TV vs. Reality – what’s the difference?

I often pinch myself when I think about the blessed professional life that I live!

As co-host of Location Location Location Australia, I get the opportunity to travel around this amazing country meeting lots of great people from all walks of life as they invite me into their lives and seek help with (potentially) the biggest decision they will ever make… securing their slice of the Great Australia Dream and buying their family home.

In the process I walk through and experience incredible real estate, see amazing Aussie landscapes and get to keep my finger on the pulse in all the states and territories from a national perspective.

The exciting thing about the show is that it knows no borders… literally; if it has real estate and it’s in Australia then we’d be prepared to travel there and help.

Now if that wasn’t enough, when I’m not filming the show, in my role as Director and Buyers Agent here at Empower Wealth, I help property investors build and implement a financial plan that shows them how to create a passive income for life through residential real estate.  I get a real kick out of helping investors make better decisions as to which property, out of the 9 million+ dwellings and 15,000 suburbs, that they should invest in.

In a nutshell, I’m involved in Lifestyle’s – working with the Lifestyle Channel in one role and build client Lifestyle’s in the other.  It doesn’t get any better.  But I’m often asked is there any difference between being a Buyer’s Agent on TV and in my normal professional life away from the camera’s and the answer is simply… yes!

 

To help explain, here are my top three differences:

1. It takes longer than 48 mins – when asked how long it takes to help someone buy a property the response is realistically “how long is a bit of string?”  In some cases it can literally take hours (as buyers agents are in the market constantly and know their areas intimately and something might have just popped up) and in others in can take months (depending on stock levels and the clients wish list) but typically a buyer’s agent assignment takes anywhere up to 6 weeks.  Contrast this to TV land where all of this is done in 4 x 12 minute segments totaling 48 minutes and the remaining 12 minutes for commercial breaks meaning the whole job is done in an hour!  Trust me; there are times when I wish it was like that in real life!

 

1. World’s longest OFI’s – every property that we look at on the show takes us 4 hours to film… that’s right 4 hours… so we are literally doing the world’s longest open for inspections! In real life, if we walk into a property and the client likes it then typically they will view it for up to 30 minutes which is a typical length of time for an open.  If the client doesn’t like it then we quickly work out why and then jump in the car to look at the next property.  But not in TV land!  OH no… we will spend the next 4 hours in the property working out exactly why they do or don’t like it with one camera man shooting three different angles and a producer wanting to make sure we got everything covered that they need to convey the story!  There is upside though – we all know that property pretty intimately by the time we leave.

 

1. It’s all about the jeopardy – every television producer knows that for them to do a great job, they need to make sure that the viewer WILL stick around after the commercial break to “see what happens next?”  They are less concerned about the outcome and more concerned about the narrative.  This can take some adjusting to in the early days because a buyer’s agents dream assignment is one that simply goes to plan, is stress free and has a very happy client at the end of the day.  But this is the worst result for TV!  I’ve learned very quickly that viewers want argy bargy, heaps of drama, polarizing characters and plenty of twist and turns.  It maintains their interest and has them invest in the characters and their journey so much that they will stick around to see how it ends.

 

Essentially my job is the same in both roles – to help the client navigate their way through the property maze to buy their piece of real estate in the Australia property landscape – it just requires different paradigms.  Whilst I’m motivated by the champagne clink at the end of the episode which essentially symbolises a job well done, I now embrace the speed bumps that will come on the TV journey that I don’t necessarily need to in real life.