The last of the five house-buying programs that started this week was on TV on Wednesday evening. The most surprising Children buy a house (SBS6) was there after all belowoffered. Yes really, an offer below the asking price, and not economical either. Bjorn (20), Anka (15), Simon (9) and Charlie (7) eventually paid not the requested 475,000 euros but 457,000 euros for a five-bedroom house in Vinkeveen. The children will live together for the first time in this house, with the father of the two oldest and the mother of the two youngest.
It was the parents’ idea, to live together as one composite family. The children did not need to leave their homes. And there is also a television format for this house-buying problem, with a presenter (Jan Versteegh) and a real estate agent (Geert Klaver) who search for, present and view options. Went off without a hitch in this first episode of season two. Children unanimously chose house three, parents satisfied with the purchase of the children.
You also saw that something has changed on the housing market on Tuesday evening Worth the effort (RTL4). The program was conceived in a time when money was still splashing against the plinths, interest rates were low and house prices were high. Freak out It was a convenient way to earn a lot of money back then. Flippen: buy a house, fix it up and resell it for a profit. Regular construction expert Bob Sikkes from Buy without looking tells in the introduction of Worth the effort that he can’t come to a party, or people start talking to him about their dream of doing what they think he does: making money refurbishing houses. He gives it to them. And in a new program, with a new presenter, Tijl Beckand, and participants who dare to put all their own money, free time and effort into a ‘fixer-upper’ with a view to ‘nice value creation’.
There was a lot of sympathy for Ge-an and Klaas, the couple from Friesland who would flip out a dilapidated, smelly 1970s terraced house in Steenwijk. The way they scraped together their stuff: used kitchen and window frames via Marktplaats, two free trees and the earth, they could even pick up the ornamental grass for free somewhere. How hard they worked, how handy they were, how frugal too. When Klaas talked about a “gigantic budget overrun”, it was about two thousand euros.
What they lavished on was time. It took them not six but thirteen months, during which time interest rates doubled and that made buying more expensive. Why did it take so long? Because in the meantime they sold their own house and bought two new houses, one in the Netherlands and one in Portugal. Tijl Beckand could have done something about this – one question: how do they do that? — but he didn’t. In the end, things turned out well with the renovated house in Steenwijk: a profit of 30,000 euros.
Farm Of Thirst
With a little imagination you can say that the guests of Raven van Dorst also add “value creation” to the farm Farm Of Thirst (BNNVARA). There is always a lot to do: building a goat house, building a greenhouse, working the land. Just don’t get writer Arnon Grunberg to stay. When he picks up a hammer, he himself shudders loudest. Can hardly be blamed on him, until he was twelve his mother tied his shoelaces, he says. Helping in the kitchen, she found all forms of manual labor a waste of time. He had to go to his room to think. Theo Maassen, comedian and soon Summer Guestspresenter, may have compared favorably, but I have not seen him work very hard either. Then he could cook again. Something with Brussels sprouts. Picked together with Arnon.