House Hunters - General Discussion

[Pj3422]

D.C. couple. No trees?! Did I actually hear him say that they didn’t want a tree flying through the window? (You know, as trees constantly do…)

[Crashcourse]

DC area couple:  I would have run away from her after the first date because of that voice.  She sounded like Fran Drescher.  And she was a pill.

Falls Church has many bars and restaurants, it's not like it's out in the boonies.

I do agree with them about the trees though.  I like trees but not too close to the house.  Sure, they look gorgeous on the property, but there have been instances around the DC area of trees falling on houses when it's stormy and windy, and I'm sure around other areas of the country as well.    

[chessiegal]

I agree trees can be a problem. I had a tree fall on my house when I lived outside Atlanta. When we moved to Bethesda, MD we bought a house built in 1949. There was nary a tree on the small lot. We found out the previous owner who had lived in the house since it was built had all the trees cut down because she was afraid of them falling on the house. Poor little barren lot, we planted some nice maples. Now we've moved to a house on 0.5 acres - lots of trees. In the 10 years we've been here, we've had 3 trees topple over. Fortunately, not on the house. If you've got trees with little root support, they can topple, like the locust trees in our yard.

[CruiseDiva]

53 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

I agree trees can be a problem. I had a tree fall on my house when I lived outside Atlanta. When we moved to Bethesda, MD we bought a house built in 1949. There was nary a tree on the small lot. We found out the previous owner who had lived in the house since it was built had all the trees cut down because she was afraid of them falling on the house. Poor little barren lot, we planted some nice maples. Now we've moved to a house on 0.5 acres - lots of trees. In the 10 years we've been here, we've had 3 trees topple over. Fortunately, not on the house. If you've got trees with little root support, they can topple, like the locust trees in our yard.

I watched pine trees topple like pick-up sticks in my backyard during a tornado. It was a close call and thankfully only the fence was damaged. Down the street pine trees fell on houses. Georgia pines have lousy root systems that are only good for raising concrete sidewalks and driveways. We've had most of the ones closest to the house removed. They were dangerously huge and I don't miss them a bit.

[mojito]

5 hours ago, Crashcourse said:

DC area couple:  I would have run away from her after the first date because of that voice.  She sounded like Fran Drescher. 

The agent was croaking a lot, too. 

He was quite the snappy dresser. Had never seen shoes like these. Once again, HH proves that my education is sorely lacking.

 

[Crashcourse]

1 minute ago, mojito said:

The agent was croaking a lot, too. 

He was quite the snappy dresser. Had never seen shoes like these. Once again, HH proves that my education is sorely lacking.

 

Thankfully, I missed seeing those shoes!

[LittleIggy]

14 hours ago, Pj3422 said:

D.C. couple. No trees?! Did I actually hear him say that they didn’t want a tree flying through the window? (You know, as trees constantly do…)

That one in Poltergeist did.

[LittleIggy]

Orlando: Geeze, the wife was LOUD! 😬

[Kiddvideo]

17 minutes ago, LittleIggy said:

Orlando: Geeze, the wife was LOUD! 😬

I just turned the channel. Can’t hear him, and she’s going to wake-up my neighbors.

[Kenzie]

3 hours ago, LittleIggy said:

Orlando: Geeze, the wife was LOUD! 😬

LOUD, piercing and grating all at once. I finally had to put it on Closed Caption.

I'm surprised she hasn't shattered all her kitchen glassware.

[rhofmovalley]

Her voice was screeching and obnoxious. I don't know how her husband tolerates it. I guess that's what she thinks a "strong businesswoman" is supposed to sound like. I also wonder what the husband's mother thought about her daughter in law speaking so openly about how she can't stand her. 

The older daughter, on the other hand, seemed sweet and grounded. I wish she'd done all the talking.

That house was so impersonal, like a museum. Maybe that's what they like, IDK.

 

[LittleIggy]

1 hour ago, rhofmovalley said:

Her voice was screeching and obnoxious. I don't know how her husband tolerates it. I guess that's what she thinks a "strong businesswoman" is supposed to sound like. I also wonder what the husband's mother thought about her daughter in law speaking so openly about how she can't stand her. 

