House Hunters International

Darling,you have heard of Youtube I assume?

So it's still on? Good.

I saw two episodes recently.

Both were in Spain. One in Madrid, one in Alcala de Henares.

The couple in Alacala were mixed race black guy white girl with an elderly British realtor. They were from Chicago and were friends since high school. The female was supporting both of them because the male was going to university to study spanish.

He was very demanding and a big spender, while she was more frugal. Which is strange, since she's the only one working.

He wanted the big five bedroom, two story house in the country with a pool where they could entertain "friends" they haven't met yet. She wanted a smaller, less-expensive apartment in the city, so she wouldn't have to catch a bus 30 minutes into the city.

In the end, she got her way. Thank goodness.

Then there was a midwestern blond couple in their 20's. Their budget was $1800 a month!

They moved to Spain with three suitcases to "soak up the culture." I'm guessing their families were supporting them, because at one point when the guy mentioned the cost of one of the apartments, the girl said "I don't care about the money."

Really? That was a rare slip for the house hunter, because they at least try to pretend to have to stick to a budget. It was kind of funny.

All the apartments they were shown were weird and expensive, and really old. Most apartments in Madrid seemed to be at least 200 years old. Which made me wonder about plumbing, etc. And they all had weird designs.

The one consistent thing, though, is how whiny the Americans were about things not being the same as "back home." Well, duh.

I want granite countertops and room for entertaining!

I hate watch it. There's always some idiotic woman who complains her kitchen in the US is much bigger and there are no closets.

Dont forget a guest room for all of the many family and friends that will be visiting!

[quote] I hate watch it. There's always some idiotic woman who complains her kitchen in the US is much bigger and there are no closets.

And the bathtub.

I will never understand why women all demand bathtubs.

Is it so they can masturbate in the tub?? Or wash out their pussies? I really don't get it.

Men never ask for tubs.

Thanks, R1. Not OP but I have looked on YouTube in the past and it's always been difficult to find more than maybe 4 or 5 episodes, and those a few years old.

I checked again just now and saved about a dozen episodes (relatively recent for the most part) from locations of interest. I assumed HGTV must be vigilant in having them pulled, but there's a bit of choice just not for the first time I've seen in a few years.

It's the only U.S. TV series I sometimes miss, along with the original HH. It's the Law & Order (classic edition) of property TV, with all the adherence to formula and clichés.

Does the Asian chick still narrate? I liked her.

R9 They replaced her with a sound-alike years ago, and she unfortunately died of cancer recently.

Oh no! That's 😔

They did a nice tribute notice when it happened.

I got rid of cable. There are a few things I miss on television: sports, PBS, Vera, and HHI, especially Adrian Leeds!

The attractive, plus-sized realtor in The Netherlands, the gay realtor in the UK, and the gay realtor in Germany are favorites, too.

Used to love yelling at the clueless Americans...Some gems:

"Why don't they have an American-sized refrigerator?" -- Well, because you're not in America, you moron!

"Everything is too small!" -- Guess what? Europe is smaller.

"There's no closet space!" You're lucky there might be a closet. In Germany they have der Schrank, i. e. a cupboard...which can be quite beautifully made.

Complaints about the sizes of everything.

These people should just stay home in the States!

[quote] "Why don't they have an American-sized refrigerator?" -- Well, because you're not in America, you moron!

First thing the guy in Madrid complained about was the size of the refrigerator.

Unbelievable.

I always laugh at the ‘eww, a bidet ‘comments from women. They might get pleasured more often if they used one on the regular.

It 's still on and the women are still embarrassing assholes.

R15, right?

I do not understand why they do not like bidets. They're great. You get so much cleaner.

The earlier seasons of HHI were fun. I remember one episode filmed in Stockholm. A couple was looking for their son who was moving there for school. The father was Rick Rossovich, a hunky actor from the 80s/90s. They were practical. It was such a relief to see down-to-earth people looking in a foreign city...asking the right questions and humble.

But why do women all want bathtubs???

Is it pussy related????

I despise the idiot American woman realtor who goes around in a beret because she lives in Paris. The only people you see in berets in France are 80 year old farmers in the countryside.

WHERE IS MY MANCAVE? I KNOW IT'S AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE!

HHI is totally scripted. The "clueless Americans" are complaining about everything being small, there's no tub, etc. because they were instructed to do so. Also, they've already purchased their new place and are living there; they are only going through the motions of pretending to be considering others.

Not my opinion; there are numerous former participants who've gone on the record about their experience.

All the Sophie’s Choice Real Estate Porn shows operate the same way - on camera “hunters” have already closed on a place (or rented it) before production starts. All the hunting and complaining / arguing / debating / deciding is all faked and heavily manipulated boy by the on set producer and later in the editing — they sometimes shoot variations on how people react so they have options in the edit.

^^ manipulated both by …

Say it isn't so, R21 and R22! Next you'll be telling us that Santa Claus doesn't really come down the chimney on Xmas day with our presents.

