Buyers do get paid an appearance fee to be on House Hunters, but the real-estate agents are typically not as lucky.
House Hunters is one of HGTV’s longest-running shows and remains one of the most popular shows on the network to date.
The buyers who appear on the show do get paid a flat appearance fee as compensation for their time. However, the real-estate agents on the show typically do not get paid at all.
About HGTV’s longest-running show
When House Hunters first started airing on HGTV in 1999, the show was only slated for a total of 26 episodes.
But now, more than two decades later, House Hunters has become one of the network’s longest-running shows, with well over 1700 episodes. Moreover, it is still a favorite among fans who grew up watching the show.
A large part of House Hunters’s appeal comes from the fact that it showcases such a wide variety of homes. It is a relatively low-commitment, low-risk option for home renovation lovers who just want to relax in front of their televisions.
Do you get paid to be on House Hunters?
While watching House Hunters is a fairly relaxing experience for most fans, actually being on the show is certainly more of an exciting venture.
Over the years House Hunters and its various spin-offs have told the story of countless potential buyers looking for a place that suits all of their needs (and their budget) in locations around the United States and across the globe.
In fact, applying to be one of the home buyers featured on the show might seem like an intriguing idea.
This is because it will allow you to work with a renowned local real-estate agent, give you three different fabulous house options to choose from, and it may just land you your next dream home.
You might even be excited to hear that the home buyers who make it onto the show even get paid an appearance fee.
Unfortunately, though, this flat fee that buyers on the show are paid is not nearly enough for the down payment on a new home, but it does help to balance out the extra time that you will have to add to your home-hunting endeavor when an entire film and production crew is involved.
Furthermore, it is a better deal than the estate-agents on House Hunters get, as these agents do not get paid and simply need to rely on the exposure that they get from their appearance on the show to generate new business.
How much would you typically get paid to appear on House Hunters?
Shows like House Hunters rarely share the specifics of their contracts with the people who appear on the show, for obvious reasons.
However, Elizabeth and Jeff Newcamp, a couple who has appeared on both the House Hunters show and the House Hunters International spin-off, opened up about their experiences on the show in 2019.
Elizabeth reported that they were paid a flat rate of $500 to appear on House Hunters and $1,500 for the House Hunters International spin-off, which gives you some idea as to how much the buyers on the show are typically paid.
How long does House Hunters take to film?
Appearing as one of the home buyers on House Hunters does seem slightly less glamorous when you find out that these buyers are usually just paid a flat rate for their episode.
However, House Hunters is still a good opportunity for home buyers who want to get a taste of what filming their own reality television show would be like.
The House Hunters producers reportedly sort through more than 200 applications for each episode of the show. They can spend about 30 hours, or in Elizabeth and Jeff’s case, a week of filming episodes of the show.
Do buyers have to pay for the houses on House Hunters?
By now, most HGTV viewers know that not everything on the network’s reality shows are portrayed as accurately as their names would have you believe.
However, the buyers who appear on the show definitely do pay for the homes that they buy on the show out of their own pockets.
In fact, by the time that these buyers actually start filming the show, they have usually already purchased the home of their choice.
Elizabeth and Jeff purchased their home on a Friday and the House Hunters filming started the next week on Monday.
The “shopping around” segments are typically filmed after the fact, though the show does aim to capture the buyers’ real thoughts and feelings about the other homes that they view on the show.
