Escape to the Country sometimes seems unfinished/

The couple say they want a detached house away from a main road with a big garden etc. What do they show them, a semi detached on a main road with a small garden but the couple are delighted! Also I also wonder why the houses are so beautifully presented, does the TV company send people in to do thus?

Sadgrandma I think they do, just as when more expensive houses come on the market, there will be elements of styling before they are photographed, or with really expensive houses stylists will precede the photographer.

Our house is on the market at the moment at a price that meant the photos were taken by professional house photographers - in and out in half an hour. Before they came they sent us a list of advice of things to do to show the house off at its best advantage - such things as clearing bathrooms of towels and bottles of anything. Kitchen worktops as clear as possible, and so on.

I agree M0nica. In London when we were selling, the agent told us vendors often send their "stuff" to storage units to achieve the streamlined, uncluttered look. Some even hire plush sofas to make their place look more chic, or artworks for the walls.

I get irritated when singles or couples at/near retirement age get shown houses that require a car to go to the local shop or like today, have a garden ideal for a mountain goat. Do these folk think they're immune from getting older? Or do they imagine that when their eyesight or mobility gets so bad, they'll want the upheaval of moving house?

MayBee70

I don’t understand them talking about the parties and entertaining they’re going to do in their new property. Given that they’ve never lived in the area before who’s going to them?

But the little video clips always say how friendly people are!!

No, totally agree. And the experience of friends who did move from city to country hundreds of miles away was that friends only come and stay once! It was just too far

Either that Chardy or if you are in the South West they all want to come and stay for weeks at a time for free and the house is never your own.

Chardy

I get irritated when singles or couples at/near retirement age get shown houses that require a car to go to the local shop or like today, have a garden ideal for a mountain goat. Do these folk think they're immune from getting older? Or do they imagine that when their eyesight or mobility gets so bad, they'll want the upheaval of moving house?

We bought our retirement home in a village, with a shop and a large garden when we were 53. We have lived here happily and successfully for 28 years needing a car to do almost every activity apart from top up shopping.

It is only in our early 80s that we are feeling the need to move, and that is mainly to live some where more convenient for our children, who, when we moved here, were still at university.

And, yes, this time we are aiming to live in the centre of a small town with all the services we may need within walking/buggy distance

Nowadays, longevity and modern medecine mean that more of us are living healthy and well lives until at least the age of 80, and, yes of course, a few friends have died younger and been ill from their 60s, but the majority of my friends are only gradually beginning to lead restricted lives after the age of 80.

Our house is for sale at the moment and quite a number of people viwing it have been much of an age we were when we moved here. Still working, but with children who are out of school and working or at university, who now have time for gardening and do not mind driving to to do things, now they are no longer a taxi service.

Used to watch this Programme, then got to realise the people on it had a lot of money, but no commonsense. Or they wanted a lot, but weren't prepared to pay for it. Once saw a couple, supposedly downsizing, standing in a massive kitchen, but it was "too small" for them.

Like you, Freya, I'm often a little bemused by the couples shown a kitchen the size of an aircraft hangar say" it's a little small..."

I always get very cross when they don’t say at the end of the programme if they bought it or not. Just leaves you hanging! Very annoying