Yes I've been contacted a few times by production people and the independent contractors who film HHI episodes one, two, three+ years after buying a place. I explain that I'm not interested and that besides, I bought the place year/s ago and they just say ideally it's good to do it within a year or so, but it's not a problem. The better/more elaborate your story of home you came to live in X, the more interested they are.

R24 I thought that everyone already knew it's totally fake, but most posters here are expressing surprise that the house hunters all have the same annoying checklist/complaints. Which seems to indicate that many viewers still assume everything is real. Or they know it isn't but like to pretend to believe it's all real, which is a level of weirdness I can't really understand.

All shows are scripted. " I can picture myself having coffee............" We like to entertain.....", etc. It's a fake as a competition show contestant saying," I'm a force to be reckoned with." Who says that in real life? No one. But there it is on every competition show. Everything is scripted.

Okay weird--I'm literally watching HHI right this instant for the first time in years and I pick up my phone and see this thread! I just signed up for Discovery+ for $.99 and somehow got sucked into watching old episodes of this shit!

R21 and R 22, I was going to reply that I bet you love going up to little children and telling them that Santa Claus doesn't exist, but R24 beat me to it.

Well, d'uh! Yeah, we know. All the shows on HGTV are scripted (and subject to lawsuits for shoddy "improvements"). Still, I love watching them and yelling at clueless Americans, because overly privileged and parochial Americans only want:

Up-to-Date kitchens, bathrooms, and all the appliances that go with them

Islands and open spaces for the entertaining they will soon tire of

A second bedroom for all the freeloading relatives/friends who will visit them

Outdoor space for Fido or Fluffy who will spend months in quarantine after their owners move abroad

God forbid, Daisy and Maisy must share a bedroom

And God forbid, Kevin and Karen must settle in the neighborhood or town outside the city center.

And God forbid, if Kevin and Karen have to settle on a flat/home that does not have a dishwasher or a clothes dryer!!!

We know it's scripted, but still we love Americans maintaining the standards of the "Ugly American" abroad!

And I have to love the poor agents having to deal with them and their reactions but that must be scripted too. The eyerolls and outright loathing. 😂

The estate agents in some countries (Germany and Italy come to mind) often take their American clients' budgets and requirements quite literally. None of that Adrian Leeds business of telling her clients what they will pay and what they want. So mindful are they of the client budget that If the client says he wants a 3-bedroom for €1600 in the city center, they will show absolute dumps 3 bus exchanges and 40 minutes outside the city that meet the specs exactly. They will never show a two-bedroom apartment (even though the client is single) or an €1800 property in the center that fits the bill.

They always want a second or third bedroom so family and friends can visit and stay with them. As if their fat suburban relatives will be regularly flying out to Spain and hunkering down for weeks on end.

Exactly that, R31. And not only will they have lots of guests filling up the extra bedrooms, they will need a vast kitchen so the friends they haven't made yet can gather 'round the kitchen for the huge dinner parties they will be hosting in the Marais, in Porto, in Stockholm, in Edinburgh, in Athens. One can only imagine the amazing home entertaining that the late-50s accountant (the numbers guy) and a dental supply vendor (the dreamer) from Kansas City will get up, and how all of their neighbors and new friends will angle for invitations.

It's always a toss up as to which type I love to hate more: the old gay couple with €750,000 to spend who buy a place with all the charm of a parking garage because it was exactly on budget, or the 'we want charm, charm, charm' couple who want to absorb the historic character of the center of Florence but end up in a grim 1950s apartment block at its most extreme edge to give their children a view of a green field like they knew outside Boise.

One of worst was some older couple who wanted old world charm in the old city center inside the old castle walls. She was fat and bitched about no parking nearby or any on-site garage, the 13th century apartment wasn't "modern" enough and it wasn't big enough for her hot tub she was lugging from Seattle, I presume. She was the perfect epitome of obnoxious American. The realtor despised her.

Go figure that a House Hunters thread would turn cunty so fast!

It went "cunty" because this show is full of braying American females with hacksaw voices.

Although ( Ding,ding) I actually saw an episode where the wife actually went with her husband's choice of apartments and abandoned the one she wanted so badly. Revolutionary.

It’s never been the same since they canned (now deceased) Suzanne Wong. She came across as a bit dim witted but was also so bright and cheerful. They should have given her a bigger role in the original show, beyond just script reader. I always loved her sign off, “thanks for watching!”

R36: It's a minority outcome, but you see it often enough. Usually the wife exercises some decided opinions but near you end you realize that the husband is the tight controller of the purse strings and the wife concedes with a well practiced "you're right, we're moving to Budapest not just to have a beautiful apartment in Budapest but to see other parts of Europe. I agree we should take the cheaper apartment and stay on budget as planned."

I watched an old one last night where a pair of North Carolina dentists put their careers on hold to put their young daughters in a Spanish immersion school in Salamanca. The milquetoast husband was shitting bricks over an extra €50 a month but in the end he basically said we are taking Apartment 2 because it's on budget and it's good enough. And the wife conceded.