The older daughter, on the other hand, seemed sweet and grounded. I wish she'd done all the talking.

That house was so impersonal, like a museum. Maybe that's what they like, IDK.

 

I’m sure her MIL finds her just as annoying as we do. 😱

[pdlinda]

9 minutes ago, LittleIggy said:

I’m sure her MIL finds her just as annoying as we do. 😱

He seemed to be very deferential toward her (the daughter seemed to offer a bit of a challenge) so I took that as a sign that "she runs the show" in that household.

I think he said he was in the trucking business and just went into real estate investing (with others) and she said she owned several nursing care at home agencies.

From what I understand, those businesses offer very lucrative returns for owners, so good for them.  I just hope their success continues as their expenses appear to be "sky high."

[Crashcourse]

Orlando:  I changed the channel halfway through because I couldn't stand either one of them.  The daughter seemed nice though.  

[BrownBear2012]

On 12/24/2021 at 1:47 PM, Crashcourse said:

DC area couple:  I would have run away from her after the first date because of that voice.  She sounded like Fran Drescher.  And she was a pill.

Falls Church has many bars and restaurants, it's not like it's out in the boonies.

I do agree with them about the trees though.  I like trees but not too close to the house.  Sure, they look gorgeous on the property, but there have been instances around the DC area of trees falling on houses when it's stormy and windy, and I'm sure around other areas of the country as well.    

Falls Church is an old area with a lot of very large old trees that tend to split in half or just become uprooted and fall over when there is a bad thunderstorm or any other bad weather related problem. I live in Fairfax County...someone I know does landscaping work and whenever there is a bad storm here he hauls over to Falls Church with his chainsaw to make a few bucks sawing up fallen trees. It can actually be quite dangerous there when this happens as some trees have fallen into houses and killed people or fallen on parked cars.

[BrownBear2012]

The DC couple...wow...the woman was one of the worst I've seen on this show. What a diva. She basically dissed every house she saw. I was thinking, if I was the owner of any of these houses that they toured and I saw how disrespectful and disdainful she was about my house, I would be pretty upset. If you don't like something in a house, just say, "It's not my style" or "I'm not a fan of the colour of the house" instead of making faces and calling a house colour "puke green" or bad mouthing every other thing you don't like. 

She was rude and obnoxious...and I have to say, they picked the worst house they saw. How do they think they are going to come out ahead after doing a gut job on the kitchen and whatever else they are going to do inside the house...and let's not forget that changing the colour of the house is going to mean replacing the siding...houses down here (in Virginia...I live near Falls Church) are not painted...they almost all have siding unless they are all brick...that is going to be pricey.

And a pool? Ha! That yard was small and even so, pools are quite pricey. Also...why do young couples who are expecting their first child want to live near bars and restaurants? Their life is going to change...drastically. They will be going to parks and playgrounds a lot more than bars and restaurants. If I were them I would be more concerned with schools and being in a family friendly area....gotta love Millennials.

[pdlinda]

2 hours ago, BrownBear2012 said:

why do young couples who are expecting their first child want to live near bars and restaurants? Their life is going to change...drastically. They will be going to parks and playgrounds a lot more than bars and restaurants.

LOL!!  😄

Maybe because his family lives nearby (I think) perhaps she's thinking babysitting chores might transfer to grandparents when she and hubby are in the mood to "socialize." 

Also, because both of them work from home and, apparently, make a hefty income, I see a full-time nanny in their future.

[mojito]

Orlando

Confusing backstory. They met in 2014 when he was selling cars ? Trucking and logistics business and a new real estate investment group. Sounds like he knows how to generate money. And she does, too. Good for them.
 

Sometimes I get curious about people’s finances. This was one of those times.
 

Agent’s name. When I first heard it, I figured that it must be spelled with an “I”, but no, the name was Cheesette. Imagine what her siblings might be named…

Boring house hunt. 

