Oliver Searles - Perth Real Estate Agent

The award winning show ‘The Block’ has just started its run again in 2012. It is on Channel 9. I look forward to watching it and hope to be able to give you updates on it.

Is anyone else going to be watching?

Channel 9 has just brought back ‘The Block’. Channel 10 has just premiered ‘The Renovators’. What does this mean for the Perth property market i hear you ask?

Well I believe programs like this are good sign for many reasons:

1) They improve the popularity of people purchasing and developing property for money

2) The media is usually lags the real estate market. So when they say that the market is booming, it has usually started its decline. On the other hand if they are forecasting doom and gloom then things have usually improved. In this case these shows are showing increased interest in the market and hence paint a great picture of the market

What do you think?

I was watching A Current Affair last night and heard that Channel 9 was bringing back the reality show ‘The Block’. For those who have never seen the block it pitted 4 hopefully real estate investor couples against each other. They each got a unit in a run down development and was given a budget to do it up. Every week they had contests which if the couple won they won extra money to help them with the renovations. At the end of the show the units were all auctioned off and the couples would keep any money they made over the reserve prize.

The last season i remember watching was a few years ago. The 4 couples had to develop a unit in Manly. It had 2 ground units and 2 upstairs units.  The couples worked very hard but ironically only 2 of them actually made a profit at the auction.

It will be interesting to see what happens in this years one.

THE EFFECT ON THE PERTH PROPERTY MARKET:

It is unlikely the new show will be based in Perth, however i feel it could have a positive affect on the real estate market over here. Shows like this generate a lot of interest in real estate and encourage a lot of people to start renovating property as they see people do it on TV and think that it will be that easy in real life to replicate. This causes a surge of buyers and generally puts an upward pressure on prices especially for properties that are deemed as renovators.

Over the coming weeks I thought I would start to post about real estate TV Shows that I love to watch.

My current favourites are:

Location, Location, Location and the other spin offs (such as Relocation, Relocation). Kirsty and Phil are great hosts and have great chemistry together. Although it is based in England I love to watch it.

Million Dollar Listing. Follows the day to day activities of 3 young real estate agents in Los Angeles. Is a quasi reality TV show and very entertaining.

Property Ladder. A UK show on people purchasing property and developing it to (hopefully) make a profit.

Property Virgins. A Canadian show where host Sandra Rinomato helps prospective first home buyers purchase property not only in Canada but in future seasons in the USA as well.

I will discuss these shows in more detail in future posts.