Interior Design Reality Tv Shows
Why are reasonably-priced houses severely underrepresented in interior design and real estate TV shows?
The average person on these TV shows such as those on HGTV and TLC all have $400k+ houses. The average person in reality does not. Why is there such an imbalance in representation?
I watch a lot of the shows and I think to some extent it has to do with the areas where they are mostl likely to film the shows, namely large California cities, Chicago, Altlanta and the Washington DC areas in the US, and Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. Up until this year $400K was the median home price in those areas. I’ve noticed that the newer programs have backed down a bit and there have been more that are oriented towards houses $200K or less.
Also some if it has to do with both “house p*rn” (programmers understanding many viewers’ desire to see how richer folks live) and also that the sponsors whose products get promoted on the shows prefer to have them shown in higher end settings.
At least they seem to have recognized reality a bit more and are doing less of that “your house will appreciate X amount in the market.” I can’t help but wonder if that attitude they fostered didn’t help feed people’s unrealistic expectations about the “bubble” market and encourage them to overmortgage their homes to finance the trendy (and largely unecessary) remodels that the shows promoted. I believe the home shows bear a lot of the blame for brainwashing people into the “house as status symbol” mindset and validating the absurd notion that spending $50,000 to tart up a perfectly functional kitchen was a smart use of money. You also gotta love the “green home” shows where they rip out almost new conventional kitchens, adding a huge amount of debris to the waste stream, so they can re-install pricey “green” materials. That’s not “green”, it’s just wastefulness in the cause of fashion.
The Conventioneers Ep. 24 – Interior Design Show Part 1