5 Myths of Reality TV Real Estate Shows

By in Buyers with 0 Comments
Published on August 27, 2019 / Last updated on August 26, 2019

Chances are you’ve found yourself in an HGTV binge session at some point, watching multiple episodes or entire seasons of Property Brothers, House Hunters and the like. We do that, too, at the McGee household!

Those real estate reality shows are fun to watch but nobody really believes that they represent how a real estate transaction happens … do they? (You’d be surprised!)

Just in case you someday find yourself on your seventh episode of something like Love It or List It and you start to lose your common sense, here’s a quick look at five myths from reality TV real estate shows:

Myth #1: Buyers look at three homes and decide to purchase one of them.

Truth: Sometimes a buyer will fall in love right away and buy the first home they see, or maybe the second … but according to the National Association of Realtors, the average homebuyer tours 10 homes as a part of their search.

Myth #2: The houses the buyers are touring are still for sale.

Truth: Most of what you see on these shows is staged for TV. Many of the homes shown are already sold and off the market.

Myth #3: The buyers haven’t made a purchase decision yet.

Truth: Since there is no way to show the entire home-buying process in a 30-minute show, TV producers often choose buyers who are further along in the process and have already selected a home to buy.

Myth #4: If you list your home for sale, it will ALWAYS sell at the open house.

Truth: This would be great if it were true! Open houses are sometimes an important marketing tool to expose a home to buyers in your area, but they are only one piece of the overall marketing of your home. In our experience, homes rarely sell as the result of an open house — instead, they typically sell during regular showing appointments.

Myth #5: Homeowners decide to sell their homes after a 5-minute conversation.

Truth: Similar to the buyers portrayed on the shows, many of the sellers have already spent hours deliberating the decision to list their homes and move on with their lives and goals.

The bottom line? Enjoy these shows (we do!) but keep in mind that, despite the “reality TV” label, they’re not an accurate representation of what it’s like to buy or sell a home!

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About The Author
Cari McGee

My husband and I came to the Tri-Cities in 1994, and we thought it would be a temporary stop on our way to larger cities. He was a television sports anchor at the time, and we planned to go wherever the "next step up" took us. Twenty-plus years later, we're still here and we've loved every minute of it! We have two children now, and we've found the Tri-Cities area is a wonderful place to raise a family. It's a great place to do outdoorsy things -- I like to hike Badger Mountain or run along the river path. I also love reading ... by a cozy fire in the winter or a beautiful picture window in the summer (with the A/C on!). I've been a licensed Realtor since 2004. I earned my managing broker's license in 2016, which means I can run my own brokerage, or create a team of real estate agents and supervise them, which is exactly what I did when I formed the Cari McGee Real Estate Team in 2018! We have administrative and marketing personnel, as well as additional agents to serve you. I became a director of the Tri-Cities Association of Realtors Board of Directors in 2016, became Secretary/Treasurer of the organization, and was elected to Vice President in 2019. Want to talk about real estate? Click here to schedule a meeting with me!

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