I can't say that being in realty-base realty TV shows have skyrocketed my career or even made the phone ring any more, but they do have their benefits.
After "Flip That House," I had a lot of wanna-be flippers call, but nothing crystallized. After "House Hunters" I always get a lot of calls from friends. From my experience, I have learned that they have the following benefits and downfalls.
1. Awareness of what you do: Many of us come from other professional backgrounds with real estate as a 2nd, 3rd of beyond career. Many of my previous business, college and personal contacts called me to reconnect and begin to talk real estate. In fact, one called me from my first job out of college and was moving to another city and needed a referral.
2. Relatabillity: When I enter a buyer's meeting or a seller's meeting, 100% of them either watch the shows or are CRAZY fans of them. It's an automatic conversation jump start and point of interest. Many of my cold meetings have no clue I was on shows.
3. Crazy calls and emails: After an episode, you have to be ready to take and screen a lot of calls. From people who think you are cute and want a date, to people who just have a ton of questions and want to talk to someone who was on TV, to people who just want to see if you can get them on the show if they use you.
4. Free advertising: When you calculate commercial time on one of these major networks and compare it to your air time, it comes out at around $500K of free advertising per episode. No one can justify that kind of money in the "real world" of ads.
5. Days lost of work: Flip That House requires only a few hours and they are really really laid back. Any HGTV stuff takes several days, accountability, homework and wardrobe. You do a lot of sitting and around and waiting for them to reset lights, cameras, etc.
6. Fellow agent connections: All my local agents watch and love the shows. They have all given me a door with a lot of fellow agents I trust and want to build rapport.
In summary, if you have the opportunity, it's fun and worth it. Go into it with a great attitude just to have fun...period. I can't say I've closed any DIRECT business from it, but I can say it perhaps adds more points of commonity for listings/buyers I've closed.
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