Drew Scott from HGTV’s ‘Property Brothers’ talks with Mark and Theresa about his new show, structural paint, and working with his twin Jonathan.
Mark: We are joined by one of the ‘Property Brothers’ from HGTV. And I want to get right to the brotherly stuff.
Theresa: I know why, it’s because you’re jealous that he gets to work with another guy, and sometimes I think that you want me to be like your brother or another guy working with you. So I don’t have all these ramblings that I do.
Mark: We’re gonna have to get it from the source, Drew Scott, from the ‘Property Brothers’. Drew how are you?
Drew: I’m doing great, thanks for having me on.
Theresa: Well I’m excited to talk to you because ‘Property Brothers’ has totally taken off as one of the most popular shows on HGTV. And congratulations to you guys and I’m curious, because we’re married my husband and I, what’s it like to work with your brother? You’ve been together your entire life and what’s that like — filming seven days a week with him?
Drew: It’s great working with my brother. Jonathan and I growing up, we’ve always done stuff together, we’ve always had the same circle of friends, always had the same drive and ambition so this show just basically plays on that. And you know when you can go to work and have fun with your brother and help people get into their dream homes it doesn’t really feel like work.
Mark: It doesn’t feel like work all the time and also that it’s Jonathan’s fault. Can you elaborate on that?
Drew: Jonathan and I, the combination between him as a contractor and me as a realtor we can almost read each other’s minds in that we’ve been working together for so long we know — I know what he expects and he knows what I expect — and so we don’t get worked up over stuff, we already know what the plan is as soon as we walk into a house. I know what Jonathan would do to it, and he knows what I would probably get the place for. And I guess it’s the same with anybody that you spend a lot of time together — Mark and Theresa like yourselves — you’re married and you’ve been working together a long time you can finish each other’s sentences.
Theresa: Yeah that does really actually help with being efficient but also you know if you’re in a bad mood or you really want to get the other one, you know what buttons to push too so it can go both ways. It can make the day really easy or it can make it really hard.
Drew: That is true. So when I know he’s on camera and I’m not, I’ll maybe just before he goes on I’ll trigger him somehow to do something embarrassing, get him worked up, and then he makes a fool of himself its great.
Mark: That’s outstanding. Now, is he on camera right now? Are we finding you on location somewhere?
Drew: He is actually. We’re filming down in Austin, Texas right now and he’s filming on — we have a new series that we’re shooting called ‘Buying and Selling’ down here as well so he has a day of filming on that before he heads back home to Vegas tomorrow.
Theresa: Wow that’s nice.
Drew: I’m the lazy one. I’m on vacation now actually. I just started a week of vacation so you’re catching me before I head off to Cancun.
Theresa: Really? So you’re going on vacation to Cancun and he’s going back home to Vegas and you’re not going to see each other for like a whole week?
Mark: Yeah so enough about ‘Property Brothers’ and ‘Buying and Selling’ what are you doing in Cancun and how soon can I get a ticket?
Drew: I sent the ticket to your office I can’t believe it didn’t get there; you know I think Theresa must have hid it.
Mark: I’m going to have the staff removed.
Theresa: I hid it in my suitcase actually.
Drew: Jonathan actually is going to be meeting me down in Cancun, he just has to go home for a day but yeah he’ll be coming down there. We actually spend — him and I travel a lot too, so there’s a few of us getting together to go down to Cancun and then in the summer all of our family is going to Scotland to visit with our relatives. We like to travel.
Theresa: Wow that is so cool. So you guys really do get along? Like it kinda comes across on your show, on ‘Property Brothers,’ that you guys get along and the whole thing, but you really do want to spend time with each other even when you’re not working — that’s so cool.
Drew: We do. And it’s kind of funny, you would think if you’re spending a lot of time at work with people and a lot of time in your personal life with them that they would start to get annoying and tiresome, but we don’t get that and I think it’s really based on the fact that Jonathan and I are very open people. If something bothers me I say it right away and get it out of the way, deal with it and move on. I don’t let things dwell, I don’t let things build up. And I think in any aspect of my life, whether it’s business relationships, personal relationships that helps us. But no I mean that’s one of the reasons I think ‘Property Brothers’ as become so successful. One — you’re getting all the aspects that you want in a real estate show from me, searching for a home to buying, demolition, renovation, and the reveal. And on top of that we pick the jobs usually ourselves — we want to have fun while we do it.
Mark: Proving once again that blood is thicker than joint compound.
Theresa: That is very true.
Mark: I think I mean that metaphorically.
Theresa: So tell us about the new show ‘Buying and Selling’ that is going to start airing this Fall. Now what’s different about that than the ‘Property Brothers?’
Drew: So ‘Property Brothers’ we focus on getting couples into their absolute dream home by buying a fixer upper and turning it into something within their budget that is their absolute dream home. ‘Buying and Selling’ is all about helping someone move on with their life if they’re in one house and they are having a hard time selling, we help them stage and do a mild makeover on the home and sell it to the highest dollar in the shortest time period so they can move on to their new home. For example, a growing family that needs to have a bigger home for the kids as they grow up — we help them sell their current place and move on to their new home.
Theresa: I like that.
Mark: That sounds like there’s some drama in there because you have to get maybe — I’m making this up — but you have to get people say who are set on getting X on their house to maybe back up a little on price, or spend a little on say a bathroom renovation or whatever so that they can get out of there, and that sounds hard.
