Miamism

We've all seen HGTV's real estate reality shows, they're fun and entertaining and it's exciting when you hear that one of them will be hosted in your neighborhood. We were recently contacted by a customer telling us that HGTV was announcing a show for a house in Miami Shores (My House is Worth What?). He thought the show would benefit the sale of his own house in Miami Shores which we currently have listed.

This is how My House is Worth What? announced the show:

"We go behind closed doors, as three homeowners in three different parts of the country work with local market experts to strategize on maximizing their homes' value......Next, after three years, Christine and John are looking to sell their home in Miami Shores, Fla. and move to Tennessee so John can go back to school. They need to make enough money off the sale of the house to buy a new home and live off the proceeds."

When we watched the show we were a bit confused. We knew the house well because we had submitted an offer with one of our customers, but this was back in 2006. It was the same sellers, the same furniture, and the same selling price as over a year ago. You mean to tell me that HGTV is airing shows that are almost 2 years old?

I guess for the entertainment aspect of the show, it would not make a difference if the house sold now or 2 years ago. What about the sellers that agreed to do this possibly thinking the exposure could benefit their sale? I really don't know the details, don't know the agreement between the parties but I do know that the show was irrelevant to today's real estate market, it was obsolete. I do hope it was a re-run though, because I was a bit disheartened by the fact that the house had sold over a year ago.

We called our Miami Shores customer to tell him that the house had been on the market for a year starting in January of 06 and had sold January of 07. Either way, "Miami Shores Real Estate" was placed in the HGTV viewers' radar - that's always a good thing.

Now to the details of the house.

The real estate expert on the show happens to be a great guy who I like. He suggested a price of $840,000 and the house sold for $735,000 (that's a big OUCH in my book). But it may not have been his fault, since the Realtor who listed the house priced it at $949,000 (That's $109,000 more than he suggested on the show). And we all know how bad it can be to overprice a home in today's real estate market.

Here's the pricing history of the house as per the MLS. The final sale of $735,000 appears on the tax records on January 23, 2007.

Considering the sellers bought the property for $430,000 less than 3 years prior, they sold for $305,000 more in less than 4 years.

Now I'm left wandering about these real estate reality shows - how real are they? Are they rehearsed, staged, are the experts given scripts? How recent are they? Could they possibly give today's real estate consumer a false sense of the current market?

If you are a real estate consumer who likes to watch those shows, please keep that in mind, and when in doubt, ask your local Realtor what they know, the answers may surprise you; just like this one show surprised me.

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Ines.Hegedus-Garcia 2 feedbacks »

Comment from: Missy Caulk [Visitor] · http://AnnArborRealEstateTalk.com

Ines, it does take awhile to air the shows, my friend did one in Ann Arbor is the sunshine and it aired in the winter with snow.
Also can you email your history from MLX? We can't and have asked for an update, as it is critical to pricing properly. I have to print it out and fax it so old school.

Permalink February 16, 2008 07:50:56

Comment from: Ines [Member] · http://www.miamism.com/

Missy - according to the show, they filmed before placing on the parket. The property went on the market Jan 06, which means the show was probably done at the end of 05 when the market was still HOT - it aired Feb of 08 (over 2 years......I find that absurd, but then again, it's my opinion).

We can't e-mail the MLS history here either - but I do a screen shot and paste into a word document.

Permalink February 16, 2008 10:11:34

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