In another episode (2016), two American eldergays were looking for a Golden Visa property in Porto and had a budget of €700,000, the coupe were absurd, hell bent on a riverfront property in Porto despite never having set foot there before, and one fucking went hysterical because the estate agent showed them an apartment with an asking price of €750,000. He couldn't shut up about that slight for the rest of the episode. It was clear that spending the money wasn't so much the issue as showing that they could spend that much but were disciplined and wouldn't. The trotted out every HHI cliche, inlcuding the need for an enormous kitchen where guests can watch them prepare food, and letting their preconceptions of desirable address get in their way — the three properties they looked at were ugly as fuck, one looked to have been a relaunched parking garage albeit with river views, and all looked like something from the "Let's Be a Condo in 1986" thread, despite Porto being a really beautiful city. In the end the fussbudget "numbers guy" ("Jeff wants the wow factor, but I know that the wow factor fades in value.") won over the more venturesome one, but the three choices were really atrocious. If only they had looked at someone with a wow factor.

[quote]A couple has chosen Porto, Portugal, as the place where they'll grow old together, even though they've never been there before. Jeff wants to be near the vibrant waterfront, but Glenn is more concerned with sticking to the budget.

Thank you R21 for pointing out what I thought everyone realized about these shows.

To drill down further-- they create a "script" for them so that Partner A is always freaked out about how far it is from his job and Partner B desperately wants more bedrooms than they can afford.

The other piece is the Goldilocks factor- no place is "just right" (and if it was, they change their wants so that it isn't)

The most interesting HHIs are when they go to more exotic places -- Phnom Penh, Sao Tome, Nairobi. There are some in Vietnam where the American only has a budget of $500 or so, and you are getting a lot of local color.

I remain surprised at how popular the "wet bathroom" remains in much of the world. I understand why--many of the flats were not designed for indoor plumbing or showers, but having experienced them a few times when traveling overseas, they do not dry quickly and you have to take everything out of the bathroom lest it get soaked--toilet paper included.

All that said, it's still a fun way to imagine "what if I just picked up and moved to _______?

^^One issue they do need to fix is that one partner often comes off as very unlikeable because they've been told to complain about the kitchen at every place they've shown and some of them go overboard with the complaining

The Thanksgiving Dinner!

A single American student on a tight house hunting budget in Paris or Phnom Penh or Prague or Madrid or Montevideo or Mérida...all must have a giant oven for the traditional Thanksgiving feast, never mind that the kitchen is smaller is a broom closet and the studio apartment has nothing that resembles a dining table, they must somewhere, somehow find a massive bird to burn to a crisp and serve as a gesture of American thanksgiving.

The extra bedroom for guest. Anyone who has ever moved even 1 town over knows -ain't nobody visiting you and if they do they're gonna stay at a hotel.

I love the domestic ones where the house has to be centered around baby Jessica. No stairs, no fireplaces, no pool, large backyard needed for baby but you know baby will never escape helicopter mommy's sight. It's amazing that any of us elders made it through childhood without crawling into the fires, tumbling down stairs or drowning. We didn't even have seatbelts or baby gates yet we survived.

I like the UK show Escape to the Country which is up on YouTube because they never buy anything.

They should rename the show.. I gave up everything so my husband's career could flourish.

The enjoyable show is the British (or English, rather) Grand Designs. Amazon only has a few seasons -- does anybody know where I could watch them all? Some wonderful tales of obsession, madness, hard work.

It's fun to Google-stalk the house hunters -- they are usually pretty easy to find

You know this show is fake right?

I love Escape to the Country, R44, but I want to edit the fuck out of every episode, cutting at least 60%, striking the filler:

-The continuity fuck ups with host Steve Brown's wheelchair ramp which appears and disappears in 10 cuts back and forth with the property searchers. Brown never has anything to say about the properties, just pablum about house shopping.

-Alastair's by now very creepy attachment to trying to delve into the psychology of the home buyers, 'But I felt certain after your reaction to the last property that this one would fit the requirements square on. But no, it seems? Why is that? You said you wanted old and now we've brought you to something very old, although short by two bedrooms and over budget by 20%. What is your problem, really? I'm starting to tire of you. If our mystery house doesn't push all the buttons for you, then I suppose we shall have to send you for reprogramming.' (all in that annoying soothing voice of a man who lived too long in Asia.)

-The banter of the women hosts, everyone interchangeable, ow Marjorie, can you picture yourself in this kitchen making yeast breads on a cold winter's day, a bi damp, the moss outside a brilliant green, the little bowls laid out with all the foc-ca-cia toppings, all laid out, the lovely little bows in a lovely little row....can you picture that? Do you like this house? Do you like me? Do you like yourself - I ask because sometimes, well, the demons, and you know....̈́

-The 15-minutes of crap countryside learning experiences: how to trim the beaks of the world's ugliest sea birds, or, with a sharp pen knife, how to clean out the most revolting gunk from the cloven hooves of a very type of wooly faced sheep found on the Dorset coast.

-The fabricated drama of the house price guessing? FFS, hurry that shit right along; instead those fuckers draw it out for fucking ever. The buyers have given a budget of 500,000 but said they would go to 600,000 if everything were in perfect order: the husband guesses 485,000 and the wife 495,000 and Alastair twists up his face like he's having a hemorrhage and says, 'No, I'm afraid you're both quite wrong, the price is actually 497,950, so way off!'

