House Hunters - General Discussion

[chessiegal]

23 minutes ago, DonnaMae said:

I liked the Canadian couple in Indiana.  No sniping at each other, like we see in so many couples.  I liked the new house they chose with the wooded back yard.  I didn't see the beginning. They said he would be doing some traveling for his job.  What does he do and does she also have a job?

Just went back and re-watched - what either of them did was conspicuously missing. Other than he traveled and trained for triathlons, no other info.

[DonnaMae]

Thanks for the info. I just wondered if they moved from Canada because of their jobs.

[doodlebug]

On ‎5‎/‎9‎/‎2020 at 8:48 PM, LucindaWalsh said:

I teared up and grinned real big when the Norfolk, VA told the little daughter that he had a surprise and the house was Daddy's house. Her reaction was precious. I wanted to flat out blubber when he opened the door to her room. 

I hope those two and the roommate are enjoying their home. And that the roommate meets his three year goal.

I had a smile on my face the whole show.  Norfolk dad just lit up talking about his little girl and how he wanted the best for her.  The fact that her well being and happiness was foremost in his mind when choosing a house was heartwarming.  He and his roommate/friend were also pretty funny talking about the various houses.  Then, getting to see his daughter visiting and finding out it was their house and she had a room of her own for friends to visit and sleepovers, was just adorable.  A really uplifting episode for this show, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

[hoosier80]

I watched an episode last night, one wife worked in Westerville, a suburb of Columbus. I live in the metro, so I continued watching, trying to figure out the locations. No way did that realtor show them those homes originally. One was on the west side of town, which would make the commute to Westerville a real bitch, even if only 2 days a week. The other house I think was more on the south side. Made zero sense. 

I went out to home sites and there were plenty in their price range, older homes is what I looked at since they wanted character, etc. I found the house they chose. The pictures on the site were stunning. The show had it as a major fixer, but it was all redone on pictures posted in the sale shots in August 2019.  The wall colors were different so maybe the HH couple had repainted; I would have left it as it was in the pictures as it was truly stunning.

 The kitchen had state of the art appliances, was obviously remodeled. I don't understand why they need the fakery. 

I started to watch tonight with the guy and his girlfriend of 6 months. She was ridiculously demanding.  Wanted to turn a small bedroom into a closet for herself. I did not get the sense she was contributing to the purchase. Turned it off as I wanted to punch the tv.

 

[edie3]

19 minutes ago, hoosier80 said:

She was ridiculously demanding.

she was a Sofia Vergara  wanna be.  

[KLovestoShop]

I don’t see this Inglewood couple lasting more than a few months.  It was all “her colors, her closet, her bathroom”.  Sorry honey, no one is that ugly that you need so much space for your makeup. When she walked into the kitchen that was mostly white, I nearly fell off my chair when she said it was too dark.  Too dark?  Is she color blind?  To be honest, she came off as being the dullest bulb in the chandelier.  

[chessiegal]

Oh my goodness - that LA drama queen! I wanted him to pick a house she refused to live in. Dude needs to run, run away very fast. At the end when she was telling him, get used to I have lots of beauty products - no kidding, you could scrape them off your face with a trowel.

Edited May 22, 2020 by chessiegal

[LittleIggy]

42 minutes ago, edie3 said:

she was a Sofia Vergara  wanna be.  

LOL! I was calling her the “bargain basement Sofia Vergara” while watching the show. Everytime she complained about something, I said “Not your house, bitch.” Geeze, dude had known her only six months. Why want her to move in? He’s thinking with a part of his anatomy other than his brain.

[jcbrown]

She was ridiculous. Such an entitled bitch. You're not paying, honey. Sit down and shut up. Even after she supposedly moved in at the end she was still making snarky demands about what he could afford to earn the honor of her living there? Run, homeowner dude. Lots of people have vaginas. You can do better.

[Kiddvideo]

1 hour ago, KLovestoShop said:

I don’t see this Inglewood couple lasting more than a few months.

She seemed quite impressed with herself. I've gotta think being alone or renting a room to one of his bandmates would be better than living with someone who'd never be satisfied. The horror of square sink vanities.

[Empress1]

4 hours ago, CruiseDiva said:

6 hours ago, juliet73 said:

 

I wondered what Inglewood is like now because my family lived there in the late 1950s.

I know little about LA, but Inglewood is the neighborhood the main character on Insecure lives in. I believe it was a predominately Black neighborhood in the 80s due to white flight and is now gentrifying (the character on Insecure is Black & talks about her neighborhood changing).

