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 !!

I seem to recall some twit saying he wanted a house that his friends would be jealous of and one that his parents would be proud of.
Think it was a guy that said that anyway.

Yeah, I remember that one. Plus all the couples who want ‘wow-factor’. Translation: showing-off-factor.

The other thing that really gets on my tits is when you have a young couple and Kirstie shows them a nice 3 bed house that would last them ten years and they go “oh we’re not ready for that yet” and buy a 2 bed flat they’ll have to move out of in 5 years instead. Just because you have the extra bedroom doesn’t mean you need to fill it!

Yes I saw just one episode like that and scratched my head at their thinking!

I also had a laugh at a Yorkshire couple wanting to buy in Spain.

Everything was "like our home but ours is bigger"

The amount of people with a tiny budget who want to live near the beach with huge rooms, garage, kitchen sink and all, oh and no neighbours, etc etc

I also love it when couples want somewhere very rural with absolutely no road noise, but with mother and baby groups and a friendly village pub nearby. Then, when by some miracle Kirstie finds them a farmhouse on the edge of a village with a private track leading up to it, the woman looks around the huge garden surrounded by fields, makes a face and says ‘I can hear the road’.

There was one where they complained that it was like being in the middle of London because a plane went over.

My folks live in the arse end of nowhere on a single track road.
The problem is that their village is between the nearest big town and an abattoir about 2 miles away.
That means there is loads of traffic when the shifts change. It’s driven my folks to distraction for the last few years.
New people have moved into the beautiful house opposite. The wife is irate about the noise and is going to ‘get something done about it’. This is their weekend home. I don’t think they knew that traffic happened in the country.

I watched an older one the other day where kirsty was super excited to show this couple from South London a house in Kent that backed onto a ropey looking patch of grass with some kids hanging around on it. She flung open the back door with a flourish exclaiming what a wonderful play area it would be for their child.
It made us laugh because she clearly saw it like a Devonshire village green and my dh and I said it would be a nightmare in the summer, teenagers hanging round drinking cans and leaving fag butt's all over. If you have ever lived somewhere like that you know a house next to the communal play area is something to be avoided, but kirsty clearly had no clue.
Despite her cluelessness when it comes to these things I do actually like her and think she usually talks sense.

I absolutely love LLL. I don’t think they’ve ever actually been to my home town - but I do remember an episode in nearby Birmingham where they tried to describe an area I wouldn’t walk through alone in daylight ,never mind after dark, as “up and coming”.

That was a first time buyers’ with a modest budget episode. Probably several years ago now.

My area was featured once and was described as ‘bustling’. I took that to mean ‘Not as nice as the more expensive area up the road, but you probably won’t get murdered’

What was with the couple last night. Firstly they looked early mid 30s and had 750k to buy in Guildford (and the places looked even smaller than what you'd get in London), then suddenly they're bidding 850k. Where do people get this money from in the first place, and that they can just pull another 100k from behind the sofa

K&P should do a new show, Vacation, Vacation, Vacation.

They all visit three holiday destinations for 12 hours and have to choose which one they want to eventually go on.

Yes I wonder how they manage to afford huge mortgages or have a huge deposit

Tho guess when I brought my house 21yrs ago in 1999

It was £82k and we have £12k deposit which was 15%

Earned a pitenence then and earn more a day now then I earnt in a week then

I love LLL.
I also love A Place in the Sun and A Place in the Sun - Winter Sun.
Last week on APITS a couple were shown a dream property, which had everything they had asked for, overlooking a beach, the right size etc and they walked away from it - bonkers.
Also bonkers are the couple who want a two bed for when their family visit, their vast family of three children, with partners, grandchildren and step grandchildren.
They'll put them up on the sofa bed in the lounge.
Last week a couple wouldn't go an extra £4000 for their dream property but paid even more for their second choice.
Have the homes all been surveyed ?
I love the APITS in Florida. I'd love a place there.
Watching now I wonder how all those people on the shows who bought abroad are coping with Covid19 and how it must impact on their lives/ homes bought.

I’d seen it before, but there was an LLL episode on the other day when the couple were living with her sister, and the sister had moved into the SHED to give her a bedroom - and she STILL turned her nose up at everything. I was yelling at the screen ‘Your sister lives in a fucking shed because of you!!!’

Oh missed the shed one

This mornings one at 4/5am is local to me - Kent

Love it when that happens

Best Place in the Sun ever was the one in Florence with a horribly smug couple. Kept banging on about how much they loved Florence and knew it so well etc. Hated all the properties they were shown mostly because they were old and Italian ( as you’d expect in Florence)
Then they get shown an absolutely outstanding property. Not only with amazing original features but modernised to a very high standard and just across from the Duomo. Even better it’s well within budget and clearly a massive bargain. Jasmine is super excited to show it.

They love it. So what does smug bloke do? Puts in an insultingly low offer. Even the presenter even looks uncomfortable. It gets rejected and twat face refuses to budge on price thinking he’s some amazing negotiator and screwing the poor seller is part of the fun.
Brilliantly it got sold the next day.

(I reckon one of the film crew snaffled it actually, it was a steal).

If all the people on that location programme were to like the first house they were shown, it would not make for a good show really. Most of them seem to find problems, with even the most lovely properties,so it pans the programme out a bit in the end.

I don't watch it these days, But remember years ago, a couple viewing a beautiful rural property, it was super lovely. Imposing wide hallway. an elegant front door, that had two windows each side of it. The woman turned it down, as she said, I will never be able to be happy, or get on, with those two windows, as they are arched windows, or the two other arched windows at the top of the imposing staircase.

The sister in the shed episode is on more 4 right now. Priceless.

There was one on the other day where the husband had early onset Alzheimer’s. They were paying out £400 for a holiday cottage and £100 a month for storage.

The wife nitpicked about every single property and was in tears saying ‘This will be all I have left; I’ve given up everything and when Bob gets worse the house will be all I have left’. Obviously it was an incredibly sad situation for her, but she just couldn’t get that being in difficult circumstances did not mean their budget magically bought a bigger house in a nicer area. Phil Spencer was very good with her, but you could tell he felt like he was banging his head against a brick wall.

Yes that was sad :(

Must look for the shed one

Always wondering why on programmes like Place In the Sun there are apartments for sale but no mention of the cost of maintenance , ground rent, length of lease etc.

HappydaysArehere
No mention either of how the extended family ( possibly consisting of 12 people )
will fit in the one or two bed apartment.
There are only so many sofa beds a room will take.

We watched the first episode recently shock 25 years ago.

I have been LOVING watching the early episodes. Kirstie in particular has clearly had some very intensive TV presenter training since then, she is hilariously awkward. Watching it now I can see how I picked up on a lot of their advice when it came to buy my first property in the early 2000s, it reminds me of that time in my life which was really exciting and I really felt like a proper grown-up for the first time.

I’ve just watched one - I think it recorded in the early hours of this morning (I have them series linked).

It was the one where a couple bought an old Masonic temple in Camberwell for £340k ish & turned it into a very modern 4 bedroom home. Me being me, I then had a mooch on Rightmove to see what that kind of house would be worth now - the actual house is up for sale! £1.25m .

I always find it interesting that the coupled with the highest budgets seem to find it harder than the ones with lower budgets. I think people with £260k who actually want a £300 - 350k house eventually get that they’re climbing the ladder and maybe for now have to settle for something with potential. Whereas when they’ve got £850k, they actually want a £1m+ property, and stubbornly refuse to accept that what seems like a huge amount of money won’t buy them what they want.