A common theme on TV shows – alongside the group of friends, doctors, or police officers all being impossibly good-looking – is that they all live in apartments, homes, or mansions that are spacious, in ideal locations, and often far beyond the price you’d expect for the characters. While some TV homes are just sets, many are the locations of these shoots. So when the series wraps, the house goes for sale.
Of course, people expect these properties to have a price floor in the millions, and while this is true most of the time, some gems have snuck under the radar at more affordable prices.
How do you know if you can afford a TV home?
TV homes don’t go on the market too often, so you need to be proactive, keep your eye out, or ask an agency to let you know when a TV home goes on the market. So that you aren’t setting yourself up for disappointment, it’s best to know your budget ahead of time so that you’re ready to go if you get the call or spot the listing.
To do this, the mortgage advice service Trussle is at the ready to suggest your best mortgage options as well as to offer an accurate mortgage in principle (MIP). This MIP doesn’t perform a hard credit check and accurately relays the amount that you can borrow, giving you a price range for a possible TV home snap-up. If you’re in a footrace to get one over the line, too, their Speed Promise for a mortgage decision in five days will also come in handy.
TV homes sold at affordable prices (and some that didn’t)
Easily one of the cheapest valuations on a TV home recorded is that of The Roseanne House. Shown in the opening cuts of the TV sitcom, while Roseanne and Dan Conner never resided within the home, it became synonymous with the show. 619 S. Runnymeade Avenue in Evansville, Indiana, has been given a price of around $215,000 for the four-bedroom, two-bathroom property.
Elsewhere, over in North Carolina, another TV home sold for quite a reasonable price in 2013, which was in the midst of the fame of the show itself. In 2013, it was reported that the Homeland house sold for a reasonable $394,000. This was around the time of its third season and was the home of sergeant Nicholas Brady. As fair as the price may have been, it was snapped up after just one day on the market.
Getting into the much more expensive end of TV homes, another smash-hit show saw its homes hit the headlines in 2015, this time being a couple of properties used in Breaking Bad. Both situated in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the El Paso Times relayed that local realtors had put the home of Jesse Pinkman up for $1.6 million and the house where Walter White threatens the Schwartz couple with two fake assassins for $2.65 million.
There’s even more on the way, as there always will be with TV homes. One of the biggest series in the world recently concluded its mainline story, The Walking Dead, and so the homes of the Alexandria Safe-Zone are going up for sale. These real houses were built for the show, will be given some sprucing up and will be put on the market, according to Fox5Atlanta.
You have to be quite lucky to be in with a shot of a TV home, but if you create the opportunity, be sure to know if you can seal the deal ahead of time.