When the guy said “I love this house but it might put me at odds with [girlfriend]” I said out loud “Who cares?” It’s not her money and if he likes high-maintenance women, he lives in LA. There are plenty of them. 

[Ohwell]

9 hours ago, LittleIggy said:

LOL! I was calling her the “bargain basement Sofia Vergara” while watching the show.

Heh, we were on the same page because I was calling her "low rent Sophia Vergara."  I'd put her on my list of top 10 worst HHers ever. 

She was dim, but I think that guy was even dimmer for putting up with her.  He must have some pretty low self esteem.

[amarante]

4 minutes ago, Ohwell said:

Heh, we were on the same page because I was calling her "low rent Sophia Vergara."  I'd put her on my list of top 10 worst HHers ever. 

She was dim, but I think that guy was even dimmer for putting up with her.  He must have some pretty low self esteem.

Add in the dim real estate broker when she and the HH both called the sink in the first home a farmhouse sink when it was just a standard under-mount sink.

Add a bonus for when the shower floor color was criticized in one of the homes and she said it was an easy fix. No idiot - if you remove tiles from a walk in shower you have to rebuild and waterproof the ENTIRE shower because the waterproofing is seamless from walls to shower pan. And a tiled walk in shower is one of the most costly things to construct because of the expert labor needed to do it properly. Ballpark of $10,000 minimum in Los Angeles using builder grade tiles and materials. Showers have to be inspected three times to pass inspection here.

Of course there are also the standard idiots who tell HH that painting kitchen cabinets is an easy and cheap fix. It isn't when done properly because you can't paint over the doors. They have to be cleaned and primed and sanded and then painted in a dust free environment. Not only will they look like crap if just painted like a wall but the paint will start chipping quickly which is why it's a cheap flipping fix when you don't care what the cabinets will look like in 3 years. :-).

Edited May 22, 2020 by amarante

[Empress1]

21 minutes ago, amarante said:

I grew up in Brooklyn in a single family home and we had bars on all the windows and so I don't view bars with the same kind of visceral horror that others do. They are just a fact of life because there are burglaries in most metropolitan areas and the better the neighborhood, the more tempting the target.

Much of my Brooklyn family in single-family homes have bars on the windows; the ones that don’t have alarms. I had bars on the windows in my 5th-floor Manhattan walkup (my neighbors on the floor and I would joke that if any of us got robbed, it was probably one of us that did it). I’m with you, I don’t recoil in horror at bars on windows.

[KLovestoShop]

I looked at the listing and was surprised by the low property taxes.  If that house were here in my area, and sold for the same price, the combined property taxes would be $14,000.

[amarante]

10 minutes ago, Empress1 said:

Much of my Brooklyn family in single-family homes have bars on the windows; the ones that don’t have alarms. I had bars on the windows in my 5th-floor Manhattan walkup (my neighbors on the floor and I would joke that if any of us got robbed, it was probably one of us that did it). I’m with you, I don’t recoil in horror at bars on windows.

Any apartment in NYC with a fire escape has bars on the windows for the fire escape. They have to have easy access to open so you can't have one that uses a key but they can't be opened easily from the outside.

Never under-estimate the ingenuity of a cat burglar. My friends lived in a walk up on St. Marks Place in Manhattan and a guy attempted to enter through a window by lowering himself from the roof.

[Ohwell]

.

Edited May 22, 2020 by Ohwell

[amarante]

8 minutes ago, KLovestoShop said:

I looked at the listing and was surprised by the low property taxes.  If that house were here in my area, and sold for the same price, the combined property taxes would be $14,000.

It could have been the listing for the original owner before it was sold. California property taxes are about 1.5% of assessed value which in California is the purchase price. 

However because of Proposition 13 property taxes can't be raised so you have people who have been living in their homes for a long time and have low property tax since they are paying on the original purchase price.

Originally it was intended to help homeowners from being forced out of their home when their relatively modest homes became more and more valuable. It's a mixed "blessing" because it does protect people from being priced out of their homes, it also prevents government - especially city government - from being able to fund properly. Also while I think it's great for home owners to be protected, it is also in effect for commercial property and I don't think that a commercial owner needs the same kind of protection from increased property values as a homeowner does because it's not the same - elderly homeowner with limited income should be able to stay in their home - owner of office building should be assessed at current property value.

[NYGirl]

I just got to watch Inglewood and I agree with you guys on the girlfriend.  I hope that he has moved away from her.  I hated the way he kept asking her "what do you think about this babe?"  She sure had a lot to say about every house.  Then her saying If I'm not happy I'm not moving in.  He seemed so easy going and likable.

