How Legit Is HGTV'S Married To Real Estate?
HGTV fans have long wondered about the truthfulness of the network's renovation shows, questioning whether the property purchases, renovation obstacles, and ultimate reveals are actually true to real life. "Married to Real Estate," which is hosted by married couple Egypt Sherrod and Mike Jackson, is a good example of a show that appears to be a mix of reality and staging.
For one, the HGTV duo maintains that they aren't afraid to get personal on their show, sharing only their genuine selves. "We're really just us," Sherrod told HGTV. "Exactly what people see on television, that's us around our house, with our friends, with our family, with our kids. And sometimes we just forget the camera's there." Even so, other elements of "Married to Real Estate" are potentially staged, specifically the home-buying process.
As a refresher, "Married to Real Estate" combines the real estate and renovation processes into one show, as Sherrod and Jackson assist homeowners in finding their perfect home location before giving their chosen property a makeover. All the while, the couple balances this work with their home life, providing insight into their experience raising three kids.
'Married to Real Estate' clients may already be homeowners
A notable element of "Married to Real Estate" is Egypt Sherrod and Mike Jackson showing prospective properties to their clients, but this aspect of the show may be entirely fabricated. When one Reddit user took to the HGTV subreddit for advice, they revealed that they were cast on the show after having already bought their home.
"A casting company was given my name from a friend of mine that is a Real Estate Agent," the user explained. "She gave them my number knowing that I had recently bought a house in the area they wanted to film in." Manufacturing the house-buying process isn't unheard of for HGTV. Back in 2012, it was revealed that "House Hunters" was mostly fake, with many of the show's featured clients already in the process of securing their new homes by the time of filming.
"We've learned that the pursuit of the perfect home involves big decisions that usually take place over a prolonged period of time — more time than we can capture in 30 minutes of television," the network shared with Entertainment Weekly. "To maximize production time, we seek out families who are pretty far along in the process." In this way, there's a good chance that "Married to Real Estate" takes on clients who have already purchased properties, making their real estate segments staged.
Other aspects of the show seem to be true to life
While the real estate aspect of "Married to Real Estate" might not be true to life, there are plenty of aspects of the show that appear to be genuine. Both Egypt Sherrod and Mike Jackson have extensive backgrounds in their field, with Sherrod being CEO of Indigo Road Realty and Indigo Road Design Group, while Jackson owns and manages Jackson Draper Renovations LLC.
In this way, the show was seemingly born out of the family's real-life experiences, with Sherrod and Jackson telling HGTV that it came to life during the pandemic while they were trying to run their respective businesses from home. "I do real estate and design. Mike is a contractor and a builder. This was our life already. This was our business," Sherrod told Ebony. "Social media is pretty amazing. We decided to take some clips from our every day life and make a [sizzle reel] out of it and pitch it to HGTV. We didn't know if it would work, but they loved it. That was a blessing."
As of now, we can't say for sure how much of a hand Sherrod and Jackson actually have in renovations featured on their shows, but given that they continue to run their own specialized businesses, we wouldn't be surprised if there was some genuine overlap.