I’m watching Escape to the Country - how do they afford those homes?

[CormoranStrike]

Youngish couple, he has kids from a previous relationship, new baby and she’s happy to now give up her career - they’ve got a budget of £900k!

How on earth do people manage that?

when they talk about 'entertaining' I always imagine them tap dancing for a group of bewildered friends.

It is 'The Best House in Town' EastMidsGPs. One of this week's judges was a very annoying man who kept me from turning off as I had to see how much more annoying he could get. The programme itself is dire.

I quite liked it! It’s much better than the itv version ‘may the best house win’ now that was dire, it was full of houses decor with Dr who memorabilia or houses that were a homage to Elvis, at least in the bbc version it’s people who have done their houses up properly.

God, I love it! It will be me in ten years. Isolation, ménage, paddocks. I can't wait to have the horses at home! And the outbuildings=income to allow us to stay there, dog kennels, cattery or private liveries.

We series link record ETTC!! And wonder the same about the couples. Especially the young ones!!

The men are generally better at picking houses - DH and iwoukd demand we didn't get stuck with one of the useless women if we were in it

We play a kind of bingo - our village used to be quiet but now it's so busy, an hour commute to work, 3 bedrooms meaning at least 4, character meaning no small rooms, no beams and no character, large kitchen, large garden, moving to live nearer to their daughter (never son) whose just had a baby (and who moved away deliberately), annex for older relatives / guests, how many will be in the actual county they asked for, how many will actually be within budget.

I judge anyone who complains about beams.

We love it 😂

Most of the couples searching seem to be of the baby boom generation so may well have been able to afford to buy a decent house in a desirable area that will net them a huge amount when they sell.

My DPs are baby-boomers but would never buy a place in the countryside as they know they'll want more access to the facilities of a town as they get older, not less!

I would like to add inglenook fireplace to the bingo list.

I love ETTC too, but recently I stumbled over a programme on TLC...' my lottery dream home' where you get to see 3 - 4 homes ( in U.S) that lottery winners want to buy! The latest 'must have ' is a ' lady Lair' which apparently is a posh/huge ensuite! I'm wondering when ETTC folks will add that to the list!!

I don't think it's the actual hosts who pick the houses SleepingStandingUp those pesky useless females eh

There was a property on ETTC once, years ago, that is in our village. It had been on the market for years then, and is still up for sale. What the programme cleverly didn't tell the viewes is that it's a stone's throw from an extremely busy A road and is very noisy. I wouldn't buy it, not for what they're asking for it. It would sit comfortably with anyone who wanted peace and quiet.

I am sure I am remembering this correctly (DH disagrees). A woman settled on a house or apartment in a converted Last house complex. At the end the presenter (might have been Jules) said she'd bought the property, moved in but sadly there had then been a fire.

missyB1 I live in rural South Yorkshire. There are loads of houses round here for under £500k.

I prefer Homes Under the Hammer myself.

There's always a man who wants to move to France. And a wife who doesn't want to because her ds's/mum lives in Maidstone.

And they always want a large kitchen so friends can sit and have a glass of wine and watch them cook. I hate the oft used phrases - ‘to put our own stamp on it’ / ‘we want the kitchen to be the heart of the home’. What’s more, I don’t think I have ever seen anyone actually buy one of the houses on ETTC. Rant over. 😄

(I've loving the pastiches!).

I do think if I was buying my dream home in my late 60's I'd be tempted to go for single storey, just in case my mobility declined and I had to move again.
I'd rather build my own though and have Kevin round for coffee

They all have their 'thing' and edit the programmes so you hear that thing over and over. The formula hardly ever changes, but we still keep watching.

ETTC. Village life but isolation, outbuildings for either income or man cave plus land for horses or any combination of chickens, goats, llamas or alpacas (no experience of any) chocolate box cottage but no poky rooms, huge kitchen, no beams or thatch. The mystery option is inevitably something they specifically ruled out beforehand, such as a barn conversion, or, as others have said, nowhere near their desired location.

LLL. Regardless of where they search it must be close at hand to 'café culture' and be able to fit their over sized dining table/king sized bed/surf boards and bikes. She will usually be pregnant, announce a pregnancy or there'll be a small baby.

