Improving Homes Under the Hammer

Homes Under The Hammer - a predictable formula

To the producers of Homes Under The Hammer - here’s a thought. Why not live dangerously and deviate just slightly from your formula of:

Man buys house at auction. Cue traditional and predictable initial interview...

“Have you seen it before?”
“No - I took a chance.”
“Did you read the legal pack?”
“No I didn’t.”
“Oooh that’s dangerous”, says smarmy tw@t presenter, (“That’s dangerous” is as strong as the BBC can get on a mid-morning show, but rest assured that when you hear this, it can be accurately translated to: “You f**king moron...”). He continues, “...but luckily in this case there is no legal right for a rampant Albanian to squat in your walk-in wardrobe with a herd of crocodiles...”.

Smarmy tw@t presenter asks man what changes he will be making and then makes an admirable job of forcing a smile and looking surprised while he is told that plans include replacing the bathroom, kitchen and redecorating (just for once wouldn’t it be great if the buyer said, “...and of course we have a cellar here which will be the perfect place for my S&M dungeon...”?)

Then they drug the buyer, gag him, tie him up and lock him in a cupboard while they film the ‘intro’ bit where smarmy tw@t presenter ‘predicts’ what changes he would make if it were down to him, which funnily enough always matches the buyer’s plans 100%.

Buyer does up house going slightly over budget and taking about three times as long as planned.

Buyer re-plasters all rooms and cunningly opts for a ‘neutral’ colour scheme.

Cue two brain-dead Estate Agents who have clearly agreed the updated sale and rental values in advance to avoid looking like a doofus on national television. But before they deliver their much anticipated verdict, they have to spend a week being filmed walking into empty rooms and looking around wistfully before walking out again, as if they have misplaced a small furry animal. In giving their highly professional and sought-after opinion they will either proclaim that the work has been done to a “High standard”, which translates to, “At least some of the walls don't look like they are in immediate danger of collapsing”, otherwise they will resort to the scathing, “The standard of finish is adequate”, which is Estate Agent speak for, “As it's a rental they clearly couldn't be arsed to scrape all of the shit off the bathroom walls”.

The buyer disagrees violently with their valuations, arguing that cutting the grass and the addition of a mixer tap and thirty-eight gallons of magnolia paint should have increased the property’s desirability by 500%. Regardless, the buyer makes a few thousand pounds profit, which sounds great, but if you knock off expenses and taxes it actually equates to his whole family working eighteen hour days for the last year and a half for about £40 each a month.

That's the formula. And it never changes. EVER.

Instead, why not show one where the place is riddled with dry rot and the man spends his life savings trying to sort it. He fails. He mortgages his family trying to recover the loss. Goes to Vegas and puts everything on black. It comes up red. He descends into a hopeless life of alcoholism and drug abuse, until he is murdered by a rampant angry homeless Albanian crocodile farmer.

Now that I’d watch...

AG 30/05/2018