 

 

[Grizzly]

Loveland, CO. She wants brand new, modern home st a low price. He wants to spend on an older home that has the latest in tech. Hazel was cute.

[Dehumidifier]

This poor doctor tonight. If he doesn't want the existing carpet he'll be doing the "project" himself. 🙄

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Dehumidifier

[LittleIggy]

One night, two “mayors”! 🤔

[cameron]

15 hours ago, pdlinda said:

He seemed to be very deferential toward her (the daughter seemed to offer a bit of a challenge) so I took that as a sign that "she runs the show" in that household.

I think he said he was in the trucking business and just went into real estate investing (with others) and she said she owned several nursing care at home agencies.

From what I understand, those businesses offer very lucrative returns for owners, so good for them.  I just hope their success continues as their expenses appear to be "sky high."

I'm thinking that the older daughter came with him.  Since they just met in 2014, the daughter certainly looked and acted older then 7 years old.  Maybe that's why she was more of a challenge.

[cameron]

8 hours ago, Dehumidifier said:

This poor doctor tonight. If he doesn't want the existing carpet he'll be doing the "project" himself. 🙄

 

Don't think he would take a chance on injuring his hands doing carpet, but it does make for good TV.

[jacksgirl]

Reno epi looks like Joanna Gains and Kody Brown. A more pleasant Kody Brown.

[cameron]

4 minutes ago, jacksgirl said:

Reno epi looks like Joanna Gains and Kody Brown. A more pleasant Kody Brown.

IMO Joanna Gaines is much better looking than the Reno wife.

[pdlinda]

7 hours ago, cameron said:

I'm thinking that the older daughter came with him.  Since they just met in 2014, the daughter certainly looked and acted older then 7 years old.  Maybe that's why she was more of a challenge.

I agree with you.  The daughter looked at least 12 years old!

[Koalagirl]

I missed the first five or so minutes of the Reno episode. Is he a stay at home dad? Did they say what the wife does? 

[Crashcourse]

13 minutes ago, Koalagirl said:

I missed the first five or so minutes of the Reno episode. Is he a stay at home dad? Did they say what the wife does? 

The wife is a CPA and the husband jokingly said he was a retired mailman.  He seemed so laid back but I think there's more to his story and maybe he was in management? 

[Koalagirl]

2 hours ago, Crashcourse said:

The wife is a CPA and the husband jokingly said he was a retired mailman.  He seemed so laid back but I think there's more to his story and maybe he was in management? 

Thanks. Hard to get a read on him. He seemed too laid back to be in management but I’m looking at it from a NYC corporate point of view. 

[buttersister]

He could’ve burnt out in management from today’s priorities.

[mojito]

Loveland, CO

Coming from NY and Boston, it's hard to believe that the female doctor found any of those homes old. They all liked quite modern and new to me.

The find-a-house-on-a-weekend thing is a dumb twist. Who would rush into a decision on a house when they clearly have money? Stay in a Residence Inn for a few weeks. I'm sure that "rush" is made up, but why? What does it add to a show that's totally predictable? They always find a home, this isn't like HH in the early 2000s.

A house facing the south to avoid all that shoveling. Well, that's a new angle on must-haves. You know they're going to get a snowblower anyway for the sidewalk around that corner house (I think it was a corner house), so what's the big deal?

Reno

I could easily see that guy as a mailman, running around in his gray shorts and hiking boots. 

[BrownBear2012]

On 12/24/2021 at 6:55 AM, cameron said:

Calling producer shenanigans on this.  Falls Church has a restaurant/bar life of its own. No need to go to DC.  Someone should tell the female house hunter that the 3rd house was a raised ranch with a newly attached front little porch.  This was certainly not a craftsman by any stretch of the mind.  And depending on where you live in the Midwest, $500,000 doesn't buy you much house.  He needs to get off that band wagon and I think he is a little old for a game room.