Jonnie Irwin is the only host I can tolerate because many times it seems we share a sense of 'let's hurry this shit right along' and because he is the least inclined to mollycoddling and getting lost in Twee-landia.

I love-hate all of those Escape to the Country tropes, too, R49.

Also, I love what hilariously low expectations the British have for their bedrooms. You can show them any low-ceiled closet-less upstairs room and provided you can cram a double bed into it and see the occasional cow from a sash window, it’s “oh, yes, isn’t this a good-sized room? This will work! We can get our furniture in here!”

But you inevitably lose them outside if it’s 3 “easy to maintain mature-planted acres of gardens” as opposed to the requested 4. Or if it’s more than a thirty minute walk to sad rock beaches overlooking a gunmetal grey sea. There seem to be about precisely two miles in Dorset where the British seaside looks pleasant on the nicest days of the year, the rest of just looks it exists for the dead bodies of Bulgarian sex workers to wash up on.

“But you do have the option of using the shed for holiday lettings!” “Oooo! That is an interesting possibility!”

Do all British homebuyers consider running bed and breakfasts out of outbuildings a fun larky thing that they might just give a whirl? It sounds like a nightmare!

I tried watching escape to the country but found it depressing. As someone said, tiny, sad little bedrooms that a bed would entirely fill, drab out-dated wallpaper and carpeting. What is it with brits and hideous wallpaper and carpeting?

What country was that episode in R33?

Also, lower middle class British people love a jaunty statement colour for the tile in the “family bath”. Every house seems to have an insane 90’s bathroom done in something like unrelenting daffodil yellow or periwinkle.

With Escape to the Country, there are certain counties that give pause but I will usually fast forward to the budget part. If it is too low, or if they express an interest in a house on one level or non-period, I skip the episode.

And R50, it is crazy this craze for running holiday let's in one's back garden, always from people of the most painfully shy bent or otherwise I'll suited to public facing aspects of the hospitality industry.

Don't get me started on the dizzy bitches who want acreage for a glamping business.

R52 I think it was Italy.

I can see staying in a bed and breakfast in a historical mansion, but who wants to spend their vacation in a squat annex in some yard on “the edge of a village with two pubs, a shop and a post office - with good rail links to Bristol and London!”

[quote] But why do women all want bathtubs??? Is it pussy related????

Everything is pussy related. Think of warm bath, candles, chocolate, champange... fingers in the twat... It's what women do, darlin!

[quote] They always want a second or third bedroom so family and friends can visit and stay with them. As if their fat suburban relatives will be regularly flying out to Spain and hunkering down for weeks on end.

Sounds like perfect material for Hyacinth, with Daisy and Onslow, in tow. And Sheridan, of course.!

This is the CUNTIEST THREAD that ever CUNTED!

each episode was virtually identical, with the exact same structure. I think most of the clients look at way more than three options, and the negotiations almost always feels staged. I always wonder how these people manage to get the legal rights to work in the European Union. It’s hard to do that.

The recent HHI Madrid episode was mentioned but not one word about the adorable realtor? Did I stumble onto NextDoor by accident?

[quote] The recent HHI Madrid episode was mentioned but not one word about the adorable realtor? Did I stumble onto NextDoor by accident?

Are you talking about the 25 year old kid?

Yeah, he was cute, but he is a 25 year old, house hunting for other 20-somethings.

The whole thing was funny to me. Like little children playing house.

I couldn't take any of them seriously.

My husband and I ( we are both super cool) often pretend we are on episodes of HHI. As we walk down the street I’ll say something like, “Matthew is an art professor. Craig is a creative director. They’re moving to WHEREVER WE ARE and have 23 minutes to find an apartment. Matthew needs a full barista station and Craig demands space for their ever growing collection of butt plugs.”

Oh how we laugh.

R63 here.

This is the Madrid episode with the 20-somethings.

It's funny because the episode is titled, "The Kids Are Alright, In Madrid."

They're all children. Silly little children.

Not to worry, R61, the agente inmobiliario didn't go unnoticed. He had nice shoes, as Spaniards do, but the voice is what made me take note, very similar to that of another madrileno, the first man from Spain who caught my attention. The 25-year-old realtor is CEO of his own firm, the same shown in the HHI episode, so good for him.

In the Madrid episode the two hayseeds said they had jobs in Madrid. Doing what?

[quote] In the Madrid episode the two hayseeds said they had jobs in Madrid. Doing what?

Being annoying.

They moved there to teach, presumably English, for which they will probably make very little money. They said their landlord in Austin was going to double their rent. I’d certainly rather live in Madrid than anywhere in Texas.

At the end of the episode, the hayseeds surprised everyone by saying they got married!

Teaching English, R66. They majored in chemistry but he spent a year studying at Salamanca and they travelled together on an earlier trip to Madrid. Teaching English is a reasonably easy way for non-EU residents to get a visa.

