Location location location/and or other U.K. property programmes...secrets

[Wishfulmakeupping]

Sorry if there’s already a thread been reading the CDWM thread with interest...but would to know any secrets about locationx3
I would love to have a budget big enough to go on it one day but they all seem to have 500k at the age of 21 these days 🤔
Any secrets kirsty and Phil seem lovely I hope they are as nice in RL

On the Million Pound Property Experiment they took a fairly average detatched family home , ignored all the advice from their long suffering Project Manager (they managed to piss off two PM over the series they did) and whittered on about people with children deserving "A Lifestyle" Nothing to do with that- they bought a house in Harrogate that wasn't in the grammar school catchment- whatever they invested in it wasn't going to up the value. The only 1 of the series that was a loss I believe. Didn't have the local knowledge.

I used to love this programme but ever since I heard about Phil's hunting I can't watch it. He makes me sick.

For the PP who asked ( several pages back) Carol Smillie is now a Humanist celebrant in Glasgow.

There was an amazing LLL a few weeks ago with a couple with a toddler who were currently living with the parent of one of the couple (IIRC) but wanted something like 5 reception rooms. Think they were both dentists? She would keep saying things like ‘there’s no space in the kitchen for a playpen’ whilst standing in an area about twice the size of my kitchen. One of my shoutiest episodes ever. I certainly know what I like but I don’t get how you ever get to the point where you “need” 4/5 reception rooms... They didn’t say they wanted a huge family either. Obviously there are more ridiculous things in the world to get annoyed about but the super fussy people that have such weird and random needs that are never explained do make me quite shouty.

I also watched another renovation show the other week where the living room was huge and beautiful but they created two sitting areas, neither of which you could see the tv from. The tv was on the wall in the middle of the room opposite the door. PEOPLE WATCH TV AND NEED SEATING THAT FACILITATES THIS BASIC HUMAN ACTIVITY. It was so impractical and there was no way to remedy it. I imagined them spending the rest of their time living there moving the bloody sofa every night to watch the tv. Or having to just stick one somewhere random and unsightly.

I worked on LLL years ago... Kirstie and Phil are very nice. But Kirstie could be demanding! The research team worked really hard and do all the leg work, K & P are mostly just presenters. They do have some input but not as much as it appears on screen. The filming schedules are tight and things can get stressful when houses suddenly come off the market or new houses come on. They all work pretty hard!

ETTC is basically an older couple wanting to downsize to a house exactly the same size as their last one.

Friends house was on it. It’s in a built up road. When they did the driving to the house shots, they showed them driving round a different part of the borough with the old stately houses on it, so it looked like she lived in a leafy green suburb. She lived next to a charity shop and they cropped that too 😂

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I remember an episode of LLL where an entitled couple rejected everything they were shown, one house memorably due to the fact that it was up a short access road and it would ‘get boring going up and down the same road every time you wanted to come or go to the house’. After that episode I concluded some people didn’t deserve a roof over their heads.

@CatboySpeed 😂 That’s exactly what my parents did. My plan is to move into The Savoy or other suitable 5* hotel in my later years. I’m hoping they’ll do me some sort of deal for three meals a day plus a cocktail or three. Probably cheaper than a care home all things considered and I will go out in style. They should do ‘Escape to the Hotel’ next. Or maybe just ‘escape to the care home’...

One of my favourite LLLs was about a couple who had a lovely but smallish house in the old part of my village. They had married in the church and had their reception in the field behind the house. They had the usual £ million pound budget so could have bought anything really. But they had no self awareness and did not realise that what they actually wanted was another, bigger house in the same place. K and P found them most acceptable properties but their ridiculous reasons for not wanting them only emphasised that they wanted to stay put. On a LLL revisited they were still looking years later but had widened their search area by another hundred miles. It would be sad but for the folly and the million quid.

Powkin, that is what the stately home owners used to do in the old days. They sold the grand house and the had the equivalent of a mansion and a staff of servants for the then price of a Travelodge.

