House and Garden TV

With good television especially scarce this summer, I find myself watching more shows on HGTV. A favorite is "Design Star." New shows seem to pop up every week...one called "Staging" starts soon. The genre is spreading to other channels too, with Planet Green showing several on energy saving, and Channel 7 featuring the old standby, "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition".
A&E and TLC both have shows on flipping..."Flip That House", and copycat, "Flip This House", but the endings are less happy in this slower real estate market.
Audiences for these shows have grown in the last three years, and shows like "Designed to Sell" and "House Hunters" draw more than a million viewers. Some other ideas being tested are "Date My House" in which selected potential buyers can throw a dinner party or even spend the night in a house to "date" it. (They usually find enough flaws in that time to talk themselves out of making an offer.)
One of the most realistic from a Realtor's viewpoint is a new show called "Property Virgins". In this one, a real estate agent shows first time buyers what they can really get in their price range...usually less than they think they can...and goes through the negotiating process with the sellers for them.