Is your home ready for its close-up?
The makers of a reality show about local realtors – many of them with strong ties to Saanich – are looking for suitable properties to showcase for their programs scheduled to air on CHEK TV in January 2018.
Seller’s Market sees local realtors compete for listings and is currently filming in the Victoria area. While the show has already filmed three of its 13 episodes, it is looking for interested sellers.
“We haven’t booked the rest of the homes yet,” said Alex Miller, of Visland Media. The Kelowna-based company is co-producing the show with Victoria-based Cedarwood Production. “We are actively looking for homes.”
The show sees four realtors offer their services to sellers, who must then choose from one of the candidates based on their respective pitches, said Miller.
On the surface, the shows appears to resemble shows like the Bachelor or Bachelorette, where contestants choose from a continuum of potential romantic partners through a series of contests, with winning candidates receiving a rose as a token of affection.
But this impression might not be quite accurate. Miller said Seller’s Market does not use any props and resembles Dragon’s Den, with the sellers playing the role of the investors and the realtors playing the part of the proponents.
Miller said his company is looking for “presentable” homes of different kinds. “We are looking for a variety of people with a variety of homes,” said Miller. “Anybody with an interesting story is exciting for us. It really doesn’t matter who the home sellers are, because everybody has a story to tell.”
The two companies, Visland Media and Cedarwood Production, collaborated on a Kelowna version of the show earlier, featuring a wide variety of homes, from entry-level condos to high-end luxury properties and everything in between, said Miller.
The homes themselves do not need to be ready for an immediate showing for producers to consider them, said Miller. That comes later, as the company works with a professional stager, he said.
“Of course, some of the homes may not sell at all,” he said. “But most, if not all, will.”
In short, all of the listings and eventual sales that take place on the show are genuine. “They all get listed, they all get put on the market and at the end of the day is up to the homeowner.”
Five realtors are taking part in Seller’s Market with three working directly out of offices in Saanich. Adrian Langereis, managing partner and broker for Realtii Victoria, located in Uptown Mall; Jane Johnston of the Briar Hill Group at Re/Max Camosun based on Chatterton Way; and Tara Hearn of Century 21 Queenswood Realty based on Sinclair Avenue.
Also competing are Manpreet Kandola of Re/Max Alliance, a member of the Re/Max Hall of Fame with a strong presence in Saanich, and Neil Bosdet, who founded the Bosdet Homes Handcrafted Real Estate Team with Royal LePage Coast Capital Realty based in Oak Bay.
Miller said the Seller’s Market chose the competing realtors according to several criteria. One is knowlegde. “Basically, we wanted to choose the best possible realtors in the area,” he said. Others include presentability and personality, he said. All of the competing realtors have unique personalities, he said. “They are all very different people,” he said.
While all five realtors are very professional and respectful towards each other, they are also fiercely competitive, an unexpected development. “We didn’t know how competitive these realtors would be on the show,” said Miller.
Each episode features four of the five realtors talking with prospective clients. Each episode records their respective pitches to the clients, as well as the deliberations of the would-be sellers. The show then catches up with everybody.
Miller said his company choose the region for several reasons. “As a city [Victoria], it’s very telegenic,” he said. “It is also a really interesting, active real estate market,” he said.
Those interested in participating are encouraged to contact Visland Media by visiting vislandmedia.com/realestatetv.