PITS. Budget for a one or two bed apartment in the cheapest part of one of the cheapest Costas but require outside space, a sea view and space to accommodate a hitherto unmentioned tribe of visiting relatives and friends, one of whom can't do stairs.

That Property Brothers one from America where they renovate the place they're selling and scout for a new home at the same time. There's always an unseen budget busting major issue like live wiring or termites, they always panic about having two mortgages having had an offer accepted and not secured a sale and the realtor brother always has to remind them to keep the staged home clean. There's always a house they like but it's 'so far' out of their search area, this usually means 10-15 minutes. Everything works out in the end though.

WDU. One spouse and probably at least one of the DCs is dead set against moving to the other side of the world and gets really upset at the thought uprooting their lives and leaving much loved family, but in the end, a kitchen island, a pool or a walk in wardrobe overcomes all those doubts despite the horrendous cost of bananas. In a twist, the Revisited programmes often show that since applying the desired skills visa requirements have changed and they can't go or they end up in the Northern Territories having sampled life in Melbourne.

Apologies for repeating some PPs but the sentiments still make me laugh.

I grew up in the country and always wonder if these couple really understand how tricky rural life can be
Poor transport links = always need to get in the car and drive lengthy journeys (roads may poor). Nightmare when teenagers need to be taxied everywhere or you get older and driving becomes a problem.
Schools - yup lovely cost village primary but come high school the nearest school may be miles away involving a lengthy bus journey and parents having to make lengthy and time consuming trips for after school pick ups
Teenagers in general are not going to thank you for moving to the back arse of nowhere
Ditto adult children when you are stuck the arse end of nowhere and need support in your old age
Village life can be anything but cosy and inclusive
Can you tell I’m not a fan of rural living

I love ETTC. I'm counting the days until we can move to the country. I want, four acres, stables, ponies, chickens, dogs, cats, a large farmhouse kitchen, a lovely fireplace, edge of a village, not far from a town with civilisation and yes, it's all a dream. That's why I love ETTC!

I love when they do ones in my county. The couple say what they want, and they want to be within commuting distance of X city or town, and then they are shown something totally unsuitable. They will be told 'oh, it's only 25 miles to X, so an easy commute', but in reality, anyone with local knowledge would know you would be spending hours a day stuck in traffic.
And then couples say 'no low ceilings' or 'no thatch', and then the mystery house has one or the other. Also often the houses (and I have recognised quite a few) are very carefully filmed so that you don't see the nearby main road, troublsome pub or light industrial estate.
Then one day they were in our village. They went to see a house which had been on the market for 4 years and hadn't sold because the layout was crap, it was listed and also vastly overpriced. Unsurprisingly they didn't buy it!

The women in ETTC are useless. It's like they don't hear the couple. An hour's commute into a town or city doesn't mean a 30 minute car drive on windy rural roads and then an 70 minute commute by slow train.

We live rurally on a small holding (although suburbia is fast encroaching) and most of the properties shown look very overlooked or not very rural to me.

As well as the buyers with no comprehension of country life, sometimes the programme doesn't have either. You get a buyer with four horses who wants s minimum of five acres, and they find somewhere with half an acre and a chicken shed, then say "you might be able to rent the land next door or convert the chicken shed into stables"!!😝😝

There was a couple the other week wanted to escape London and go to the Yorkshire dales. As their family lived there.
They were shocked the price was high even in the grim north.
No mention of where the family lived. The dales is a vast place so surely you need to focus on a certain area.

The only glimmer of entertainment value is when they ask for a house, no beams, in a village with neighbours, no trees around or isolated because he works away 4days per week and she doesn’t want to be on her own.

How about this beamed cottage in the middle of your very own forest up a 2 mile dirt track. 3 miles from your nearest neighbour.

Otherwise I just find it all very depressing.
I always think that they are looking for a house to die in because if they do make the decision to buy, you sort of know they will never move

The one theo their day, the ONLY property in their chosen area was the mystery property. Yup, the mystery is it's where you asked!!

I love the couple's who want to live by the coast in Devon, Dorset or Norfolk.
Do these people not realise that from Easter onwards the places are teeming with holiday makers and the narrow lanes are full of caravans?
(Still want to go home to Norfolk tho)