A Woman Who's Appeared on 'House Hunters' Describes What It's Really Like on the Show
Elizabeth and Jeff Newcamp have appeared on both House Hunters and House Hunters International.
The travel blogger and mother of three shared insight on what it's like appearing on the show, from start to finish.
She shared that it involves fake arguments, exaggerated wish lists, and no actual house hunting.
Viewers of HGTV’s House Hunters have found themselves more than once shouting at their televisions, trying to talk sense into potential homeowners who can’t seem to settle on a house. In this case, Elizabeth Newcamp and her husband, Jeff, were trying to find a home in the Netherlands that had a bathtub and was located next to a beautiful canal on House Hunters International.
Fast forward two years later, the couple made the move back to the States and sought the help of House Hunters for the second time. Before their second episode premiered on Thursday on HGTV, Elizabeth gave viewers a glimpse into the reality of what it's like being on the show, which she says involved fake arguments, exaggerated wish lists, and no actual house-hunting.
The homes were already chosen.
A post shared by Dutch, Dutch, Goose (@ejdn) on Jun 17, 2019 at 6:52pm PDT
In case you didn’t know, anyone can fill out an application to appear on House Hunters and House Hunters International. Of course, an interview process follows, and if you’re chosen, there’s no set filming schedule in place, according to the travel blogger. But the wildest part may be that the couple already had their homes both times when they were selected.
On House Hunters International, Elizabeth and Jeff had closed on a home, but were still taken to look around potential spaces with a fake real estate agent, who was actually their neighbor. To add to this, the homes they toured were actually Airbnbs for rent. And when it came to Elizabeth’s wish list-a bathtub-it became an all-consuming point of the show, while her husband insisted on the family living near a Netherland canal.
Considering the time frame it takes to close on a house-and the short production schedules most TV shows have-this reality behind reality TV makes sense, and it's no surprise. Other series, like Property Brothers, have had to work in some workarounds to film episodes of their shows in a timely manner, while still capturing a sense of what it's like to shop for a home.
Filming meant moving out of their lived-in home.
A post shared by Dutch, Dutch, Goose (@ejdn) on Jan 4, 2017 at 12:15am PST
When it came time to film the house that the family had already chosen and lived in for a short while, the HGTV show ended up arranging a moving company to actually move the family out of the house, all for the sake of filming an empty space.
Exaggerating was part of the storyline.
Through it all, Elizabeth’s main takeaway is to have a great sense of humor, especially for the interview portions, dubbed “throw your partner under the bus” by her. In reality, she did want a bathtub in a country where it’s considered rare, but it wasn’t actually a make-it-or-break-it detail. And Jeff’s love of the canal was also overexaggerated, she says.
“Everything I said in my interviews was based on a grain of truth, but in a real house-hunting situation I would never phrase it that way,” she wrote. “In one particular interview, after Jeff said how much he loves a rooftop garden, I lamented that our children would run right off, plummeting into the canal he loves so dearly.”
A post shared by Dutch, Dutch, Goose (@ejdn) on May 5, 2019 at 8:01am PDT
The mother of three realizes that sharing this insight upsets loyal fans of House Hunters, but as with other reality TV shows, there’s always some form of a script expected. You can catch the family's return to HGTV through the HGTV app in their episode, “Nitpicking in Navarre, Florida.”
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