Yes- I know several people who kicked around the world for a few years taking gigs teaching English - you basically just needed a college degree and parents who thought it was a great idea and helped you out with an allowance did not hurt either.

Eventually they all returned to the US and used their overseas experience to nab good corporate jobs. Recruiters seem to find the whole thing fascinating.

You're too late R59!

A year ago a post that used the word "cunt" especially in all caps, would have gotten at least a dozen WWs.

But Eldergays seems to be over "cunt" by now.

"Trash" is the new "cunt"

A drunk pygmy must have photographed that video at R64.

They've photographed the participants' necks but not their head.

I wouldn't trust a 25 year old broker.

I do a new sling each month $17.50 no tax..u will get hgtv on demand too to watch back episodes…the offer is half off first month..just use a different email address monthly

[quote]I wouldn't trust a 25 year old broker

I wouldn't trust any broker. And I wouldn't trust that age and number of sales under his belt make him a better, more reliable broker. You're on your own with real estate people,bro identify the properties you want to see, to sort out a reasonable offer, to see that all the necessary details are seen to, to make your own plans with the notary/closing service, to find tradesmen, etc., etc.

The idea that a seasoned broker is going to take care in full of all the things that need attention is comical -- on either side of the Atlantic over many years of buying.

*to identify (not bro identify)

[quote]I like the UK show Escape to the Country which is up on YouTube because they never buy anything.

The thing about UK shows like Escape to the Country and A Place in the Sun are not scripted like HH & HHI. That's why people refuse to buy if they're not feeling it and when they make an offer, it's real. I agree that Brits are obsessed with sun, sea and acreage while Americans are into size, "entertaining" and bathtubs.

I have a question, though. Do people use realtors like that anymore with the proliferation of Zillow-like sites? Aren't we more likely to realtor after seeing something we like online? Or do people still go blind like in the show and ask the realtor to find them something?

R79: I think some people still do turn everything over to the realtor to do the searching, but more and more everyone is his own property sleuth and just calls a realtor to schedule, like an appointments secretary, the property visits.

The concept of a buyer's agent is quite different by country. In the UK they charge a percentage of the sale price; there is no deal or financial split with the selling agent. Elsewhere in Europe it's similar, but buyer's agents are more often used by foreign buyers who need an extra level of explanation about how the buying process works. Or they are used by wealthy buyers with specific, sometimes long term wish lists, i.e. paying a network of insider knowledge and someone who understands well what you want, a well-connected estate agent to keep alert to properties that are not yet on the market or properties that could be on the market for the right price.

Because in the end the deal must be done through the listing agent anyway, most buyers who spot a property online just go directly to the source. (You can protect yourself by the usual inspections and/or by having a contractor view the property.)

You can see some benefit of using a property search agent on some Escape to the Country episodes where the buyers confess they would never have looked at the property they loved had they seen it listed online. Buyers overuse the filters of online property search services and overlook the house that's just a block away but in another legal jurisdiction, or they insist on a four-bedroom house overlooking one with a room perfectly suitable for use as the fourth bedroom, they want a certain size plot when few buyers really have a good idea of what plot sizes mean until they see them, or they want a detached house except that the house they want is actually a once huge house divided in two with ample privacy. Buyers definitely over apply search filters and screen out properties that in fact might suit them well.

I always do my own searching online and just call the listing agent. Asking a realtor what they have to offer just seems silly. Unless they work at a volume where they might be able to tell you that an interesting property might be coming to the market, they can very rarely offer anything you've not already seen online.

I love when the hunters move to a country and then complain about the properties being too American. "Not French enough for me", "It's too American, I want traditional Italian" or "This is not giving me Africa". Bitch, if you want Africa go look at mud huts.

OTOH, it is sort of fascinating to see how people live in emerging economies, the differences between places with local color and the new high rises.

Though with the latter I always want them to ask how often the electricity goes out and you have to take the stairs.

^ I've noticed in emerging economies, like the Nairobi properties at r81, they don't have issues with size and space like they always do in places like Europe and Asian countries like Japan, China and Korea.

But the transplants to Nairobi always got a warm welcome.

Is there really a European equivalent of Zillow, though? Or even an equivalent for each country? I don’t think Europe has something akin to MLS, so there’s no centralization.

Usually the Americans moving abroad are seeking a fully-furnished rental/sublet, so that automatically narrows the pool of available properties quite a bit and skews the prices a bit higher.

[quote]Is there really a European equivalent of Zillow, though? Or even an equivalent for each country? I don’t think Europe has something akin to MLS, so there’s no centralization.

For all of Europe, no. Most countries have one or a few consolidators that list everything, or mostly so, including for sale by owner properties: Rightmove is one if the UK, Idealista is one in Spain, Immobiliare.it or Casa.it in Itay; daft.ie in Ireland; etc. France takes more looking as I recall; there is competition among the listing services (as well as the estate agents.) Spain has fairly unregulated inmolbiliarias, though notaries responsible for the closing of a sale are charged with researching any liens and liabilities and ensuring the legality of the sale.