Drew: That’s the exact point that we’re finding with this show. We have a lot of people from ‘Property Brothers’ that said there’s not enough on the realtor side of things. It’s very heavy on the renovation which is great, so we developed this show so it’s rounding things out and educating viewers on a realtor’s process. When you prep the house to sell and then move onto a new home. One biggest thing I always find is people don’t see the value in paying to stage their home whether it’s renting some furniture to display better, a mild renovation you know repainting, anything and it’s the fact that they think no I’m trying to sell to get money why would I try and put more money out of pocket when I’m trying to sell? They aren’t realizing that if you put out a little bit, a few thousand dollars, that could give you a lot. I mean I’ve staged a home where I’ve spend 3 thousand dollars on staging and I turned around and I was able to get 30 more thousand for the house.
Mark: Wow.
Drew: If you give buyers something that they like, they’re going to pay more for it.
Theresa: I can believe that because in what we do you can kind of, when you walk into a home, you can visualize its potential and can kind of de-clutter it in your mind and all that, but I think for a lot of people — and I watch ‘House Hunters’ a lot because it’s kind of like shopping on television and it’s kind of fun — but so many times I see people walk into houses on TV and I’m like ‘Okay you can’t just judge the house on what color the walls are.’
Mark: She does talk to the television during these parts.
Theresa: I do, but you can’t judge the house on like the paint color and the carpet. And you have to get over those kinds of things, and you can buy a new refrigerator it’s not that expensive.
Drew: Exactly. And that’s something we always make fun of on ‘Property Brothers.’ Again, Jonathan and I aren’t the stuffy realtor, designer, contractor type — we like to have fun with it, and if a client is being unreasonable, we’ll tease them about it because it educates the viewer as well. And I don’t know how many times we’ll walk into a house and the buyers that we’re with will look around and say ‘Oh I don’t like this paint, and that carpet is disgusting, no this isn’t the house for me.’ And Jonathan and I will turn around and say ‘That’s right. That is permanent carpet I can never be replaced. It’s structural paint.’ And they finally get the point.
Mark: Structural paint ha ha!
Theresa: Ha ha structural paint. That is the best thing ever. Permanent carpet and structural paint. But that is so true. I think it’s hard to visualize for a lot of people how a home can be different — that’s why some people are in the business and why some people are bankers and lawyers and the whole thing.
Mark: That kind of begs this question, for you, Drew, which is obviously being a realtor is a business and you have to know the hard value of things and money exchange, but how much of your job is like I guess a study in human behavior or you have to be someone’s therapist to a degree to get them through this process.
Drew: Honestly I’m glad you brought that up because in my mind at certain times it’s 99 percent of the job. Jonathan and I, whether it’s the contractor or the realtor, we’re here to try and make it an easier process for our client. And I know all the market stats, I know the comparables in the area, I can tell them the price point, but what a lot of buyers will do is they’ll talk themselves in circles or they’ll find the perfect property — something that has pretty much everything on their wish list — but they will find excuses or ways to talk themselves out of it and it’s just that’s the human condition, they’ll just do that. And so my job is to back up. No, no this house is good for you. These are the things you were looking for in a home; let’s not find the excuses to talk yourself out of this place. Because a lot of people think that they will always get better property and there will always be something else that could come along if you miss out on one place there is something else. But don’t talk yourself out of one house just because you’re thinking there will be always something better.
Theresa: That sounds like marriage. That sounds like commitment in any sense, you know?
Drew: I did study kinesiology in University, which is the study of the body, and there were the psych classes, communication classes, and a lot of that in business and in what I do dealing with clients, that’s what helps me a lot. It’s a way of being able to calm people and make them see rationally. What we’re dealing with on ‘Property Brothers’ the whole point of the show, when I show them the first dream home that’s way out of their budget and I drop the price and they see its twice or three times what they can afford, the whole point of me doing that is to shock them back into reality. You cannot afford everything that you want in this home, ready-made, brand new, or renovated move in ready. You have to buy a fixer upper and let us customize the renovation to what you want and keep it within your budget.
Mark: We want to talk about this for two, or three, or possibly four more hours.
Theresa: But we can’t.
Mark: But we have one more minute. Is there — and we do only have one more minute or less — is there one little thing that homeowners do more than others in this regard in terms of talking themselves into or out of a particular property?
Drew: What I would say is the hardest thing for people to realize is to know who you’re being educated from. A lot of people take advice from their uncle Bob who knows nothing about real estate or their neighbor said this or somebody said this house was worth this much — don’t listen to these people. The only way you find the value of a home is what the comparable properties in the area are selling for. Not what they’re listed for, what they are selling for. And so for me to try and educate people on it doesn’t matter what people are listing for, it doesn’t matter what your friends say, this is how we figure out the value of a home — that’s the hardest thing for me to try and educate people on. So education is key for buyers. Just make sure you’re being educated by the right people.
Theresa: Well and for everybody listening you have to follow Drew on Twitter @_DrewScott, check them out Wednesdays at 9 on HGTV and check out the new show ‘Buying and Selling’ this Fall.
Mark: And my neighbor called and said we have to take a break. We’ll be back with more MyFixitUpLife.
Check out the MyFixitUpLife talk show that features this interview with Drew Scott.
