Love It Or List It

[Twitchin Kitten]

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Anyone catch this show on HGTV? It's a show with a designer and a realtor and they find these homes in need of "fix it so we can deal with or we are outta here."

The show takes place in Canada and OMG the home prices up there! You can't get a shitbox for less than half a million up there.

Then this designer, OMG she gets a budget and she brings in a crew and starts wrecking shit all over only to discover that she's tearing down a load bearing wall, or she's fucking up the plumbing or electrical. So she rigs up this that and the other thing, tells them they're not getting this or that and hits IKEA and calls it custom.

the idiots fall for this ploy!

If someone were given $30K or more to do a couple rooms renovation and I only get one, I'm questioning her like mad. And why does she not look into code, what's behind the walls, get a fucking plan from the township and anything else common sense would dictate?

[LKTraz]

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Maybe a more appropriate title would be "Fucking shit up and lying to cover it"

[AnthonyG]

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My mom watches that show religiously lol, ive watched it a couple times, my cousin worked for the mother company that owns hgtv and told us all about the behind the scenes shiz with this show. The filming location varies every episode depending on the person, ive seen them work with families in NJ and NY on some of the episodes. They give their wish list of what they want to the Realtor and the designer, they get to walk the current house and then they start right away and they do it on purpose to add some action to the show and purposely leave room for issues.

The designer says the budget is based on the wish list as long as there are no hang ups, some of these people have houses that aren't to code and are grandfathered into the newer local laws. When you do renovations you have to bring it up to code and it can kill the budget. Like I mentioned HGTV sets alot of this up for effect but they give them a hell of a deal at the end of the day.

Those Reno budgets are usually half of the true cost of work because they have "free" labor they charge them for materials mostly. Alot of the snags the designers run into the owner would have to fix out of pocket anyway to sell their home because the buyers inspector would find the issues.

Worst case scenario is say they spend 30k in reno they add 60k in value to the list price of their house when they sell it. Also the Realtor behind the scenes secures the properties these people are interested in with no need to go crazy for negotiation and all the closing costs and shit is covered by hgtv. I am pretty sure all the potential buyers of the "contestant" house that they choose to "list" are informed the house was on HGTV's love it or list it and it leads to a quicker sale then normal for that area.

Bottom line is the show leads you to believe some of the people get shafted and go through alot of stress but they make out real well at the end of it all.

[LKTraz]

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Typical scenario for "reality" TV.

[Twitchin Kitten]

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When you renovate at $60K and up the price of the listing if you sell you're SILL OUT that $60K - you only profit on anything over it. And if they sell, then they're out the money for renovation, AND they need to come up with a down payment on the new mortgage.

And why are the houses so much money in Canada? Jesus they're shit boxes most of them.

And no, depending on where you live, you don't have to bring a house up to code to sell it. Who told you that bullshit? I've bought and sold and rented plenty and even in towns that require a CO to move in, you can't make a homeowner spend so much he can't afford to sell. You just list it "as is" and take what you can get.

[AnthonyG]

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I said if you renovate, you have to bring that section up to code because it is considered new construction.

Canada's taxes are insane so that plays into the prices to an extent but depends on the area, closer you are to the cities and stuff it gets expensive. If you live out in the no where area's its cheaper. I have a buddy that lives in Canada Ill have to pick his brain a bit more about the housing market there.

As far as value on improvements on a home, real estate rule of thumb is whatever money you spend on improvements you can get double in the asking price on a home. However if its changing things to code like say changing out old wiring in a house to copper that's not a value increase. Say you have a basement that was unfinished and it cost you 15k to finish it, you add 30k to the asking price of the house if and when you sell it. In my old house we made out even better then the norm, after our upgrades we profited 3 times the amount it cost us.