Are TV property shows too obsessed with makeovers?

House Rules, The Block, Grand Designs, Selling Houses Australia…..

Take any of television’s top property shows and they all have one thing in common: the makeover.

But has a genre become entrenched in its own Before / After approach to storytelling, and has originality been left at the front door?

It’s a question TV Tonight put to House Rules very eloquent designer, Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen whose 2 decade television career includes hosting the UK’s Changing Rooms.

“It’s a really interesting point. We are living in a world of makeover, transformation, upgrade, and we are constantly fixated about making stuff ‘better.’ But are we making it better or are we just making it different?” he asks.

“It is obviously one of the most exciting things you can watch on television. It’s the ‘Cinderella’ moment where you see something that is totally transformed.

“These transformations are nourishing.”

“But what I do like about House Rules is that I do feel these transformations are nourishing. I think they are wholesome, thoughtful, properly done and architecturally worthwhile. They are upcycles I am proud of and I’m prepared to very much endorse.

“One of the innate features is that you are working with the “house rules.” The home-owner is giving you a set of statements that you have to interpret. And the fascinating thing about watching the programme is how that interpretation happens and how it is translated into the finished design.”

Since joining the Seven series last year, Llewellyn-Bowen’s unmistakeable personality has popped off the screen. Dressed in arresting three-piece suits and driving the show’s jeopardy, he serves up the pithy quotes, alongside locals Wendy Moore and Drew Heath.

“We have a rule that these are houses for people to live in, not houses for people to flip.”

This season kicks off with a first-ever challenge of renovating a Sydney home to go to auction.

But whilst a house is flipped for the purposes of a challenge, contestants still renovate each others’ own homes. A condition of participation is that contestants cannot sell their renovated homes for 12 months after broadcast.

“What you don’t want is the minute the show comes out everybody putting their house on the market,” Llewellyn-Bowen explains.

“It’s disrespectful to the viewer. So we have a rule that these are houses for people to live in, not houses for people to flip. We have flirted with the flippin’ with the teams’ first task is to flip a Sydney house. But that’s so that they create their own prize money, which is a pretty genius twist on the format.”

Llewellyn-Bowen also insists this season has more authenticity amongst its 7 teams than previous seasons. Or is it just spin?

“A lot of reality shows are very manipulated but on House Rules they contestants are not being pushed into cartoon stereotypes,” he insists.

“They are showing their real personalities. The reason we can do that is the fact that you can’t hide. When you are stuck in a roofless house for week you can’t pretend to be something you’re not.

“The work is done in the casting, not in the producing.”

2018 teams include partners, brothers, and mother & daughter from 5 states. But does the Property genre match the diversity of Singing & Cooking TV? It’s not really a question Llewellyn-Bowen is too interested in judging.

“Having been involved in these shows for 25 years I think it’s incredibly important that every show needs to reflect its audience and celebrate is audience. But I think you will be surprised at how different everybody’s stories are in the show.

“I’m not going to get involved in deciding who is diverse and who isn’t”

“But I’m not going to get involved in deciding who is diverse and who isn’t, because as far as I am concerned, everybody is diverse. Everybody is original, unusual, and has their own take on something.

“It’s not for me to judge whether somebody is ‘more diverse’ than somebody else.”

House Rules is now airing on Seven.