The show is fun to watch. As someone else said, with my two cents, it’s interesting to see the countries and towns and how other people live.
My husband was navy and we got to go to Italy. Drove me crazy, the expectations other americans had in regards to housing off base. A yard, closets, ‘What is that?’ (bidet), ‘That’s not how we do it at home’, ‘Where am I suppose to park my full sized pick-up truck/SUV/minivan?’
There was an episode of a man, air traffic controller I think, tiny budget to work with but wanted a nice italian flat. Stayed in his budget, under actually, and bought for around $20 or $30,000 a small three level place with maybe one room livable and renovated it to his like.
The only episode I’ve ever seen where someone went in with sensible expectations and bought the place I would have picked.
Where would the drama be on HH or HHI be if the buyers exhibited common sense?
That doesn’t mean it makes sense; when my company relocated me to the US they ordered me to rent furniture (after I’d already furnished the apartment for less than a month’s furniture rent would have cost), and when they relocated me back to Spain the same bitch ordered me to ship the furniture to Spain.
Replacing it with the same models (most of it was from IKEA, for Freya’s sake!) or equivalent ones would have cost about 1/7th what the shipment cost. The company should just have told me to go shopping and pass the bill as expenses, with a cap on how much they’d pay.
I remember seeing an episode where a couple was moving to a small Pacific island - I think they may have been from Australia originally? Anyways, their main criteria was local charm and being close to the beach. I think the three options were 1) small/cozy/almost ramshackle but charming house on the beach; 2) more modern apartment close to the beach but also close to the airport; and 3) big two-story house with tons of local character up in the hills (not close to the beach).
If I were them, even wanting to be close to the beach, I would have bought house #3. It was up in the hills surrounded by forest, big piece of land, huge two-story house where the main floor and upper level were self-contained with their own kitchens and bathrooms. So they could have lived in this gorgeous house and rented out the other part, which would have covered most of their mortgage.
They ended up picking #1. I think #2 and #3 were the “decoys”, because #1 totally fit their initial wish list. If I were them, I’d be kicking myself about #3 - although it was totally outside of their original box, it was an awesome house with great value.
No, it was furniture I owned: one daybed, a table, four chairs and two chests of drawers from IKEA and a sofa from K-Mart. By the time Ms Bitch explained that her “recommendations” for rental firms had been an order, I’d already bought the stuff, and I refused to throw it out and rent other stuff which would have been expensive, ugly and inadequate. Cost of purchases, 850$. Rentals, 900-1200$/month.
For the shipment part I pointed out it was absurd, she pointed out it was not an option. Eventually, and being in a critical point within of one of those projects which can only cost a few billion dollars if they go bellyup, I said “whatthefuckever” and the furniture got shipped. I could have replaced the IKEA stuff with identical ones and gotten a better sofa for less than 1K; storage plus shipment was around 4K.