In Spain and Italy and in some other countries, selling agencies steal listings: they simply publish the photos and details that another agent published first and act as if they represent the owner. Sometimes these multiple agency representations are approved by the owner, sometimes not. Owners may or may not care, but if a stranger brings them a potential sale... You may, then, see 2, 6, or 14 listings for the same property with identical photos and the same or with slightly different listing prices so as to interrupt the order on a screen display.

I always wonder how these people can legally move to Europe, Australia, wherever and buy houses. You need residency permits, work permits and they aren't handing them out like candy to Americans. No reason to.

R87: In Europe, it's generally easy for foreigners from outside the EU or Europe to buy housing. The question of how much time they are entitled to stay in the country where they have purchased property is a separate matter.

In the 26 Schengen Zone countries, foreigners may stay up to 90 days, then must stay outside all of that zone for 90 days before they reenter. That's usually fine for the dentist's wife from Omaha who dreams a pied-à-terre in Paris that she lets out as an AirBnB when she's not there on holiday.

Most of the HHI people though are job transfers, students, language students/teachers, retirees, or have filled some special labor shortage position. Employment and education visas are usually fairly simple - you qualify or you don't.

I just saw a new episode with a young couple moving to Montpelier, France.

And Adrian Leeds was their agent!

She makes the funniest faces. I love her.

^La Leeds is a legend, especially with her snide underhanded digs. She was born to be a DL icon.

[quote] I don't have cable services anymore so I'm missing out on HHI. Is it still going? Haven't seen it in years and kind of miss the clueless Americans searching for authentic, historic Tuscan farmhouses but with huge master bath and his and her closets.

I'm sorry you're missing out.

Here's a recap of all episodes:

"This is nice. That's nice. Oh, this is nice. No ensuite? I'm not crazy about that. We could make it work. Hmm, it's a little small. Oh, that's nice. We have a bigger bedroom in the states, but I think we could adapt. Now, THIS is nice! That's way too small. There's no way we could make that work for our family. But overall, it's nice."

Gotta love the fraus whose first words are about how the apartment is too small to accommodate family and friends who want to fly overseas to visit. Put them in a hotel, butch. Also, the House Hunters franchise needs some new scripts, a little variety from everybody wanting the same things and repeating the same lines about the house they are seeing. Get some variety, not just lazy repetition.

House Hunters International drinking game #1

Every time a seeker says “Wow!” — take a drink. (Be careful. This one alone will put the most stalwart game players under the table quickly. There are a lot of “wows” – often warranted – on this show.

Every time someone enters a room and says “Awesome!” — take a sip.

Every time the camera cuts to a real estate agent tapping away on a laptop (usually after the second property has been shown) – take a drink.

If the real estate agent is walking on a city sidewalk or a beach with cellphone to ear – take a drink.

If the real estate agent makes a face filled with gastric discomfort after hearing the couple’s budget – take a drink.

If the seekers insist on both a swimming pool and an ocean view – take a drink.

If the seekers insist on an ocean view and swimming pool and ultimately pick a property that has neither – take a drink (and send one to the table where the real estate agent is sitting …)

In fact, if any non-negotiable is abandoned by the end of the show – take a drink for each one.

If the real estate agent confides to the TV audience that one or the other “will have to compromise” – take a drink.

If the seekers insist on being close to the urban action, then complain about the street noise that rises up to the balcony – take a drink.

If the husband stretches out on a bed – take a drink. Take a second drink if his feet hang out over the end of the bed.

If the wife complains about the size of the kitchen or the bathroom – do not take a drink.

If the husband complains about the size of the kitchen or bathroom – take a drink.

If an objection to a house somehow feels contrived for the benefit of the narrative – you’ll know after a while — take a drink.

If there are continuity issues – winterbound Vermonters with deep tans on their first day hunting for a Caribbean island apartment, for example – take a drink.

If the couple decides to go out and buy a dog before they know where they will be living or if they have a job – take a drink.

If either seeker is still wearing the same outfit by the time the third property is shown – take a drink.

If the couple is walking and holding hands as they discuss the three properties – take a drink.

If they high-five each other or kiss at the end of the selection process – take a drink.

If they have no body contact at the end of the process – do not take a drink (and plan on snagging that property for yourself as soon as you can get to Chile or Australia or Wales…)

If the couple goes over budget – take a drink.

When someone in the same room says “I want to live there!” — take their drink away.

If you actually guess which property the couple will select – take a big drink.

House Hunters International drinking game #2

Granite

This is the master bedroom?

Wow, a lot of stairs (yes you are in a medieval city in Europe!)

How far is it to the city center?

It’s right in the city center but it’s kind of noisy

We plan on entertaining a lot

Where would our guests stay? (I don’t think your family will make it to Guam very often, do you?)

I need a space to work/write/study (It’s called a goddam couch!)

I’m nervous about the kids and those stairs/that railing/that indoor balcony (Are your kids morons?)

I don’t think I could fit my clothes in here

This is enough space for my closet but I don’t know where his stuff would go

No oven?

