20 of the most relaxing reality TV shows to watch right now
20. House Hunters
Oftentimes, watching something on television is a very different kind of experience than having to go through something in real time and real life. Take finding a home, for example. The actual process of securing a place to live, be it an apartment, condo, single-family home, communal living space, or whatever strikes your fancy (and is kindest on your wallet) is, frankly, stressful. There are seemingly endless forms to sign. Inspections often must be done, wherein you anxiously sit and wait while someone hunts out things like radon, asbestos, and lead paint lurking in your potential home. Plus, when it comes to buying an actual house, there is the back-and-forth of various offers and deals before everything is said and done.
It’s enough to make you consider moving back in with your parents, honestly. Thankfully, HGTV knows better than show us the simultaneously boring and panic-inducing aspects of home ownership. At least, that’s the case on the long-running House Hunters.
House Hunters typically follows a single person or couple as they go through the process of buying a home. Now, fair warning: most of the show is fake. Often, the “buyers” have already secured a new house and are just going through the motions with a realtor to be on basic cable reality TV. Also, the magic of editing and perky narration makes it seem as if actual house hunting is easy-peasy. And, yes, it can be a little annoying when someone is so fixated on granite countertops or shiplap or whatever that they are willing to pass on an otherwise excellent house.
If that doesn’t entirely bother you, though, House Hunters can be fairly relaxing. You get to look through different homes on the screen and, via the proxy of the (usually bland, sorry) protagonists, imagine what you would do with the place. It’s a kind of dream, like playing with a dollhouse and rearranging the little plastic furniture. At least at the end, you just turn off the television and don’t worry about signing a million lines on a million forms.