Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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seeing a surprise uptick in February as mortgage rates fell to their lowest since 2022. It's a good backdrop for the new HGTV show from the Property Brothers, Drew and Jonathan Scott. That show is called Property Brothers Under Pressure.
It just premiered on Sunday, and it's a deeper look here, not just into the homes, but really into the homebuyers themselves and how they navigate a competitive market and make budget-conscious decisions. I had a chance to sit down with them exclusively earlier today and talk about the state of the housing market and their journey to HGTV stardom. Take a listen.
Unlike anything we've ever done, because people always ask us, well, what happens when the cameras aren't rolling? What happens behind the scenes? We show it. We show it. You see our crew. You see us disagree. You see moments that the homeowners, you know, I think it's very relatable for everyone out there because there's so much pressure on everybody.
Well, in an affordability crisis like there is across the country here, the stories, we have 14 episodes, and they're all very different stories. We have families who have lost their house from the fires in L.A. We have other families that are trying to pull two families together to live in one house because that's the only way they can afford.
We have so many stories that will be very relatable for Americans watching, and we're trying to solve with really tight budgets. We're trying to solve what everybody out here is trying to solve to be able to get a home that they deserve. We talk about the evolution of HGTV and just these types of programs that used to be more about the homes themselves.
And they are becoming a lot more about the people and what they're going through. And, you know, here at Bloomberg, we've talked a lot about the affordability crisis in the housing market and particularly out west where you guys do a lot of your work.
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Chapter 2: What insights do the Property Brothers share about housing affordability?
to wait on your permits, wait for the city, also wait for the utilities to go through and process everything. I would love to see something that automates a lot of that to make sure that the I's are getting dotted and the T's are getting crossed, but you can actually get in and do the work.
And as I say, this literally is right now in modern history, this is the absolute worst affordable housing market in history for first-time home buyers. First-time home buyers are less than 25% of the market right now, and that should be a lot higher. It's just not feasible for people to get into real estate like it used to be.
Obviously, you've had a presence specifically on HGTV now for more than a decade. You've had a lot of iterations of your show and obviously shows that don't actually feature you two. How much has that changed in terms of being able to produce a show like that at a reasonable cost, have whatever relationship you have with HGTV and actually make it profitable?
Chapter 3: How does the new show 'Property Brothers Under Pressure' differ from previous formats?
Yeah, I mean, so we are one of the largest unscripted producers in North America. We have 15 series that we produce. We host two of them. But we have found a huge shift because what we used to have for budgets for our shows down here on HGTV or with other partners, we don't have that anymore. So we as producers have to get more creative.
And sometimes that means going to Canada, greenlighting with a GoPro out of Canada and then coming down with a license. or co-proing with the U.S. down here.
So we're really good at getting creative, but plus our company stands out from other production companies because we are up in Toronto for our production base, so we can actually take advantage of a lot of tax incentives up in Canada that are great that a lot of U.S. producers can't. Well, and we're also seeing explosive growth in digital and other forms of media, YouTube, everything else.
So we've always stayed a step ahead. We're always looking at where the industry is going. Right now, television, traditional television, I mean, what's the word, imploding? Everyone's uncertain, there's a lot of mergers happening, and so things are paused. But that's what I like, is the fact that we're constantly looking ahead, so there's enough opportunity that we can still find placement.
As has some of the mergers, particularly Warner Brothers being absorbed into Paramount, has that affected at all maybe your outlook for what HGTV and Discovery ends up being? Yeah, absolutely. It's more of a pause. That's what it is right now because nobody wants to jump in a direction if they don't know who's going to own the company or what the focus is going to be.
But if you look at Netflix, they were only interested in studio side streaming. They weren't interested in linear cable. So Paramount's taking everything. So that does mean that we, as we're the largest producer for HGTV for Warner Brothers on the Unscripted, now we'll have that opportunity to do the same with Paramount.
Jonathan and Drew Scott there, the Property Brothers, on the launch of their new program. But more importantly, an interesting conversation there about housing affordability, particularly in the markets that they're focused on, primarily out West and in Canada. The news doesn't stop on the weekends. Context changes constantly. And now Bloomberg is the place to stay on top of it all.
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Chapter 4: What challenges do homebuyers face in today's market?
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