You're not going to find a true "Craftsman" home in Northern Virginia. This is more of a Colonial style kind of area. Occasionally you'll find a ranch style home but they tend to be older..built in the 50'-early 60's and all brick. Some developers near the Beltway have put up small neighborhoods with Craftsman style new builds. Not sure what they look like inside but the exteriors are nice enough. If they had looked further out in Fairfax County they could have gotten a four bedroom, 2 1/2-3 bath home with a decent sized yard and two car garage maybe even fully updated with new kitchen and baths for $700,000-$800,000. A lot of young couples that live in DC or Arlington want to stay in that area but the reality is they will be looking at much older homes that need a lot of work the closer into DC that they look.

[CrazyInAlabama]

The Saratoga house hunters picked the right house.   The second one was awful, and the third one with the smoke smell would have been very expensive to get rid of the smoke smell, and depending on how intense the smell is, it probably would always have an odor.    

[cameron]

Saratoga Springs male home buyer with the annoying loud voice.  What is it with grown men needing to have a gaming room.  Grow up Peter Pan.

[rhofmovalley]

Yep, this time it was the husband in Saratoga with the annoying voice.  I think he was trying to play up his alleged "life of the party" persona.  No wonder the wife needed space to be away from him.  I would, too.

[StatisticalOutlier]

14 hours ago, mojito said:

A house facing the south to avoid all that shoveling. Well, that's a new angle on must-haves. You know they're going to get a snowblower anyway for the sidewalk around that corner house (I think it was a corner house), so what's the big deal?

I've spent a few winters in Denver, and the "sun shovel" is very real.  And now that I think about it, snow blower ownership seems much lower there than in the midwest or New England.

Snow storms tend to be followed by sunshine, and that sun can melt several inches of snow in just a few hours.  But of course it has to actually hit the snow. 

Because of the low angle of the sun in the winter, north-facing buildings cast shadows that never allow the snow shadowed by them to get any sun, and you can really tell.  On a given street, the houses that face south will have completely dry driveways and sidewalks, while the ones on the north side are packed snow.  And the south-facing yards will have significantly less snow on them than yards that don't get any sun.

It shows even on the streets--along an east-west street, the parking spaces on the north side of the street will be completely dry because the sun has hit them, while the spaces on the south side will have big piles of snow all in them that take forever to go away.   Streets without parking spaces will have snow piles all along the curb on the south side of the street, but will be completely clear on the north side of the street.

If I were buying in the Denver area, I would very heavily favor south facing, and let the sun do most of my shoveling.

[deirdra]

3 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

If I were buying in the Denver area, I would very heavily favor south facing, and let the sun do most of my shoveling.

However, if if melts & refreezes, the sidewalks & driveways become icy.  Snow is easier to deal with without chemicals.

[ByaNose]

Reno couple: they seemed like total opposites but you know what they say. He was soooooo laid back and she was wasn’t but she seemed to enjoy and not role her eyes. The younger daughter totally did not want to be on this show. She was hiding her face the whole nor looked happy. I’m guessing she’s in the witness protection program. LOL!!!! It was funny having the clean a big house angle coming from a guy. 

[chessiegal]

1 hour ago, deirdra said:

However, if if melts & refreezes, the sidewalks & driveways become icy.  Snow is easier to deal with without chemicals.

If it melts and evaporates, there is no water to refreeze. I know our driveway, once the snow melts, on a sunny day will evaporate any moisture and we have a dry driveway.

[StatisticalOutlier]

1 hour ago, chessiegal said:

If it melts and evaporates, there is no water to refreeze. I know our driveway, once the snow melts, on a sunny day will evaporate any moisture and we have a dry driveway.

And that's aided by Denver's low humidity.

However, you have to be mindful of snow piled up around the dry areas because if it starts to melt, the water can move onto the previously dry areas and freeze overnight and become ice.  I ran into that when I was shoveling a parking lot--I got a nice dry path going through there, but after I finished the banks on the side continued to melt and the water was going over my beautiful path and it froze overnight.

