The Great House Giveaway
Rating:
Our Changing Planet
Rating:
The promised sell-off of Channel 4 can’t come too soon. Britain’s second state-owned broadcaster is in desperate need of privatisation — and if you doubted it, The Great House Giveaway (C4) supplies final proof.
This property makeover show is a straight rip-off of BBC1’s long-running daytime schedule-filler, Homes Under The Hammer.
A house is bought at auction, DIY builders and decorators renovate then sell it, and at the end of the episode we count up their profit.
Presenter Simon O’Brien buys a run-down house at auction on The Great House Giveaway
The C4 version, which shifts to a teatime slot all this week, isn’t merely unoriginal.
It’s so penny-pinching, it almost pays for itself.
Presenter Simon O’Brien buys a run-down house at auction — this one was a derelict three-bed terrace in Stafford, with wallpaper hanging off in strips and ivy growing through the broken windows.
He shelled out £118,000.
Simon handed the keys to paramedic Sarah, 52, living in a rented property with partner Mark, and 24-year-old Paige, who was still at home with Mum. The women hadn’t met before: they were left to get on with the repairs, boosted by a £12,000 loan from Simon.
We watched them knocking through walls, wrestling with flatpacks and boarding over the ceilings — though it looked as if Mark was doing most of the heavy work.When it came to the sale six months later, 77up Paige and Sarah had to pay back every penny — as well as covering the cost of borrowing, taxes, estate agent fees and legal bills.