I’m waiting for an episode where they go back, six weeks later, to interview the couple in their new home and they admit, “Yeah, we really messed up. We should have taken House #3. This place sucks!”
OMG, yes. I feel like everyone’s got a ton of friends except for me and my husband. And if we did have friends, we’d meet ‘em at the damn restaurant like civilized people! 
I still get a snicker out of the man-cave concept. I wonder what they will teach us we need next?
Hell yes. My husband and I leave for work at the same time and often run into problems in the morning when we’re both trying to use the sink at the same time. I could care less about things like stainless steel appliances and granite countertops, but having dual sinks would really make our lives easier.
Maybe we should just assume that they’re connected to organized crime in some way. It’s really the only explanation that makes sense.
I wonder about the dual sinks, too - we have one full bathroom and one half bath (en suite) in our house on the main floor - when we both need to brush our teeth at the same time, I use the en suite sink (actually, I use that one most of the time - we’ve kind of divided up the bathrooms). Somehow we make it work without dual sinks. I know, how are we getting by with these barbaric conditions?
Another thing that makes me wonder is house size. We have two adults and two cats living in 1000 square feet (with a full but undeveloped basement) - we have far more room than we need. What makes a family of four need a 5000 square foot house?
Ego.
There’s that and different levels of cleanliness. Using my husbands sink makes me a little stabby and I’m not a cleanliness nut by any strech of the imagination but whiskers and toothpaste blobs in the sink are hot buttons for me.
“Little Billy would love this room!”
(Little Billy is 9 months old and, at this age, would also be happy living in a cardboard box under the freeway.)
“There is no way we can take this house, even though it is a smoking deal on the beach and only a five minute walk from town - there is no room for little Bitsy to play!”
(Bitsy is a 15 year old, 2 pound, hysterical dog who would be quite happy to shit and pee on the balcony of a condo, let alone require a 12 acre, fenced-in backyard that is going to cost an extra $570,000.)
“OMG! The neighbors could see us in the backyard!”
(Uh, yeah - that is why they are called neighbors. Are you planning to have nude, swinging singles parties every night? If so, get to know the neighbors better…)
And the classic:
“Yes, house two was on the beach, had an infinity pool, 3,900 square feet, three car garage and a five minute walk from town, but gee honey, it was $380 over our budget of $1.3 million dollars. Let’s take that crappy 900 square foot condo in the ghetto area instead.”
Speaking as someone who presides over a houseful of five people: space to get away from one another! 
Since the people have already purchased the home they’ve chosen, before they even begin filming the show, all of the comments they make really don’t have anything to do with anything, since the other houses they look at likely weren’t even ones that were ever considered. Doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not idiots though.
I used to like how Sandra Rinomato dealt with prospective home buyers regarding the pricing of the houses - she gave them pretty solid advice on negotiating on price, and if a house was priced too low, too high, or just right.
It’s not something that would make or break a house for me. It is nice to have a little area all to yourself though.
Even better when placed in the middle of a massive granite kitchen island! I can think of just about anything I’d rather have than a permanent structure robbing a room of any other furniture or versatility just so you can conveniently have a place to “entertain”, which is apparently code for being able to brag about your multiple sinks to everyone while sipping champagne.
And another WTF about these high six-figure consulting work-from-home jobs everyone seems to have. “…and Jim needs a home office where he can poke at his laptop while nodding solemnly on his teleconference call as he stares over the patio at his new built-in brick barbeque…”
This sums up life in my house.
Man-caves are for guys who hate their family, and want an excuse to spend time away from them. This is also why golf is so popular.
You only think I’m joking…
I’m amazed at couples who insist on having a 3 or 4 bedroom house because their family from 8000 miles away will need it when they come visit. Really? I don’t want to pay for all those extra empty bedrooms that I will use only once a year.
I also end up looking around my house, which is a 110 year old brownstone, and imagine the snotty comments they’d make. It’s a pretty house with lots of the original stuff, but we have the issues you always have with an old house - small bedrooms with little closet space and a tiny bathroom. They’d think it was barbaric living conditions.
One of the most interesting things about the show IS the interaction between the partners. Every now and then you find a couple who really get along and flow together, who seem like equal team members, and who seem to enjoy being around each other.
YESYESYES. I loved the couple who were with *Cirque de Soleil *and wanted a place in the French countryside where they could have acrobatic workshops. They found a great place and at the end they showed trampolines, trapezes, and a high wire out among the trees.
Then there was the woman from Australia who had fallen in love with an Indian “musician” and they went looking at these one-step-above-a-slum apartments in India where he had to have room to practice his music. Some of them barely had indoor plumbing. They showed a picture of the clean, roomy, beautiful place she left in Australia… there must have been times when she longed to be back there.
It’s a fun program to watch. I’m hooked, even though I spend a lot of time cursing at the TV.
HH actually had a couple guys who wanted something on the home handyman end of the spectrum. As I recall, they found a sort of trashed house that had good basic structure but was in the $100K range because of the amount of work it needed. Think young just out of college frat brothers sort of guys. I think they were gay bit I wouldn’t swear to it.
They were cool. I bet they would be neat neighbors. At least they would throw interesting parties:p
I remember a couple that looked at houses in India, and they turned down a wonderful looking one because of the little house in the yard … that the servant family that more or less came with the house lived in. :eek:
OK, I can understand being iffy about the idea of live in servants - most people now don’t have the sort of money to afford live in servants, most can barely afford a weekly cleaning lady! I would have told them to learn to deal with it … it was way nicer than any of the other 2 properties they looked at, and definitely nicer than the one they bought.
The kitchen is 80% of the decision making in buying a house, the remaining 20% is whichever bathroom she will use.
Oh jeez yeah, I think I just saw this one. At one point the camera did a close up on her face as she said something along the lines of “I’m not sure I could handle sleeping on the ground floor”.
Weird-o-rama.
I’ve learned that either the international house hunters don’t have internet access, or they can’t read or something, because they’re shocked - SHOCKED! to find a bidet in France and very hot weather on the Costa del Sol and open air rooms in Bali. Do the show producers insist on people acting stupid?
I was going to say this. The show finds people who are just about to close the deal on a house purchase, and set them up on the show with two other houses. Of course they have to say something bad about the “other” houses to explain why they didn’t pick them!
…I just love house snooping!