San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Most of those shows are just bullshiite.

EVEN if you do the general contracting yourself you could never do all that for under 35k that they propose. Funny how they don't do a line item budget.

Not to mention regional differences in contractor/labor costs.

They also show the places fully furnished - and I assume that's not included.

I just think it's very misleading.

These shows all seem like house porn to me--fun to watch, maybe, but not really that realistic.

There is nothing real about reality tv

Much of it is scripted.

Like that show "my house is worth what?" They'll have a "real estate expert" (agent) pull really specific numbers out of thin air, such as spending $10k to finish a basement will add $15k to the house's value.

We're addicted to them anyway, just because it's fun to see some of the houses and decor. It's also good to remind us of why we live in San Diego, like when we see a house in the south with mosquito netting surrounding the pool.

I recently saw one of those "flip that house" shows with an especially ignorant agent. After the remodel, she told the flippers they could now list the house for something like $850k-$900k. It seemed like they were just out to film the happy flippers' faces. When the credits rolled, it turns out that it sat on the market for 6 months and finally sold for $740k, and altogether they lost $130k.

I have watched that show - sometimes it is entertaining, sometimes it is pretty bad - my favorite is how they refer to coming in "under" budget. The family may have a 600K budget, they find a 450K house and put in 125K in upgrades - then the host proudly announces they have "saved" 25K, as if they were required to spend the whole 600K - sometimes they are more careful and word it as just being 25K underbudget.

It is similar in the My House is worth what show, when they tell the person the appraisal, if the value is estimated as higher than what they paid, they tell them you have "made" xx dollars - it must be great, bring in a hand selected appraiser (realtor in that show), he/she tells you what you want to hear, and poof, you instantly have that money in your hand!

As long as you remember who are the sponsor's of the shows they are pretty funny.

T

I will admit it's sometimes fun to see decor or remodeling ideas, but I have always been struck with the amount of money needed to remodel the place. On that particular show, it seems that most of the buyers are first time buyers, after putting their 5-20% down, where in the heck will they have another $30,000-50,000 to fix the place up? I think that if these buyers had that cash lying around they probably buy a nicer home. Reality TV - not so much reality.

Maybe their "budget" is a renovation loan from Wells Fargo... :-)