Escape to the Country

[MatthewBramble]

This is utter bollocks isn't it. They never buy any of the houses shown, there's a boring bit in the middle about local "crafts" or what have you and the "mystery" house is always totally unsuitable in one way oe another.

Kirstie and Phil could have re-housed a small town in the time these idiots waste on bugger all.

I like ettc for mind-numbing easy watching tv when I'm doing the ironing. I can't multitask enough to watch anything with a plot and I'm nosey about houses I usually watch on catch up and fast forward the basket weaving/sheepshearing bit in the middle. I love how the presenters don't take any notice when the couple or purchaser obviously really hate the house from the first instance they step in, but faux cheerfully stick to the script and tell them to have another look around!! At least Kirsty and Phil take note or try to read the reactions to the houses.

The thing I hate is how they sit them in the back of the car. Always with one person in the seat behind the driver, and their partner (usually the woman) squashed up right next to them on the barely-existant middle seat.

Me too.

I do like watching it for a bit of effortless nothingness, when you are ill and don't need to think, but that ^ gets me every time.
Oh, and I only ever watch it on Catch up, so can fast forward over the donkey weaving bit.
The other bit that gets me is that their 'absolute, top budget' is £750, but then, when shown a lovely property for just under £900K, they can then find a spare £100K+ tucked down the back of the sofa.

These people with the £750K to £900K budgets must have either had a large inheritance, or won the lottery.

I have never known anyone with that budget, and I know quite a lot of professionals, and some people in the 40% tax bracket, and none of them could ever find almost a million pounds for a house.

It's a bloody ridiculous show.

There seems to be so many different presenters?!

I have a friend who was on ETTC a couple of years ago, and bought one of the houses shown (think it might have been the Mystery House?) - they're still happily living there. So it does happen sometimes!

Never mind that it's midnight , I'm going to have to see if I can download some. Got to be better that BGT.

Classic ETTC - they have a 750k budget, they want 4-5 acres of land for horses in a secluded setting 'close to a good road network in Norfolk' without too many country lanes or too far to drive to horse events.

Betty Boo 😂😂😂🤭

I haven't been on it but live in a mystery house that was shown on ETTC just before we bought it. I do wonder sometimes if they are taking backhanders from developers and estate agents as so many of the properties they show are so unsuitable. They took one couple who had six great Danes and made it very clear that they were looking for a rural property with lots pf privacy and a large, enclosed garden and showed them a terraced new build with COMMUNAL gardens! When they pointed out it was not what they had asked for, the idiot presenter said, "Surely life can't be all about the dogs? What about you?" FFS, they were hardly sacrificing themselves for the dog's lifestyle, they had the budget for a three bedroom house, and who would give up their pets to move into a property unless they had to?! Who the hell shows a property with communal gardens to some one who owns six great Danes?!

SIx great danes? They could make money by offering rides round the communal gardens to the local children - I've seen smaller Shetland ponies.

:D

Sugar, sorry, I meant

I do wonder why people do not get more exasperated when they are shown something that is unsuitable. "Aht doyou think?" "What do I think? I am wondering why you are wasting my fucking time showing me a place that is £200k over budget! Where the fuck do you think I am going to get extra money from, selling a kidney?" Or "Actually Alistair, I am feeling a bit minty because despite making it clear to you that I needed an equestrian property with a minimum of five acres and stabling for three horses, you have shown me a place with only one acre that looks like it gets fucking mowed, no outbuildings and it's not in the location we asked for!" (That did happen on one show). People are far too polite.

I have a theory that most of the prospective purchasers with vast budgets are just on the show to stealth boast about how successful/wealthy they are. Most people do a fair bit of online research when house hunting, so it's hard to believe that people who are high flyers in their careers and/or run their own businesses are so helpless as to need guidance with finding a property that suits them. Or perhaps they're just attention seekers greedy for 15 minutes of fame.

But occasionally there are some people who are genuinely unsure of the direction their search should take, particularly if they have inherited life changing money, but are still grieving, or have suffered some other life changing trauma. Those people seem to appreciate a bit of hand holding and moral support to spend their inheritance/compensation wisely, but they seem to be in the minority.