The fridge is really small, I’m used to an American-sized one

Open floorplan

It’s got a lot of light

This certainly isn’t the style of furniture I would pick. (Proceeds to replace furniture with the most pedestrian style ever)

All the neighbors might be able to see me

But that means I’d have to take public transit!?

I want old world charm

I want something traditional that’s modern

That tile has to go

The kitchen is really small

The laundry is right by the kitchen? That’s WEIRD

There’s no bathtub?

I like these exposed beams

Double sinks

I can see us sitting out here

Can I walk to the beach from here?

I need space to do yoga

Well, I’m the practical one

I left everything, my friends and family and the only town I knew all my life all for [insert partner] so IT’S DEFINITELY GOING TO BE AN ADJUSTMENT.

R93 You left out "that's nice." If you factor that into your drinking game, it'll be a game of certain suicide.

Strangely, I saw no evidence of a House Hunters International - Adrian Leeds in Paris Edition drinking game

Tonight's new episode was great.

A gay couple (Adil and Murtaza) who look like brothers, moving from San Francisco to Mexico City.

Looking in the Condesa neighborhood.

The female agent Vanessa was very nice and upbeat. Loved her!

The third apartment at R97 was amazing.

I'd live there in an instant.

But $1900?? In Mexico City??

Damn.

I'm pretty sure that Murtaza and Adil broke up after moving to Mexico City.

Murtaza said that he moved back to San Francisco because he "missed his job."

Sure, Jan.

These two idiots met in 2020 and moved to a foreign country together, two years later.

That's a fucking recipe for disaster!

R98 Mexico City is the largest city in North America, more densely populated than New York. Why are you surprised that it's not cheap to live there?

[quote]These two idiots met in 2020 and moved to a foreign country together, two years later.

[quote]That's a fucking recipe for disaster!

I did all that with a marriage added in half the time, and not long after a second change of countries. Seven years later neither of us "misses our old job."

I'm not sure that international relocation has much influence in divorce rates, though I might hesitate to risk it in Luxembourg.

Can someone translate R101?

It doesn't make any sense.

R102 I think R101 means he met and married somebody and they moved to a foreign country in less than a year, then they soon moved to yet another country, but they didn't split up.

I agree that it was very confusingly worded.

I tried looking up Adil and Murtaza on Instagram, but couldn't find either of them.

Boo!

Are they Pakistani?

Yes, R105.

At one point in the show, there's a little segment when they mention they're both Pakistani.

Adil was born and raised in California. Murtaza (with the blond highlights) was born in Pakistan and moved to the US when he was 9.

They met on a "dating app."

I just caught another new HHI episode in Madrid.

Oscar and Lexi move from Houston to Spain.

She's getting her MBA from Salamanca U. and he's writing a book.

David de Gea is the realtor again, and he's clueless, as usual.

I love how he has so much attitude for a 25 year old. lol

Their budget was 1400, and he showed them some real CRAP apartments in the city.

Is Madrid really that expensive??

The above episode isn't available on hgtv yet, but here's little recap from Lexi's facebook page.

R107, is that some satellite business degree program in Madrid via the University of Salamanca? Just curious because the two cities are at least 2 hours distant.

But yes, apartments in central Madrid would be €900 - €2000 a month for a respectable one-bedroom; something more luxurious €3000+.

I think so, R109.

They actually showed the location of where she would be attending school, and it was near to the apartment they chose.

So it must be a satellite campus.

Thanks, R110.

At €2000 you might get 100 m² (1076 feet²) with a proper living room, a separate kitchen, good light, one good bedroom and probably a second but tiny bedroom. Below that you will likely compromise: 1 br, a combined kitchen-salon, tiny kitchen, dated bathroom or kitchen or renovations....

Here's one for €2000 with 82m² in a nice area in the center.

I find that one ^ really depressing

Looks fine to me R112. Not my dream apt but better than a lot.

The third apartment they saw was gorgeous. Can't believe it was that cheap.

Watching the Nairobi episode at r81, it's amazing how property in Africa, at a certain price, is of much higher quality than Europe and Asia. You'd have to be a multi-millionaire to live like that in Europe.

In a perfect world, there would be House Hunters around the clock, with a House Hunters Channel, its programming divided roughly into thirds

-House Hunters - International (as now, one improvement would be ensuring that the properties were more interesting than the personal narrative); as a bone to fellow DLers, Adrian Leeds could dine out every night in her100 new berets with the money she will earn from her "HHI: Paris - with Adrian Leeds" programming, castigating even more daft Americans and Canadians who always pick the wrong arrondissement.

-House Hunters - Classic Homes: with the focus on historic houses, broadly defined as existing homes of some age and character (my preference, but also better TV than 3 boring suburban new builds where it comes down to which had the better shower enclosure in the principal bedroom)

-House Hunters - Special Edition: each episode centered around a focuses theme of the house hunters principal search criteria: mini-homes, loft apartments, home-work spaces, sustainable architecture, coverted uses, houseboats and barges, modern houses with mid-century design features, multi-generation living, coliving, oceanfront homes, houses with great gardens....

They should have a best houses series and visit the tenants like years later.

