The Great House Giveaway..
Discussion
Is anyone watching this? It’s boiling my p***!
In a nutshell, 2 strangers get given a house (from auction) to renovate. The house is usually a complete basket, and they have 6 months to renovate, market and sell it.. or it goes back to auction.
Sounds great on paper, but most of them are complete helmets. At least one leaves half way through, sometimes both.
And my favourite part is the budget breakdown at the end. They’ll buy a sub 100k house, spend 12k on it, and the fees will apparently be £15k
Oh and no, no one makes any money!
In a nutshell, 2 strangers get given a house (from auction) to renovate. The house is usually a complete basket, and they have 6 months to renovate, market and sell it.. or it goes back to auction.
Sounds great on paper, but most of them are complete helmets. At least one leaves half way through, sometimes both.
And my favourite part is the budget breakdown at the end. They’ll buy a sub 100k house, spend 12k on it, and the fees will apparently be £15k
Oh and no, no one makes any money!
I've seen a couple of these programmes , they always pick someone with a building background but most of them are clueless , and also trying to earn a living at the same time as renovating the property . I've done it loads of times but it takes genuine commitment, and I'm guessing you don't need that when it's someone else's money and there's no risk , I never had that luxury.
One that did stand out was the Liverpool property that a young builder and an Eastern European model took on , it was interesting to see the difference in work ethic between these two and other would be developers .
The guy kept it on track despite his wife being due to give birth , and the young model got stuck in and didn't complain , I think they made about 20k . Most of the others I've seen have just been flaky wannabe on tv types scared of hard work who bail out at the first sign of a problem .
One that did stand out was the Liverpool property that a young builder and an Eastern European model took on , it was interesting to see the difference in work ethic between these two and other would be developers .
The guy kept it on track despite his wife being due to give birth , and the young model got stuck in and didn't complain , I think they made about 20k . Most of the others I've seen have just been flaky wannabe on tv types scared of hard work who bail out at the first sign of a problem .
My favourite is the one with the girl whose boyfriend is a builder. At the beginning, when they’re going through what they can offer to the process, she was all ‘yeah, he’s good, he’ll help out’. Which he did ... and then produced his back-dated invoices for £thousands
Edited by bigandclever on Tuesday 27th October 10:53
Mikebentley said:
I saw one the other day and the “fees” were £23k. What’s that about? What rate are they applying to the “borrowed” money? Seemed extortionate level of costs.
I believe they use ‘fees’ to include all the things you need .. like sign-offs, certificates, surveyors, architects where appropriate, all that malarkey. And tax and agent/auction fees of course. Finance for the purchases is done through Together, and it wouldn’t surprise me that they put their fees in at the end too.Edited by bigandclever on Tuesday 27th October 18:03
Mikebentley said:
I saw one the other day and the “fees” were £23k. What’s that about? What rate are they applying to the “borrowed” money? Seemed extortionate level of costs.
They’re so extortionate, I’m wondering if they’re taking all the VAT off the renovation “budget” and putting it on as fees at the end.. there’s no other way you can spend more in fees than on the actual renovation. Really enjoying this programme. 
Although I wonder how the producers got it signed off...
- If the project is a success (and makes a profit), the participants get the profit.
- If the project isn't a success, the programme producers take the hit (usually £20/30k+)
Multiply the losses by 10 programmes, and you're well into the £100k's
Does a TV show production company really get paid enough for the programme to cover those losses, as well as all the costs in actually making the programme?
Like others, I too can't get my head around the 'fees'.
Although I wonder how the producers got it signed off...
- If the project is a success (and makes a profit), the participants get the profit.
- If the project isn't a success, the programme producers take the hit (usually £20/30k+)
Multiply the losses by 10 programmes, and you're well into the £100k's
Does a TV show production company really get paid enough for the programme to cover those losses, as well as all the costs in actually making the programme?
Like others, I too can't get my head around the 'fees'.
Edited by monthefish on Tuesday 27th October 17:08
James-06gep said:
Today was a cracker.. 40k loss.. bought for 160k, spent 40k on it, sold it for 160k. Nice one!
Some scum bag did vandalise the place though to be fair.
The contestants did mention that the property was sold quickly rather than left for a few months to see what interest it created. Almost like a panic sale by the show's organisers. Going to auction should always be a last resort, but presumably one of the rules is that it's put up for sale at the "6 months gone" point. The whole premise of the programme is stupid and doesn't reflect what would or could really happen.Some scum bag did vandalise the place though to be fair.
My wife's watching them, caught a few while passing TV
My favourite was the one where the young lass went off on holiday mid development, three times!
And the couple where they fell out and he walked away. Think I would have too TBH, she was a pain but he was a knacker, should never have ripped out the kitchen and bathroom. Cost too much to redo.