I did like the house he picked and I'm glad he got the space to rehearse with his band.  I hope he didn't remove the tile/wallpaper in the bathrooms because they were "too dark".

[CruiseDiva]

25 minutes ago, NYGirl said:

I did like the house he picked and I'm glad he got the space to rehearse with his band.  I hope he didn't remove the tile/wallpaper in the bathrooms because they were "too dark".

Removing tile from walls is a bitch. Even using extreme care the drywall is likely to end up with holes in it and the paper surface torn. Heck, we had that happen when removing wallpaper. Hopefully he dumped the "girlfriend" by the time the show aired.

[Ohwell]

When busted, low rent Sophia Vergara was applying makeup at the end, she seemed to be auditioning for a reality show since she thought she was so "hot."  Bless her heart.  

[CrazyInAlabama]

I love how the Inglewood girlfriend told the homeowner that he needed to rip out the kitchen, and both bathroom's wall tile.     She also wanted him to buy the first house, and that would have required many thousands.    If "busted, low rent Sophia Vergara" (thanks for that Ohwell) wanted to buy her own home, then do it.   I'm sure the man could do better than a gold digging fool.        However, if he thinks he's going to have his full band in the garage, and not have the police show up, he's wrong. 

 I found the real estate agents statement that the third house attic could be made into a 4th bedroom was ridiculous.   It only had pull down stairs in the hallway, the agent was nuts.   I hope the agent realizes that giving terrible advice on national TV isn't the way to get clients.  

I get a kick out of recognizing a city in Los Angeles.    With all of the remodeling shows, and flipping shows, I think we've seen all of the cities.     

Edited May 23, 2020 by CrazyInAlabama

[LittleIggy]

Bargain basement Sofia Vergara was so dumb she didn’t know what “Tudor” signified.

 

[edie3]

11 hours ago, juliet73 said:

I'm putting the Inglewood chick in my top 10 worst HH's ever! 

We should do this, have a Top Ten list! I nominate an old one, a lady who was gonna have a day care in her home, and she had on 2 different shoes. Anyone remember her?

[WendyCR72]

This is a reminder: Locations and addresses are NOT to be posted, even in link info. This is a legal/privacy issue. Further posts of this nature will result in warnings. So please refrain going forward.

Thanks.

[jacksgirl]

Watch HH while dozing these days. Woke right up for Inglewood couple. What a vain, vapid woman. Low rent Sophia Vergara indeed. So he is in a band and a poker player.  Is she a poker player also? Like as a career? That pays?

[chessiegal]

4 hours ago, jacksgirl said:

So he is in a band and a poker player.  Is she a poker player also? Like as a career? That pays?

Yes, it does. Watch World Poker Tour on ESPN. People can make millions.

[LittleIggy]

50 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

Yes, it does. Watch World Poker Tour on ESPN. People can make millions.

I doubt bargain basement Sofia Vergara makes millions! I doubt she makes tens! 😏

[chessiegal]

35 minutes ago, LittleIggy said:

I doubt bargain basement Sofia Vergara makes millions! I doubt she makes tens! 😏

Totally agree - but there are people who make a living playing poker.

[topanga]

On 5/21/2020 at 11:33 PM, hoosier80 said:

On 5/22/2020 at 12:03 AM, KLovestoShop said:

I don’t see this Inglewood couple lasting more than a few months.  It was all “her colors, her closet, her bathroom”.  Sorry honey, no one is that ugly that you need so much space for your makeup. When she walked into the kitchen that was mostly white, I nearly fell off my chair when she said it was too dark.  Too dark?  Is she color blind?  To be honest, she came off as being the dullest bulb in the chandelier.  

I watched an episode last night, one wife worked in Westerville, a suburb of Columbus. I live in the metro, so I continued watching, trying to figure out the locations. No way did that realtor show them those homes originally. One was on the west side of town, which would make the commute to Westerville a real bitch, even if only 2 days a week. The other house I think was more on the south side. Made zero sense. 

I went out to home sites and there were plenty in their price range, older homes is what I looked at since they wanted character, etc. I found the house they chose. The pictures on the site were stunning. The show had it as a major fixer, but it was all redone on pictures posted in the sale shots in August 2019.  The wall colors were different so maybe the HH couple had repainted; I would have left it as it was in the pictures as it was truly stunning.

 

That is so cool. I'm often tempted to search for the homes that were filmed near me, but I was never brave enough to seek them out.

On 5/22/2020 at 12:03 AM, KLovestoShop said:

I don’t see this Inglewood couple lasting more than a few months.  It was all “her colors, her closet, her bathroom”.  Sorry honey, no one is that ugly that you need so much space for your makeup. When she walked into the kitchen that was mostly white, I nearly fell off my chair when she said it was too dark.  Too dark?  Is she color blind?  To be honest, she came off as being the dullest bulb in the chandelier.  

