend was the one who said she didn't know that he had his engagement photos taken at that ranch they were looking at.     I bet a lot of people had photo shoots at that ranch.   It looked very well set up to have all kinds of events, and there is nothing strange about someone using part of the property for photos.     I bet a lot of engagement, graduation pictures, and other photo shoots happen there.    

The girlfriend was a fool for sticking around so long, without a ring, and a specific wedding date.   She shouldn't count on a wedding every happening.    

[StatisticalOutlier]

23 minutes ago, cameron said:

He definitely was wearing spurs on his boots.

Aah, so that was my problem getting my boots off by stepping on the heels.  Never needed spurs just for dancing.  😀

[LittleIggy]

He was indeed wearing spurs!

[DonnaMae]

I bet that big cowboy will have a beer gut within ten years. 🙄

[Grrarrggh]

I hate women like the rancher one. If you want to get married so bad ask him. Take control of your own life, and stop being a passive aggressive whinner. Yuck. 

Make sense that she would so want open concept lol. 

[chessiegal]

Ohio - Gah! I hate "We are pregnant!". No wife, you are pregnant, and will be dealing with it for months to come. All you're husband did, by a relatively small amount of time, is make a deposit.

[Kemper]

Yes, the Ohio couple last night.  What was his thing about needing "privacy" - constantly bringing it up.  I don't think any of the houses they looked at were right on top of one another. I must say they were a really nice-looking couple.  Hopefully the "quirks" we saw from them both were manufactured for show.

[CrazyInAlabama]

I wonder if the two day house hunt by the Ohio couple was the pilot for the House in a Hurry show?    I hope the house hunters quirks were for the show.    Worrying about ghosts or being petrified to live on the first floor because of burglars is absurd.    Burglars can climb stairs.   

[Pine]

I enjoyed the cowboy HH's.  Mr Pine took 6 years to marry me, and 36 years later, I don't regret the wait at all.  I took the cowboy as hamming it up, their horse's were in great shape, as was their tack and riding abilities.  I felt they are much more in tune to one another than the HH producers wanted to show.  Loved the last house, it looked like Chip and Joanne did it, but I felt they could have built that on way more land for a lot less than the owners wanted.  I really liked their agents too.  

[Goodtimes]

On 4/8/2020 at 7:38 AM, Ohwell said:

Eh, the Texas cowboy was a jerk but I wasn't feeling it for her either.  I had the feeling that he was the one with most of the money.  She knew what she was getting into. 

It was interesting to see those properties though. 

I was curious about this cowboy guy and did some Googling as his budget was so large.  His name is Rodey Wilson and he owns a large cattle ranch operation and appears to be very successful in the rodeo industry. I also found a Rodey Wilson that was the target in a murder for hire scheme. I can't imagine more than one Rodey Wilson in Amarillo/Canyon Texas - this Rodey was seeing a married woman in 2017 and her husband found out.     

https://www.amarillo.com/crime-and-courts/local-news/news/2017-03-10/murder-hire-plot-documents-show-pair-exchanged-money-gun

 

Edited April 9, 2020 by Goodtimes

[chessiegal]

Nashville: My husband said the guy should not be looking for a house, but a new wife. She was so annoying, and the vocal fry didn't help.

[LittleIggy]

13 hours ago, Kemper said:

Yes, the Ohio couple last night.  What was his thing about needing "privacy" - constantly bringing it up.  I don't think any of the houses they looked at were right on top of one another. I must say they were a really nice-looking couple.  Hopefully the "quirks" we saw from them both were manufactured for show.

Yeah, and it was winter when the trees would be bare. I liked the second house with the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the forest. Those decks were great.

[LittleIggy]

2 hours ago, LucindaWalsh said:

I liked the Ohio couple. They had a Dax and Kristen vibe about them. When she said "I would love a panic room" it was like watching Kristen talk about sloths (a quick google will reveal that video).  I got claustrophobic vertigo from that second house, no joke. Between the narrow sloping driveway, the looked like it was going to collapse retaining wall along the drive, to that deck, to the narrow stairways...I don't have any but I was white knuckling for one to calm down. It was also a horrible house.  I kept wondering who would sit down and come up with a floor plan like that and think they had accomplished something? It was horrible.

 

Huh, that was my favorite house.

[Empress1]

12 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Nashville: My husband said the guy should not be looking for a house, but a new wife. She was so annoying, and the vocal fry didn't help.

I could not STAND listening to her talk. I found her high-pitched voice so grating. I actually fast-forwarded through a lot of them because of her voice. I thought the husband and his twin brother were very good-looking, although I generally dislike rhyming names for twins (they were Darius and Jamarius, and I actually forget which one was the hunter and which one wasn't).

I'm a saver and I think being married to a spender would stress me out too much. I would not be cool with blowing my house fund on the wedding the way she said she did (and she clearly thought it was cute. I would not). 

[Ohwell]

Nashville woman with the annoying voice.  Didn't she say they had 200 wedding guests?  I wonder how much that wedding cost.  The husband's name was Jamarius.  

[chessiegal]

18 minutes ago, Empress1 said:

I'm a saver and I think being married to a spender would stress me out too much.

It did me. I ended up divorcing the spender.

[NYGirl]

I couldn't stand Nashville woman, her voice and her baby-like demeanor.  I kept telling the husband to run and get an apartment by himself with a nice man cave...close to town where he wanted to be.

I may need to give up HH during this quarantine.  I am irrationally getting irritated at homeowners where I couldn't before.  I find myself yelling at them through the TV.