R117 they did that in the UK with the series A Place in the Sun. I'm now obsessed with Escape to the Country on YouTube where Brits look at country houses.

A Place in the Sun is just unwatchable. The host as nanny, handholding and asking every thirty seconds how the house hunter "feels" and trying to make some Dobby feel-good story of the thing.

Each 60 minute episode could be reduced to 20 minutes and there would still too much filler.

I quite enjoy A Place in the Sun. And thanks to them I know which Brit-infested enclaves in Spain to avoid. Britain not sending their best.

The House Hunters channel should be called "This is Nice."

Not HHI or even a house hunting show, but maybe there is some crossover appeal in "The World's Most Extraordinary Homes" which airs on the BBC and on Netflix. It's a show I should enjoy but it's completely ruined by the hosts, "award-winning architect Piers Taylor and actress and property enthusiast Caroline Quentin."

The 60-minute episodes seem like 180-long-minutes. Never has there been a stupider architect and his blowsy sidekick. At first I thought he was playing dumb, but no, he is quite stupid, and where an expert could offer some genuine insight he's barely better than a random pensioner grabbed off a daytripper bus headed to a Blackpool casino. The woman is even worse. Initially, she was described as a property developer with a background in theatre, but the description was demoted to "property enthusiast" and even that is an enormous fucking stretch.

They visit some very interesting, sometimes splendid, sometimes dreadful expensive houses with the owners away. They walk in, tour the premises, have a nice lunch prepared by the staff, tour the premises further, have some champagne on the terrace overlooking [something worth seeing], sigh that "life doesn't get better than this, does it now?" chortle, cackle, sleep in their respective guest rooms, and next the actual architect comes around to explain the house, or he would do if he had a chance with these idiots, but he never does. They pack up their overnight bags and it's on to the next...

With better hosts and better production, it could have been a very good series.

^ He looks spastic and she looks fat.

r41, they fail to realize that they will probably never find a 25 pound, hormone-filled turkey in that country anyway.

I can't watch Escape to the Country anymore. Too much chatter, one shot of the outside of the house, a decent look at one of the rooms, then a couple dizzying pans and some quick cuts of the other rooms and now we're in the back garden guessing the price. Repeat two more times and add a side trip to some nearby point of interest. At the end, decide to keep looking and then maybe an update where they bought a modern bungalow in the suburbs of a larger town.

Sad because most of the houses are unique and interesting although with perilous stairs and no closets but I can't deal with the hackneyed formula anymore.

R125: Absolutely, on all counts. It's unfortunate because with even a half decent effort, it would be a great show. But it's become a ship that barely treads water any longer because the hull is so heavily encrusted with barnacles and agglomerations of ever more hackneyed formulas and little personal flourishes of each presenter and layers of extreme politesse as if the house hunters were just let out of a booby hatch.

It's barely 10 minutes of substance and 50 minutes of tortured filler from the hosts playing amateur social workers for clients who don't need any help, thanks.

Farmhouse Fixer with fellow gay and former New Kids on the Block member Jonathan Knight, premieres its Season 2 on August 24 on HGTV!

Latest episode I just watched was "Brothers Reunite Down Under in Perth."

They were quite cute. Two Croatian brothers who were very touchy-feely with each other.

Very interesting episode.

Haha R128 I'm watching that episode RIGHT NOW. Those 2 brothers look like they fuck.

Exactly what I was thinking, R129.

One of them even giggled when he exclaimed, "we do EVERYTHING together."

Which was odd, because the realtor was talking about the home having only one bathroom.

The younger brother is quite cheeky, and he's also a twin.

He has a very mischievious laugh @ R128.

Thanks, R128: I will keep watch for the Croatian brothers. Who knows if/when it will land on YouTube, but for once I will watch not for the architecture (Perth?) but for the house hunters, and teh rare house hunters who go a bit off script maybe.

I just watched another one with a tedious couple in Spain that needed space "to entertain". Why are these bitches talking like they're Nicole Diver and host all these society dos that everyone must just attend? Bitch, you'll be lucky to make one true friend in a year.

Where in Spain, R133?

The people who want a spare bedroom (or 3) for all their hillbilly American relatives to come visit are bad enough, but at least they set their sights low: entertaining relatives and a fat best friend from "back home," with no aspiration to make new friends, let alone entertain them.

HHI mentions of entertaining always call to mind office parties from when young colleagues thought a housewarming party was a good idea and I was young enough not to have learned to say no to such things.

I caught an episode last night of a young black guy (maybe gay?) from Texas who was making a move to Dublin, Ireland.

He was a real sweetheart, and very vivacious and bubbly.

Even the dour real estate lady seemed to like him.

It was a good episode.

[Quote]Where in Spain, [R133]?

R134 -- On the plain! On the plain! 🎵

For those interested there is an ongoing HGTV thread/threads somewhat meant to be along the lines of the theater threads.

The fall 2022 one was started a few days ago

R13, you can support PBS and get Passport as a benefit so you can live stream PBS, local shows and the national ones as well. I streamed it on my laptop but just discovered I could add it to my ROKU and now watch it on my television.