I was trying to pin down their relationship. When she said "he does his own thing, I do my own thing," I couldn't tell if she meant they were independent and didn't go to each others' parents' houses for Sunday dinner, or if she meant they were in an open relationship. Either way, they had no business moving in together. Not yet anyway. 

[laredhead]

One of the recent big time winners on Jeopardy is a professional poker player and high stakes gambler.  I can't remember his name.  I haven't seen the Inglewood episode yet, but looking forward to it now.

[chessiegal]

3 minutes ago, laredhead said:

One of the recent big time winners on Jeopardy is a professional poker player and high stakes gambler.  I can't remember his name.  I haven't seen the Inglewood episode yet, but looking forward to it now.

 James Holzhauer He won enough money on J! that they had him on their Greatest of All Time tournament competing with Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

[kirklandia]

"That is so cool. I'm often tempted to search for the homes that were filmed near me, but I was never brave enough to seek them out."

You don't need to be brave, just persistent. Anyone can look for houses on Zillow.  Of course it's easier when the house hunt is in an area with which you are familiar. But there is definitely enough information to work with.  Hopefully, you know the name of the town, although sometimes HGTV casts the net wide and you have to include neighboring towns.   The year built, square footage, asking price, numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms - you can really zone in on it. Search "recently sold" and "for sale" (if you are interested in the ones they didn't pick).  If you're lucky, you get few enough results that you can scroll through them and look for exact matches and familiar pictures.

Just don't post your results here!

[chessiegal]

House Hunters with couch commentary starts tonight. My husband has decided no one will be as funny as we are.

Eta: I was wrong, guess it starts next week.

Too bad, tonight's was snark worthy.

Edited May 27, 2020 by chessiegal

[Pine]

On 5/23/2020 at 6:15 PM, kirklandia said:

"That is so cool. I'm often tempted to search for the homes that were filmed near me, but I was never brave enough to seek them out."

You don't need to be brave, just persistent. Anyone can look for houses on Zillow.  Of course it's easier when the house hunt is in an area with which you are familiar. But there is definitely enough information to work with.  Hopefully, you know the name of the town, although sometimes HGTV casts the net wide and you have to include neighboring towns.   The year built, square footage, asking price, numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms - you can really zone in on it. Search "recently sold" and "for sale" (if you are interested in the ones they didn't pick).  If you're lucky, you get few enough results that you can scroll through them and look for exact matches and familiar pictures.

Just don't post your results here!

Are you in Kirkland?

[kirklandia]

On 5/27/2020 at 11:01 AM, Pine said:

Are you in Kirkland?

Yup!

[BrownBear2012]

Hate to tell Mr. Poker Player/ Rock musician but your "girlfriend" is only with you for your money. She'll move on to another guy who makes more money the first chance she gets....and you'll be glad she did. OMG! She was awful! I saw her as a Kim Kardashian wannabe. They said how they met but what does she do for a living? He was a total doormat...she kept threatening not to move in with him and he kept acquiescing. If she wanted a better home then help with the purchase. And they've only been together for 6 months? Say what??? He was too nice and she was a total waste of space. She looked like a cocktail waitress or an Instagram model wannabe. Hope he has kicked her out by now.

[Ohwell]

Poker player/rock musician dude must be a few bricks shy of a load to put up with that gold digger (whatever "gold" he has).   He probably wants to be seen with a "hot" chick on his arm.

[LittleIggy]

8 hours ago, Ohwell said:

Poker player/rock musician dude must be a few bricks shy of a load to put up with that gold digger (whatever "gold" he has).   He probably wants to be seen with a "hot" chick on his arm.

Hot only in her mind!

[Ohwell]

9 hours ago, LittleIggy said:

Hot only in her mind!

Yeah, that's why I put it in quotes.  😄

[chessiegal]

What happened to the couch commentary? I thought it was supposed to start tonight. I didn't see any. I'm confused.

[LittleIggy]

30 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

What happened to the couch commentary? I thought it was supposed to start tonight. I didn't see any. I'm confused.

I wondered about that too since it was in the online tv listings I look at on Sundays to see what the tv week holds. From the corner blurb thing(don’t know the technical term!) I saw during HH tonight, it’s been pushed back a week.

[chessiegal]

35 minutes ago, LittleIggy said:

I wondered about that too since it was in the online tv listings I look at on Sundays to see what the tv week holds. From the corner blurb thing(don’t know the technical term!) I saw during HH tonight, it’s been pushed back a week.

