While many of the twins’ potential clients are still shopping around for a house, it seems most of them already have the house they want picked-out, if not under contract. In fact, the application buyers have to fill out to appear on the show asks these potential buyers to submit the address of the property they want to renovate with the presumption that many, if not most, will already be in the proceedings of buying a home.
But how does that translate into the blockbuster show everyone loves so much? The short answer is that the walking-around, touring other houses part of the show is, well, just for show as is the protracted, overly dramatic decision-making process between the clients as to which home they’ll choose. It also translates to many cases of couples having to go through the “acting” part of reality TV involving being torn apart by this apparently darned if you do, darned if you don’t yet overly produced and predetermined decision.
Top-Rated Show
As far as home improvement dramas go, Drew and Jonathan reign supreme. The Canadian twins who worked birthdays as clowns and underwear models before getting their big break as hosts of HGTV’s top-rated reality series, Property Brothers--have made one of the most binge-able home-improvement shows the world has ever seen.
The show’s premise is simple: each episode is one hour of the brothers cogently persuading their clients to spring for a fixer-upper and use their talents to turn the ugly shack into a palace fit for a king. As primetime home-renovation reality dramas go, it’s a good one. Is it real though? After checking over the show’s casting requirements--along with occasional Reddit comments--it appears that seeing is not always believing on this show. Here is how.
Most Clients Know Going in That They Can't Afford That First House
The buyers, the money, the houses and neighborhood might change, but the overall premise of the show always stays the same: Drew and Jon, armed with boyish charm and logic, convince couple after couple to give up their dreams of buying a turn-key home and instead take on a fixer-upper, with the twins help of course.
Each show starts the same. The potential buyers are shown a home that falls in line with what they’re after later to find out that the cost of the home is far beyond their listed budget. Cruel, right? But with Property Brothers in its fifth season (as of this writing) it’s a little hard to believe that the show’s premise hasn’t been spoiled for the clients by now, thus ruining the surprise. Since the buyers know at the time they apply that a renovation project is always part of the show, otherwise, Jonathan would have no reason to be there and the show would just be Drew or Property Brother, they know that the turn-key home is not going to be the home they live in. So…
Drew isn't really making all those real estate deals
This may be obvious, especially after the last point made above, that a good number of the buyers on the show are not always using Drew as their real estate agent. Just to be clear. He may be the helm on the occasions when his clients don’t have a home under contract already, as long as they’re purchasing the home in an area where he is licensed as a realtor.
For the show, if you see back and forth negotiations with offers and counteroffer to happen on the episode, it is probably real. But for the people who show up to set with the keys to their new home already basically in hand, Drew is just there for comic relief as he makes fun of Jon and to look pretty on camera, which is fairly adept at.
The sidekick is a setup
Notice how every potential buyer on the show is actually a couple, even if only one of these people is actually buying the home? That’s because when it comes to casting on the Property Brothers, singles in need of a home need not apply unless they have a camera ready wise-cracking, a hard-headed friend with loads of opinions that everyone (no one) wants to hear who can enhance their friend’s decision-making process.
The “sidekick” is someone to banter with, collude with, consult with and, as each show is required to have, someone to turn to and complain, “This is a total gut job.” This a non-negotiable part of each show to which all applicants must comply with. Most of the time, it’s not a concern, as most home buyers are couples anyway and yet, the episodes when a parent, sibling or friend have been dragged onto the program are always a treat.