Location, Location ,Location

[JediJim]

Been watching Phil and Kirstie on LLL over the years and have to wonder what the point of it is. Yes ,it’s easy watching and you get to see some property porn, but surely if the house hunters themselves don’t know what they want, how can Phil and Kirstie find it?
Typical episode -Tom and Helen want a three or maybe four bed in the suburbs. They have two year old Hettie and now have baby number two on the way. It needs to be near a good school and a short distance from the train station. Tom is an IT manger, while Helen works from home.They have a healthy budget of £550 k but could go higher if the right house comes along.
After looking at about 50 properties, they’ve enlisted our help. Followed by a few silly jokes between Phil and Kirstie.

The point is, Phil and Kirstie ( and the shows researchers) surely can only find the same properties as anyone else could. I mean Zoopla and Right Move can find properties at the touch of a few clicks after putting in your preferred area and needs. Otherwise maybe local estate agents maybe?!
The fact that the house hunters in some cases have already seen the properties or dismissed it after seeing it online proves this. They sometimes admit they already seen it.
Why can’t they show more working class people on more modest ( realistic) budgets? For example Dave who works as a truck driver and his partner Sue who works as a super market worker. They have a maximum budget of £230k. Might be good to see house hunters looking for homes that the average family could afford.

Having said all this I do enjoy the show and like Phil and Kirstie. Just wish it wasn’t always middle class yuppie types who have amazing budgets for 32 year old first time buyers !!

What about the incredibly fussy couples on it? They ask Phil or Kirstie for a house which seems to tick boxes, only for one of them to say that they want more of a project! A lovely house that’s done up to the nines and they want to spend more money on a house that they can do up, even though the said house ticks all the boxes!
Or the garden is too small, despite it being a generous 80 foot and perfectly lovely..

This is true. But the duo do seem to get people to have more realistic expectations, and to look into the future (hence Kirsty mentioning future children)

..... because Dave and Sue will have looked on rightmove and found the house themselves for £230k... no faffing with Dave and sue!!

I do like the show though

I always think the same about Escape to the Country. The kitchen is always too small despite being the same square footage as my entire ground floor.

I do still watch though, and LLL!

I love LLL, but the couples are often infuriating. It does boil my piss to see a couple with one toddler moaning that they don't have enough room in their 4 bedroom house with conservatory and massive garden. They don't know they are born!
If I was Kirstie, I'd be annoyed with people who I'd shown the perfect house to, which met all their criteria, only for them to completely change the parameters and buy something totally different.

Escape to the Country is far worse. It's always people with more budget than sense who never want any of the houses shown to them (in fairness half the houses are not great, and never match the spec, whatever the budget) at least on LLL they tend to buy the houses they're shown.

The worst is the holiday home one...a Place in the Sun? That's so just an excuse for a free mini break on the TV company! Even the presenters look bored half the time

They do get results though. Those people with a relatively healthy budget think they should be able to tick every box on their list. K&P help them to be realistic about what their budget actually stretches to.

I don't know, I think with things like this especially first time buyers, it's such a big thing that I can see why some other experienced people would help focus and guide you

I have no idea why the house hunters haven't seen those houses. They can't be looking very hard!

On another note, I'd hate to have my house on there, only to have them announce all the things they don't like about it.

I see it more like relationship guidance. Person A has reasonable expectations and is willing to compromise. Person B has some daft obsession and needs some sense knocked into them. Kirstie, particularly, is pretty good at the sense-knocking.

It’s when they walk into a perfect house in a perfect location then announce that they “just don’t get that special feeling” when they walk in the door. Also some people have a spectacular lack of imagination and can’t seem to see the potential in anything.

I'd like to see an "AMA I've been on LLL."

I'd be interested to hear what it's like behind the scenes.

Though I think that K and P sometimes get the head up from agents before properties drop on Rightmove so there is that big plus.

Yes there is that

I think the value add of K and P is that they look at everything and pick the best houses to show you. So you know there isn’t something better on the market that you just haven’t come across.

Even if you‘ve seen it before, knowing for sure it’s the best value 3 bed on the market in x radius would make you think again.

I love this programme, Phil is always so chilled, Kirstie makes me laugh, when she is so indignant, when she says well you said you wanted 3 beds & a down stairs loo, why don’t you want to buy it, it’s everything you said you wanted.

I like it and have done for years.

We watched the first episode recently 25 years ago. Budget 100k and they took Polaroids of the properties visited

I get irrationally annoyed then they have budget of 550k. Put in an offer say 10k below market price. Then when rejected say they won't go high fee than 545k. They lose a dream house over £5k. The ratios make no sense at that scale.

I do wonder what those poor home owners think though, after having their family home being criticised by the viewing couple on national tv !
Watched one recently, a repeat from several years ago. Husband wanted a house in Poole,nearer his parents, meanwhile the wife wanted to live in Bournemouth, closer to cafes and shops etc. Also Bournemouth is cheaper than Poole, so bigger house for your budget.
Kirstie wanted the husband to see sense of course, making the point that the wife would be stuck at home more of time with the baby. Although she was more diplomatic to his face.!They brought the bigger house. They seemed a nice enough couple to be fair.

I starting following LLL on Facebook at one point and they did put out calls sometimes for people who were thinking of selling. But the majority of time the houses are already on the market - you can see the boards outside. I wonder whether the participants have to agree to not look round any houses For a period of time before they go on the show?

AFAIK the people who go on LLL have to be in a position to buy whereas in Escape to the country they often get to the end of the show and say something along the lines of they will go for a second viewing when they’ve had an offer in their existing home . That is why on LLL more people appear to be buying . There was an episode of LLL once where the stupid woman actually said that she thought they would be able to show her bigger / better houses because they could get a ‘deal’ due to it being Kirstie and Phil .

For me it's irritating when the buyer looks at a perfectly adequately sized dining room and says we won't be able to fit our 25ft long table in there. So you've rejected the house because of one piece of furniture? Get a smaller table, there's only 2 of you!

I remember watching one LLL where they put notes through every letterbox asking if they where willing to sell on the few specific streets that the wife wanted to buy on.

That tickled me.
I enjoy a right move nosey so I'd be useless on that show. I've seen everything!

I laughed at one the other day when a woman laid on the floor in an empty bedroom and said 'Oh no, if we put the bed here, the light would shine in my eyes' ...

I do love that shiw, but agreed it seems incredulous how these people can reject dozens of houses before they appear on the show, but they are swayed enough by Kirstie’s powers of persuasion to pick one of the ones on the show. It doesn’t really add up. I wonder if they have seen these houses before and put them on a shortlist, and pretend in the show that they are seeing ty for the first time?

I love LLL

Love how people are so unreasonable, how some people have ridiculously fixed ideas, how some are clueless about money, how they interact with their spouses