The Home and Garden TV channel, the folks who brought us all those "go get 'em" shows about housing like Flip That House, Dream Home, House Hunters, and Designer's Challenge, have finally copped to our recessionary reality. Basically, this TV station was a top media cheerleader for the housing boom / re-fi extravaganza America went on from 2000-2006. Everyone was suddenly a real estate tycoon, swinging hot deals, flipping properties like burgers. Now these same folks would have trouble finding a job flipping the burgers themselves. The remodeling craze, where people sucked phantom equity out of their over-valued real estate to buy granite countertops, new carpeting, windows, appliances, beds, TVs, Winnebegos, and you name it, is also long over. So what is HGTV to do?
A while back they began to morph their programming with new shows like Rate My Space, Get It Sold, and Curb Appeal, trying to teach all us dumb consumers who followed their house flipping advice how to spruce up our bricks and boards so we could sell the darn things now. Fat chance. Now a new show has arrived, again to teach Average Duped Joe and Jane how to "reality price" their homes on the market. The show finds a couple trying to sell, then sternly walks them around the neighborhood showing them "comps" that have sold for much less than the asking price. The couples squirm in denial, and the show promises to revisit any sellers who don't capitulate to a lower house price to rub salt in the wounds in the months ahead.
Don't you just love the media? They couldn't see the Boom-Bust coming, and they fanned the flames of all the irresponsible house flipping and equity extraction. Now they are posing as the voice of reason and reality. It's disgusting. It reminds me of the Lending Tree TV ads where all the bankers were competing for our loan business. Now all you see on TV and radio are the vulture-like debt management companies hawking the latest scam.
When will Americans get it--the media is in no way connected to reality. It's designed exclusively to make corporations money by taking a bite out of your ever diminishing monthly budget. You are the mark. So I'd like to tell HGTV to take their new show Real Estate Intervention and shove it! Why don't they stage a show where their experts trott Landlords around who are still charging over-inflated rents left over from the housing boom so they can get a dose of reality and lower their rents? Better yet, why don't they start a show on useful home gardens--the kind that people can use to grow food. We're going to need them soon.
A while back they began to morph their programming with new shows like Rate My Space, Get It Sold, and Curb Appeal, trying to teach all us dumb consumers who followed their house flipping advice how to spruce up our bricks and boards so we could sell the darn things now. Fat chance. Now a new show has arrived, again to teach Average Duped Joe and Jane how to "reality price" their homes on the market. The show finds a couple trying to sell, then sternly walks them around the neighborhood showing them "comps" that have sold for much less than the asking price. The couples squirm in denial, and the show promises to revisit any sellers who don't capitulate to a lower house price to rub salt in the wounds in the months ahead.
Don't you just love the media? They couldn't see the Boom-Bust coming, and they fanned the flames of all the irresponsible house flipping and equity extraction. Now they are posing as the voice of reason and reality. It's disgusting. It reminds me of the Lending Tree TV ads where all the bankers were competing for our loan business. Now all you see on TV and radio are the vulture-like debt management companies hawking the latest scam.
When will Americans get it--the media is in no way connected to reality. It's designed exclusively to make corporations money by taking a bite out of your ever diminishing monthly budget. You are the mark. So I'd like to tell HGTV to take their new show Real Estate Intervention and shove it! Why don't they stage a show where their experts trott Landlords around who are still charging over-inflated rents left over from the housing boom so they can get a dose of reality and lower their rents? Better yet, why don't they start a show on useful home gardens--the kind that people can use to grow food. We're going to need them soon.
