Property Brothers and other HGTV shows

[Anonymous]

How realistic are their estimates for reno budget?

I notice they use a lot of engineered HW as opposed to lament or real HW. Their transformation always amazes me, but it wonders if I had a $50-100k budget could I really achieve the same outcome with local contractors and designers in the Fairfax/MoCo areas.

[Anonymous]

DH is a GC and a carpenter by trade. We come close to their numbers when DH and his friends do the work and the labor cost is me babysitting the kids or pizza and beer. I have no idea how they get these renos done for those prices.

[Anonymous]

I generally assume that the costs are really only for materials and some of the "packaged" projects when they run into unexpected problems (new beam, moving some wires, fixing a leak, etc).
Don't forget the designer costs that are not even mentioned.

[Anonymous]

They're not realistic, and they're often in Canadian dollars.

[Anonymous]

I don't think they pay full price for reno work.
A kitchen reno for you and me is 30k, for them probably half that. So the budget goes further.

I also find contract work in this area is priced higher than say, Austin Tx, where a lot of the shows are filmed.

[Anonymous]

I don't think they include labor costs. For example, they will show a price for cabinets but it is just the cabinets. From experience I know that labor to install the cabinets costs about as much as the cabinets themselves (for someone good who knows what they are doing, etc.). If you or your dh are handy (like the pp), you don't have labor costs. But my dh and I are not handy at all so our reno costs are always very high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think they include labor costs. For example, they will show a price for cabinets but it is just the cabinets. From experience I know that labor to install the cabinets costs about as much as the cabinets themselves (for someone good who knows what they are doing, etc.). If you or your dh are handy (like the pp), you don't have labor costs. But my dh and I are not handy at all so our reno costs are always very high.

We're definitely not handy people so we would entrust the contractors and workers to do everything for us in a reno.

[Anonymous]

They 100% do NOT pay for labor, which is what, 50%-75% of what a regular person like you or I would actually pay? Plus a lot of companies are comping them products to place on the show. Property Brothers I think actually buys and leaves the furnishings and decor in the houses. I know that on Fixer Upper, they just stage the houses, so the homeowners don't keep any of the furniture or decor afterwards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They 100% do NOT pay for labor, which is what, 50%-75% of what a regular person like you or I would actually pay? Plus a lot of companies are comping them products to place on the show. Property Brothers I think actually buys and leaves the furnishings and decor in the houses. I know that on Fixer Upper, they just stage the houses, so the homeowners don't keep any of the furniture or decor afterwards.

Caveat. They do not pay for standard labor. The "design team" comes in with a crew of people who do the majority of the work. However, when they have to subcontract, those fees get charged to the reno budget. An example is when they have to pay for an outside electrician to come in to rewire the whole house because the wiring is so old, it isn't up to code, or can't handle the load of the new appliances, or yada yada, they subcontract an electrician to come and do the work and charge the contestants. There have been several cases where the homeowners suggest using another electrician/plumber/roofer/etc who they know and get a price quote. If they can get a better deal than the show hosts can, then they do so, if not they go with the show hosts sub.

But basic labor from the show staff is done gratis. So the labor costs vary between nothing and small. And since labor costs are typically more than half of the costs of big reno projects, those cost savings are huge. I tend to like when shows (like Love It or List It) that show the show staff working on the property. I dislike when shows (like Property Brothers) hide the fact that they have a huge staff working on the house and make it look like the one guy (Jonathan) is doing all the work.

[Anonymous]

I've noticed a huge difference between quotes on Property Brothers and Love It Or List It. PB always seems to get a ton of t quality work done for a low or reasonable price, while LIOLI can blow through 70k on a bathroom and hall closet. I wonder if the quotes are so different or if it's all labor costs.

[Anonymous]

What about Flip or Flop? Those costs seem ridiculously low!

[Anonymous]

Man, LIOLI makes me feel better about DC real estate. It also makes me suspicious of Canadian electricians.

[Anonymous]

The contractors in this area are ripping everyone off but no one will make a stand

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've noticed a huge difference between quotes on Property Brothers and Love It Or List It. PB always seems to get a ton of t quality work done for a low or reasonable price, while LIOLI can blow through 70k on a bathroom and hall closet. I wonder if the quotes are so different or if it's all labor costs.

Love it or list it is a Canadian show so prices are in Canadian dollars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about Flip or Flop? Those costs seem ridiculously low!

I think the lower the costs to make it look like the got a big(ger) profit from the flip.

It's so lame how Tarek "helps" out by knocking down the wall for the camera and to get a good media clip, but that's about all the work he does. I never see him getting him down and dirty with the workers. And the wife has an annoying voice that makes it obvious she's reading from a script.

Fixer Upper is better b/c at least the husband is hands on and does actual work and the wife has experience in design. That makes for a smart team.