But this one was definitely her.  I hated her immediately

[LittleIggy]

6 hours ago, LucindaWalsh said:

@LittleIggy  Ha, I wanted to like it and if I were your friend in real life I would try to visit you there but it would be hard and you would have to supply a valium for each visit. Maybe if it comes up on a repeat I will give it a second chance. I seriously was swirly brained after getting down that driveway and looking down from that deck.

Does it seem like the new episodes are filmed differently?  I realized that they are showing sweeping flyover views. I understood if for for the TX ranch episode but if I am not mistaken they also showed them for the OH episode. And someone mentioned that the OH might have been filmed for that new Home in a Hurry so that might explain the different style. I watched the Charlotte, NC HIAH episode and didn't even make it to the end to see what they would pick because the woman was annoying.

 

I admit that the driveway would be problematic in the winter, but I just loved those windows and the view. It was like living in a tree house.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 4/9/2020 at 1:40 PM, Goodtimes said:

I can't imagine more than one Rodey Wilson in Amarillo/Canyon Texas - this Rodey was seeing a married woman in 2017 and her husband found out.    

Actually, the arrests happened in 2017, for a plot that dated back to 2014.

Which is good news, if you ask me, because in 2016, the husband (the one who took the hits out on Rodey) allegedly took a successful hit out on a woman he was in a romantic relationship with.  I say good news, because Rodey didn't impress me on the show, and getting involved with a woman whose husband had taken out a hit on his own lover (who was pregnant) would be insane even by the low standards I was already expecting of him. 

https://www.amarilloinsider.com/post/billy-and-joanie-ivy-sued-for-1-million-by-target-of-alleged-murder-for-hire-plot

[Insert joke about where he got his budget for the house.]

Now, Rodey didn't do anything wrong other than have a relationship with a married woman and maybe knock her up, I suppose.  And I'm sure it's unfair to hold the married woman accountable for her husband's actions.  But damn.  A person doesn't become a repeat offender in soliciting murders overnight.  And the married woman got charged with tampering with a witness and the civil suit claims she was involved in the plot.

If I were his current girlfriend, I'd be wondering what exactly it is he sees in me, given his track record.  All in all, with the kind of notoriety he has, with a unique name, it seems odd he'd want to appear on some house hunting show.

[laredhead]

StatisticalOurlier "All in all, with the kind of notoriety he has, with a unique name, it seems odd he'd want to appear on some house hunting show." - Answer:  Ego and self promotion of his business.

[CrazyInAlabama]

The new DC house hunters have to be kidding.    So they've been looking at houses for 8 months?   And it took 18 months to pick a wedding venue?     This has to be a put on.   

[laredhead]

I enjoyed the episode with the 2 guys buying a weekend house in Wayne County, PA.  Anyone know how long it takes to drive from NYC to Wayne County?  The first house that was a converted barn was pretty cool, and I loved all of the land that came with it.  I like the house they bought, and 12 acres is nice for a get away.  That was quite the vegetable garden they had going, but I wonder if they don't spend all weekend working in it.  Maybe after living in the city, that's relaxing for them.

[Grrarrggh]

1 hour ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

The new DC house hunters have to be kidding.    So they've been looking at houses for 8 months?   And it took 18 months to pick a wedding venue?     This has to be a put on.   

Yet another woman who waited to be proposed to instead of taking control of her own life. 

[cameron]

The voice of the woman buyer on the DC episode was off the charts.  Valley talk in DC doesn't hack it and so grating too.  They were definitely out of towners.  No local calls the Metro a subway or the train.

Edited April 16, 2020 by cameron

[NYGirl]

Am I the only one who hated every house in the DC episode?  They all looked so small and cramped!

This coming from someone who lives in NYC.

Her voice...?  Yikes

[Empress1]

9 minutes ago, NYGirl said:

Am I the only one who hated every house in the DC episode?  They all looked so small and cramped!

This coming from someone who lives in NYC.

Her voice...?  Yikes

The second house (which I really hated) was a prime example of how open floor plans (which y’all know I don’t like) do not, in fact, make small narrow spaces look bigger. I kept thinking “The fridge is in the living room.”

The third house was beautiful but too pricey. (I didn’t think the rental unit was nice at all.)

[Ohwell]

3 hours ago, cameron said:

 They were definitely out oft owners.  No local calls the Metro a subway or the train.

You got that right! 😄 

[CrazyInAlabama]

The apartment on the the third house was awful.    The only window I saw had full bars, leaving only the door to the outside as a fire exit.    Bedrooms have to have windows, for fire egress.   In DC you probably could rent the place, but it's still a death trap in a fire. 

[buttersister]

Having stayed in an AirBnB row house in DC last fall, I was interested in seeing these places. Which is why I kept watching once they introduced the couple from wherever with his deep psychological problems (or made up story—who knows?) I mean who’d expose that kind of semi-crippling condition on TV? Oh, famewhores, of course. 

I thought they were kind of obvious about the first place. I liked it for one person, it was a great size, but that’s me. Also, did they just hit town? Because everyone I know who lives in the area, all transplants, says metro.

[Kimboweena]

Sanford, FL family, bugged the heck out of me when they said that bidet has got to go - idiots! Don't knock them until you try them.  Bet they'll be wishing they still had one when they can't find toilet paper now!

Edited April 17, 2020 by Kimboweena

[DonnaMae]

I loved the house they chose.  That didn't look like any bidet I've seen.  I think it was a toilet.