Property Shows Leave Bad Taste In  Viewers’ Mouths

It seems that viewers nowadays have lost their fascination with TV shows featuring property buying and selling, both at home and abroad. Highly popular over the last decade, these shows drew huge numbers of viewers with an almost voyeuristic pornographic obsession with other people and their houses.

But it seems that due to the slowing of the property market, and the experience of those who got roasted in the buying and selling frenzy, that these shows only serve to remind many people of the excesses, greed, arrogance, and outright stupidity of the whole debacle. All the lusting and fawning over that second property abroad, the holiday home or investment property must seem a million miles away from the reality of struggling to meet the mortgage payments every month.

RTE have axed “House-hunters” and “House-hunters In The Sun.” While the BBC, although having not explicitly stated that property shows will be cancelled, have not committed any further budget to them either. There is a clear steer away from seeing amateurs undertaking property development and making a big fat profit (for reasons painfully appreciated by many), in favour of more recession sensitive approaches like making the most out of a small budget, or undertaking socially conscious restoration projects, or shoestring makeovers, etc…

In think this is a welcome change of direction that should see more emphasis on using good design and real designers to deliver the end result, instead of lucky amateurs with a lot of money to throw at the project. And hopefully will lead to a bit of pruning too …

I will be reviewing the new series of RTE Showhouse when it airs “in the Spring", as is billed. The new series will be a departure from its previous format in that the interior stylists will be working on revamping a lived-in family home, as opposed to a property developers show-house. An interesting and more sensitive approach in a changed market. So, in effect, this is the producers’ way of distancing themselves from a construction boom that now lies licking its wounds beneath a giant pile of rubble.