@minecraftHomes I can't look on Rightmove without bringing up the floor plan that's available to see where I could be knocking down walls/generally rejigging things Are we related? This is exactly what I do. 😎

Didn't Margaret Thatcher end her days in the Ritz?

@BalloonSlayer she did indeed. Her one good idea. I may not like her one bit but respect that decision A LOT.

I know someone who was on ETTC. They ended up not buying any of the houses they were shown - instead they bought a house virtually next door to a friend who'd done their own ETTC without the help of a TV programme and was secretly rather pissed off to find these people suddenly appearing in her nice rural retreat. As for LLL - I've always been a bit ever since K & P went to Gateacre in Liverpool and stubbornly kept calling it 'Gate-acre' (when the stress should be on the 'gat', as in 'Gattaca'). It didn't really inspire confidence if the researchers couldn't even get the name of the area right and brief K & P to sound credible on-air.

That scouse couple were a nightmare, 5000 (dodgy pronounciation notwithstanding).

I do like LLL to see the house but the amount of people who want an old house with character but don’t understand that means they won’t necessarily get a massive open plan kitchen

The GD last week with the Folly was ridiculous, the most un-child friendly house with a baby and a toddler. Also they are both squashed into a tiny room so they’ll have to move in a few years anyway, all that money and stress for what is essentially a tiny 2-bed! A friend thinks most of the people who go on GD treat it as an advert for their own architecture/design etc. business.

I know! The folly was beautiful but ridiculous. They’d outgrown it before they’d even moved in. Ludicrous. I suspect he’ll apply for a very modern ground floor extension when they can can afford to build it.

I do like LLL to see the house but the amount of people who want an old house with character but don’t understand that means they won’t necessarily get a massive open plan kitchen

You get that on ETTC a lot - people claiming they want oldie-worldy character and then moaning at the room sizes and the low ceilings.

Here's another 'Place in the sun bingo' phrase we watch out for - people who like open-plan kitchen/living spaces because 'When you're cooking you can be chatting to your guests...'

The folly was beautiful but you could see she hated him and it, from her body language. I was quite sad to see no toys at all, my husband reckoned they'd just been tidied away for the finished visit, but there was no evidence a child lived there at all. Not a book, a small toy car, just nothing.

I watched an EETC where they said they wanted a country cottage and then complained none of them were open plan. Some people are just thick, I reckon.

I do think EETC take the mick with location sometimes too, I saw one where they were very clear they wanted to live in my town, but they then showed them houses in a town 20 miles away. It's not like there is a shortage of lovely country homes here either.

I would love to see a house programme with a more sensible realistic budget though.

My daughter used to think Homes Under the Hammer was called Homes on Top of a Hat.
My fad at the moment is to watch back to back episodes of House Hunters International on Youtube while I’m doing the ironing. They always view exactly 3 properties and move in immediately. I know it’s fake but there’s something addictive and random about watching someone from Texas moving to Southern Belgium.

Carol Smillie is now a Humanist celebrant in Glasgow.

Aww I love her! She was one of the stars in the Vagina Monologues when I went to see it, and was great.

I do the Rightmove thing too. I bought a lovely flat over a year ago and have no plans to move soon, but I love browsing just in case I want to one day. I like to pick a place and imagine we all have to live in it, and how I'd rearrange it (or if it's a massive mansion I've chosen, I plan out our rooms and then some extra ones, like a sewing room :o)

Endless work avoidance fun!

House hunters international is fab. Must hunt it out as haven’t seen it for ages. Will never forget the one in Mongolia (or possibly Tibet?) where they ‘moved into’ what was in effect a 400 year old mud palace with very few if any utilities. Extraordinary. My right move dreams always seem to end up with me looking at estate brochures and land plans then google earth etc. Awful when google earth reveals the perfect dream mansion is right next to factory farming sheds/builders yards or similar. Perhaps I should just look within my price bracket but where’s the fun in that !