The Germans, it is said, are real do-it-yourselfers. Perhaps that is the reason why living and redecoration formats are still popular in this country. There was even a time when the five-dowels just flew at you on private television in the afternoon – because in shows like Use in 4 walls or Mrent, buy, live and much that was like that, was constantly being moved somewhere, remodeled and redecorated.
However, the real move seems a bit boring when you look at the two strangely successful Netflix– Broker shipments L’Agence and Selling Sunset looks. Except for the topic, they don’t have much in common with the German living classics. Pure luxury reigns supreme in the two shows about real estate agencies in Paris and Los Angeles. Castles in the south of France, mansions in the valleys of California – the price of the real estate is usually of secondary importance for the super-rich customers. Closeness to everyday life no longer seems to be a goal here. Most people can like out houses L’Agece and Selling Sunset just admire like a painting in a museum.
“The houses are often about prestige and not at all about psychological aspects of living, but about bigger, better, further,” says Mareike Pisall. Some time ago, the interior designer completed further training in housing and architectural psychology, a relatively new field of research that deals with the connections between people and their living space. But why do we enjoy watching a few people buy houses that most will probably never be able to afford?
Real estate agent Chrishell Stause from “Selling Sunset” – here with her boss Jason Oppenheim – is open about the fact that her family was even homeless for a time.
(Photo: Netflix)
“An apartment is not pain au chocolat,” says real estate agent Sandrine Kretz in the first episode of L’Agence. “When I first meet clients, I don’t follow a standard formula. There’s no form they have to fill out. It’s a journey together.” The real estate agency belongs to the family, it’s called “Kretz and Partners”, and all five members of the Kretz clan work for the Parisian company. With Grandma Majo and the schoolboy Raphaël, two more of them scurry through the Netflix series, while Sandrine, her husband Olivier and their three sons Martin, Valentin and Louis try to make “exclusive real estate” palatable to their wealthy customers, as it is in the subtitle is called. These include historical buildings that have survived wars, ornate Art Deco villas and apartments with a view of the Eiffel Tower. The real estate agency of the Kretz family now has almost 100,000 followers on Instagram.
L’Agence is not the only Netflix show that deals with living and furnishing. Selling Sunset, the reality series about Californian real estate agents, is already in its fifth season this Friday, and there will also be an offshoot. The show hits a similar notch as L’Agence, but replaces the cozy family atmosphere of the Kretz clan with a sometimes fierce competition between realtors. Also on Netflix: shows about small houses, big houses, houses on the beach, houses in the wilderness and houses everywhere else where you can get four walls and a roof screwed together. Anyone who zaps through relevant programs for long enough will even get the funny catchphrase “house envy” displayed by the service.
After a while, you suddenly find bathrooms without a second washbasin dreadful
Despite the distance from everyday life, such programs address human needs such as protection, development, appropriation – and growth, according to housing psychologist Mareike Pisall. This could be one reason why viewers are interested in utopian real estate in terms of price, although they will probably never be able to afford it. With social media and the glimpse it brings into the lives and homes of superstars, Pisall explains, luxurious apartments have also become “a lot more common” than it used to be, when you had no idea how many bedrooms and bathrooms a house had should, in order to eke out an existence worth living. Incidentally, the same phenomenon can also be observed in L’Agence and Selling Sunset observe: Once you have finished a few episodes, you catch yourself shaking your head if, horribly, there should be fewer than two sinks installed in a bathroom.
“An apartment is not pain au chocolat,” says “L’Agence” – the indoor pool also speaks against the comparison with the bakery.
(Photo: Netflix)
The realtors themselves also play an important role in the attraction of the luxury home shows. The luxury villas are usually too expensive for them too. Broker Chrishell Stause out Selling Sunset is open about the fact that her family was homeless for a while, and she keeps expressing how grateful she is to have worked her way out of it. “It’s a memory that still makes me sweat to this day,” she says in an episode. You can hardly get more heights of fall on TV.
There is a bit of escapism in every conversation – but it seems absurd to watch residential programs of all things for a break from reality. But maybe that makes sense in times when living space is scarce and difficult to afford and when people looking for a home often have viewing appointments and flat-sharing castings that are overflowing for months. L’Agence and Selling Sunset let the audience escape into a fantasy world, like playing Sims on a computer. A real estate agent who liberates you from the dreary real estate reality, even as a mere fantasy, is far better than a second sink in the real world.
Selling Sunset season five on Netflix.