Hmmm - wonder why? Glad I wasn't the only one expecting it.

[NYGirl]

I taped the episode thinking it was going to be a watch party.  Instead we get stuck with a family episode with a pain in the butt daughter wanting an island just to make ice cream sundaes!!  Really?????  She couldn't make them on the counter??  When I was a kid we made them on our laps... (LOL j/k).

And the second episode gave us an annoying woman who said no to everything her husband suggested.  No no no!!!  All she cared about was not being in the city and the fact that she HAS to park her car!  As an aside one house had a garage in the backyard but no access...lol

Edited June 3, 2020 by NYGirl

[LittleIggy]

2 hours ago, NYGirl said:

I taped the episode thinking it was going to be a watch party.  Instead we get stuck with a family episode with a pain in the butt daughter wanting an island just to make ice cream sundaes!!  Really?????  She couldn't make them on the counter??  When I was a kid we made them on our laps... (LOL j/k).

And the second episode gave us an annoying woman who said no to everything her husband suggested.  No no no!!!  All she cared about was not being in the city and the fact that she HAS to park her car!  As an aside one house had a garage in the backyard but no access...lol

Wilmington: And they weren’t even married or even living together! Run, dude! I liked the third house in the city. Yeah, the one with the brick garage ruins in the backyard.

[StatisticalOutlier]

13 hours ago, LittleIggy said:

I wondered about that too since it was in the online tv listings I look at on Sundays to see what the tv week holds. From the corner blurb thing(don’t know the technical term!) I saw during HH tonight, it’s been pushed back a week.

I'm looking at the online listings right now (on HGTV site).  In the 10:00 Eastern time slot, on Tuesday it's Bargain Mansions followed by a non-comedian HH, and on Wednesday and Thursday it's the usual HH followed by a HHI.  On Monday, which I don't think typically has a HH episode, the 10:00 is empty (WTF???), and 10:35 is Home Town. 

I'll confess that when last night's episode started and I saw the family was black, I wondered if there had been any network-programming discussions about airing an episode with comedians making fun of those particular people at this particular moment.  Then it turned out not to be a comedian episode.  But it does make me wonder what's going on behind the scenes that's resulting in not airing episodes they'd been advertising.

[CrazyInAlabama]

HH and HHI, and the Beach, Mexico, and Caribbean episodes get pulled when something happens where the episodes were filmed.      After Hurricane Michael there were quite a few sudden changes in schedule, for the areas affected.    I'm just glad someone is thinking at HGTV, and did swap out episodes.  

[Empress1]

3 hours ago, LittleIggy said:

Wilmington: And they weren’t even married or even living together! Run, dude! I liked the third house in the city. Yeah, the one with the brick garage ruins in the backyard.

They also kept showing Philly when they mentioned “downtown Wilmington.” At one point they showed Temple University’s main campus (all those red flags with Ts on them), which is in north Philly. Philly and Wilmington are close (there’s a commuter train that goes between them), but they’re not the same place!

My TiVo said these would be “comics watch House Hunters” episodes too.

[topanga]

2 minutes ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

HH and HHI, and the Beach, Mexico, and Caribbean episodes get pulled when something happens where the episodes were filmed.      After Hurricane Michael there were quite a few sudden changes in schedule, for the areas affected.    I'm just glad someone is thinking at HGTV, and did swap out episodes.  

I feel bad whenever I see commercials for that new Beach Renovation show where the family says they risked everything to renovate their island and will go under if it isn't successful. Seeing that tourism is way down this summer, I wonder how they're doing. 

[StatisticalOutlier]

The DirecTV online grid is changing on the fly, but originally, tonight was supposed to have JB Smoove commenting on "Cats First, Wife Second in New Jersey."  I found the original episode online.  I can see only a second of it because my internet hates videos, but the HHs are white, and I don't know what Smoove's take would be, but the male HH has a hipster beard, glasses, and an earring in one ear and a gauge in the other and I'd love some snark on that.

On Thursday, there was supposed to be an episode scheduled that had Chris Redd commenting on "The New Retro in Austin," where the white male HH had a handlebar mustache, only it went straight out the sides in a horizontal line across his face and beyond (not sure what that's called), who's into brutalism.  Surely snarkworthy.

However, the other episode on Thursday is Eliot Glazer commenting on "On the Rocks in Atlanta," which features two black men as the HHs, from the snippet I was able to see. 

I do wonder if that's being taken into consideration.  There has to be something, because I think this would generally be a good time to present some professional snark for people to enjoy.