BTW, I've always said I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed shoveling snow.  Only later did I realize I enjoyed shoveling certain snow, namely the featherlight powder Denver gets in the winter.  The spring snow they get, the wet heavy gloppy stuff?  It's awful, and I suddenly realized why people in the midwest and New England hate shoveling snow.  You're not getting two feet of that off your car with a little whisk broom.

[BrownBear2012]

7 hours ago, deirdra said:

However, if if melts & refreezes, the sidewalks & driveways become icy.  Snow is easier to deal with without chemicals.

The day after I watchd this episode the wildfire hit the Denver and Boulder suburbs and whole subdivisions were destroyed...it made me wonder if this couple lost their home yesterday...what a sad way to ring in the new year.

[BrownBear2012]

On 12/29/2021 at 10:35 PM, Dehumidifier said:

This poor doctor tonight. If he doesn't want the existing carpet he'll be doing the "project" himself. 🙄

 

She complained about the carpet in one house and it looked new...in another house the carpet looked like it had been professionally shampooed and vacuumed. Honestly, if they didn't want carpet they shoould have specified to the realtor that they only wanted to look at hard wood floor homes. 

[stewedsquash]

I liked the Saratoga couple and I didn't think either one had annoying voices. I kept listening while watching to try and figure out why their accents had a slight-ish/sort of/maybe southern twang to them when they said they were, I think they said this, born and raised in whatever upper mid-west northern town they mentioned. I thought they were both easy going and cool with each other. And while they joked about stuff it wasn't mean either towards each other or even the one about his mother (which I took as happy jostling about her and that she is very welcomed in their home). The homes were the kind they wanted and I hope they are happy. I liked the realtor also and wish more people would move to Saratoga on HH just to be able to see her again on tv. She reminded me of the beloved Paris, France HHI lady in her talking heads and interactions with the couple. 

Now a voice that did annoy me was the DC dude. I didn't even notice his wife's voice (that got complaints here) but his question way of talking was terribly annoying. I hated every house they looked at. 

From a few episodes back with the long hair rabbit. I would have walked out immediately when confronted with that bridge going to a top level of that split level home. It gave off bad vibes immediately and I can't believe they picked that horrible layout. It was like someone tried to redo what was actually a front split level into a side split level. Full body shiver here.

 

[ByaNose]

BTW! Am I the only one who wouldn’t want neighbors with chickens in my suburban neighborhood? 

[chessiegal]

2 minutes ago, ByaNose said:

BTW! Am I the only one who wouldn’t want neighbors with chickens in my suburban neighborhood? 

As long as they don't have a rooster, I wouldn't care. We have 2 close neighbors with chickens - never hear them.

[Bastet]

4 minutes ago, ByaNose said:

BTW! Am I the only one who wouldn’t want neighbors with chickens in my suburban neighborhood? 

I loved it - easy access to fresh eggs.  Unfortunately, the folks down the street from me who had backyard chickens moved.

[Cetacean]

38 minutes ago, ByaNose said:

BTW! Am I the only one who wouldn’t want neighbors with chickens in my suburban neighborhood? 

No rooster, no problem.  Fresh eggs!

[ByaNose]

2 hours ago, Cetacean said:

No rooster, no problem.  Fresh eggs!

Point well taken. The rooster would probably wake me up.

[BrownBear2012]

On 12/30/2021 at 11:03 AM, jacksgirl said:

Reno epi looks like Joanna Gains and Kody Brown. A more pleasant Kody Brown.

Well...sorta but not really. The husband was a hoot...one of the funnier guys I've seen on this show. I think they will be looking to sell this place in a few years when their daughters go off to college. Too big a place for just two people and the occasional visit from Grandma.

[laredhead]

BrownBear2012, the Reno couple said they were keeping their other house and renting it out.  They indicated that they might move back there when the daughters leave home, but wanted to keep the house in the family. 

As for chickens in a suburban neighborhood, my next door neighbor has 3 chickens, and I hardly ever hear them.  When I do, it's when they make a soft clucking sound, which I find relaxing, as they travel around his yard.  He keeps them in a hen house at night for safety.  Our city doesn't allow roosters or peacocks or pea hens because of the noise they make.