Kirstie and Phil could have re-housed a small town in the time these idiots waste on bugger all

My theory is that Kristy & Phil, or more likely their researchers, go through a ton of potential properties with the buyers before they start filming. No way would they have the success rate they do just by showing them round 3 random houses.

Defenbaker, I know of couple that took part with a huge budget. It was sheer laziness on their part to do any research of where to move from Zone 2 in London. These are the people that learnt all their lives to let other people do things for them. From their SAHM/au pairs/nannies to their work secretaries. Johnny just shown them around an area that they couldn’t be arsed to look at.
The woman with the help of her family had bought a 2-bed flat in zone 1 in the mid-90’s for less that £170k that was later sold for £750k. His earnings were nearly £100k for years while house-sharing with his mates for years and half-assed saving.
They had a budget of over £1.5m.
Many of my (London) uni classmates that found jobs and bought in London in the mid-late 90’s did very well. That 2-bed in Chiswick (with 15k deposit) went from £150k in 1996 to £600k in 10 years and it was paid of quite quickly with 2 professional graduate jobs with no kids.

The truth is that often there aren't going to be 3 or 4 houses on the market that suit the buyers requirements. People have often been house hunting for months or years before applying to the show.

Worst case of unsuitable house I recall was in the early days of LLL and a family with 2 young children looking for a 3 bed house in Exeter with a reasonable but not huge budget - they were after a 3 bed Victorian terrace. They looked at a few and were a bit meh about them. Then Phil took them to one which was much larger, beautifully done inside. The couple couldn't believe their luck that it was within their budget and started to get very excited. Oh says Phil, there's just one compromise! What's that? say the buyers. There's no garden! says Phil and he opens the back door onto a lane. There's not even a courtyard - literally no outside space whatsoever. Like any family with young kids and a reasonable budget are going to make that much of a compromise! I was swearing at the telly at that one.

I’m a cat hair collector and my wife sniffs butterflies for a living. We have a budget of £8million.

It’s utterly ridiculous. Has anyone ever actually bought a house from the show?

I am always enraged by any attempts to watch this programme. All these couples looking at 6 bed mansions and bleating on about how it isn't really big enough to accommodate them and their dog. They simply must have lots of space to entertain etc etc
Where do they find all these people who have no grip on reality ?

There is so much recapping as well. After every ad break, there is tons of filler reintroducing the couple, the location, the houses already looked at - who really needs it? They could fit in a fifth house if they cut all that.

This seems to have become a thing on most of this type of programme. Very American. Drives me nuts, do they really think the viewers are so thick or all suffering from short term memory loss that we need the story constantly repeated? It's spoiling many many programmes for me.

Living in the countryside is not fun. I've done it and it's quiet and boring and just a bit lonely. Public transport is rubbish too in the boonies

Oh the recapping... I find it even more annoying on documentaries, they spin out one fact per quarter of the show then pad out with what we've heard and what's coming up. At least with ETTC I know I'm signing up for some nonsense!

The episodes where the taller partner has to duck down to get into low-beamed rooms of their dream traditional cottage are usually quite close to the brief. But they always seems a bit "well, you asked for it and here you go"!

I watch A Place In The Sun / Winter Sun on Channel 4.
So often people say they want to entertain family who will visit them. So all 27 of them are coming to stay in the one bedroom apartment you're buying

I am always bemused when empty nesters nearing retirement are on, and complain that the (good-sized!) kitchen is too small, or there are only 3 bedrooms, or the master bedroom is too small. It's just you two! What do you need so much space for?

For the vast accumulation of stuff we've acquired over the years that is either:

kept specifically for one or two purposes, like the pan I have which is only ever used for risotto or pasta carbonara or my black winter coat which only gets worn to funerals;

of such sentimental value it can't be parted with; or

bound to come in useful one day.

And we do have visitors, people come to stay etc.

I can't stand the way the couples talk (usually the woman) in those hushed tones, it really winds me up! And not forgetting the blatant sexism of course.