From Buying London to Owning Manhattan, real estate reality shows are rising in popularity, with new shows appearing every couple of months. While in previous years many reality shows focused on house flippers and creative fixer-uppers, today’s real estate shows are more focused on the actual buying and selling. Viewers can experience the vicarious joy of finding the perfect dream home (often with a dash of drama) without the stress of high-stakes and high-dollar renovations. Here are five shows especially worth watching.
5. Buying Beverly Hills
Focused on Mauricio Umansky’s luxury real estate brokerage, The Agency, in Beverly Hills, Buying Beverly Hills gets off to a slow start, but the second season offers thrilling home searches with a sprinkling of family drama. The stars are Umansky’s daughters, Farrah Brittany and Alexia Umansky, with an occasional cameo by Umansky’s wife, American actress and socialite Kyle Richards, best known for The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Umansky’s and Richards’ separation has added a sprinkling of family drama to the show. However, there won’t be a third season; Netflix has canceled further episodes, citing the show’s high production cost.
Buying Beverly Hills streams on Netflix.
4. Selling The OC
More successfully, Netflix’s Selling The OC invites viewers into the drama-filled lives of real estate agents working at the Oppenheim Group’s Orange County office. A spinoff of Selling Sunset, Selling the OC takes you to grander, more expensive seaside homes. The cast, featuring four Alexandras, Sean Palmieri, Tyler Stanaland, and Brandi Marshall, strive to navigate both high-dollar real estate deals and a tense love story, allowing viewers to experience gorgeous sunset vistas and the occasional screaming fight in a luxury swimming pool.
You can watch Selling The OC on Netflix.
3. A Place In The Sun
Hopping across the pond, A Place in the Sun is a long-running British program (or programme) that responds to the growing trend of Britons seeking sunny foreign homes in warmer climates. In each episode, the show’s researchers take a British couple to visit several properties within their budget; at the end of the episode, viewers are told whether the couple purchased their favorite property. In recent seasons, A Place in the Sun has taken hopeful couples and viewers to Australia, Bulgaria, the Caribbean, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia, and even South Africa. With 41 seasons across various spinoffs since September 2000, A Place in the Sun offers over 1,000 episodes for those dreaming of markets overseas. Unlike other shows on this list, A Place in the Sun doesn’t offer much relationship drama—just a relaxing tour of beautiful locations.
You can watch A Place In The Sun on Binge.
2. Million Dollar Listing
Million Dollar Listing started running in Los Angeles in 2006 (starring Josh Flagg, Josh Altman, and Tracy Tutor), later expanding to New York in 2012 (starring Fredrik Eklund and Ryan Serhant). Other spinoffs have been commissioned, including Million Dollar Listing Miami and Million Dollar Listing San Francisco, but these lasted only a single season, failing to reproduce the charm of the New York version, where Fredrik and Ryan’s on-screen chemistry and personality quirks enliven the televised hunt for the perfect million-dollar home.
Million Dollar Listing streams on both Hayu and Binge.
1. Selling Sunset
The original behind the Selling the OC spinoff, Netflix’s long-running series Selling Sunset follows the glamorous careers of an all-female team of real estate agents at The Oppenheim Group in Los Angeles. The lead is former soap opera star Chrishell Stause, backed by Mary Bonnet, Emma Hernan, Amanza Smith, and Chelsea Lazkani, as well as memorable villain Christine Quinn in the earlier seasons. Selling Sunset was a breakout success that redefined the genre, offering as much drama on screen as more scripted reality shows, with the visual appeal of some of the world’s most luxurious homes.
Grab your favorite snack and blanket as you get ready to flip on these binge-worthy real estate series. From drama to dashing designs, you don’t want to miss these shows.