Oh and the one where they had made £36K profit split between them and all was great. Until the sale fell through and they only got a few ££ each....
My favourite was the one where the young lass went off on holiday mid development, three times!
And the couple where they fell out and he walked away. Think I would have too TBH, she was a pain but he was a knacker, should never have ripped out the kitchen and bathroom. Cost too much to redo.
Oh and the one where they had made £36K profit split between them and all was great. Until the sale fell through and they only got a few ££ each....
Surprised no one has mentioned the episode last week with the girl who was a model.
Turned up at the auction in her best outfit like she was going out on a Friday night.
Fair play though, she worked hard and did her bit of the renovation and if I remember rightly the two of them walked away with a small profit.
Turned up at the auction in her best outfit like she was going out on a Friday night.
Fair play though, she worked hard and did her bit of the renovation and if I remember rightly the two of them walked away with a small profit.
monthefish said:
Really enjoying this programme.
Although I wonder how the producers got it signed off...
- If the project is a success (and makes a profit), the participants get the profit.
- If the project isn't a success, the programme producers take the hit (usually £20/30k+)
Multiply the losses by 10 programmes, and you're well into the £100k's
Does a TV show production company really get paid enough for the programme to cover those losses, as well as all the costs in actually making the programme?
Like others, I too can't get my head around the 'fees'.
I expect it’s really cheap telly to make. One talent, two free contestants, one camera, one sound, handful of go-pros and that covers the filming. It’s a small production company (<10 employees); pre and post production can’t cost much, it’s not full of fancy editing tricks. Finger in the air, let’s say it costs 10k per hour to create, 200k to make the series.Although I wonder how the producers got it signed off...
- If the project is a success (and makes a profit), the participants get the profit.
- If the project isn't a success, the programme producers take the hit (usually £20/30k+)
Multiply the losses by 10 programmes, and you're well into the £100k's
Does a TV show production company really get paid enough for the programme to cover those losses, as well as all the costs in actually making the programme?
Like others, I too can't get my head around the 'fees'.
Edited by monthefish on Tuesday 27th October 17:08
By the end of the 20 programme run the ‘losses’ to the show will be, what, 20 grand a house (win or lose)? Call that 400k across the series. I’ve only seen a few but it feels like there haven’t been any massive winners or losers, just +- a couple of thousand and a lot of break evens. It’s also possible that big losses are insured against, but let’s assume they aren’t for my made up workings
So I think we can reasonably estimate £600k all in.
When this series was commissioned, Channel 4 wouldn’t pay more than £35k per half hour / £60k per hour for daytime telly, so given this is a 20x60 series, that suggests a top end commission of £1.2million. But, unproven format, and a likeable but not a-list presenter, will undoubtedly have brought that down. (This year’s commission max is £50k per hour by the way).
Anyway, I reckon even given plenty of movement upwards on costs and downwards on commission value, there was sufficient money to be made by Chwarel, easily many tens of thousands profit.
Edited by bigandclever on Tuesday 27th October 19:58
Surprised they made anything out of that today... who puts a bathroom in with no waste 
and a boiler not connected, and again, goes on holiday 6 weeks before the end of the project? I can’t see the point of the host, he’s supposed to be there as the experienced hand yet he seems to offer nothing in the way of guidance, I.e. suggesting ripping the entire house to pieces might not be the best idea on a first project.
and a boiler not connected, and again, goes on holiday 6 weeks before the end of the project? I can’t see the point of the host, he’s supposed to be there as the experienced hand yet he seems to offer nothing in the way of guidance, I.e. suggesting ripping the entire house to pieces might not be the best idea on a first project.Cupramax said:
Surprised they made anything out of that today... who puts a bathroom in with no waste and a boiler not connected, and again, goes on holiday 6 weeks before the end of the project? I can’t see the point of the host, he’s supposed to be there as the experienced hand yet he seems to offer nothing in the way of guidance, I.e. suggesting ripping the entire house to pieces might not be the best idea on a first project.
Interesting that he "helped" with the rotten floorboards and his own builders later found that the entire floor was f*cked. and a boiler not connected, and again, goes on holiday 6 weeks before the end of the project? I can’t see the point of the host, he’s supposed to be there as the experienced hand yet he seems to offer nothing in the way of guidance, I.e. suggesting ripping the entire house to pieces might not be the best idea on a first project.Cupramax said:
Another big loss today and another builder going walkabout half way through, they’re really not doing much to improve their reputation... feel sorry for the girl as she worked her arse off and got nothing for it.
She was very philosophic about it in the circumstances. Pity the kind people who volunteered their services were so useless. That decoration was appalling. I think all viewers are surprised by the enormous overheads. I understand the agents costs, the utilities etc. but what are these "taxes".? Do they have to pay capital gains tax on a non-existent profit?
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