Housing market good for reality TV

CHICAGO, May 29 (UPI) -- A slump in U.S. home sales doesn't mean a slump in the housing reality shows, as cable TV has at least two dozen shows on the art of the real estate deal.

Interest in all aspects of real estate -- whether the market is hot or cool -- is thriving, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday.

"Even with the slowing housing market, it doesn't take away people's interest," said Frances Berwick, executive vice president of programming and production for Bravo, which has two titles in the works. "If anything, it makes people slightly more crazy about following it."

The latest entry is "Secrets that Sell," which premiered this month, a spin-off of "Designed to Sell," which debuted in 2004.

Advertising observers told the Tribune real estate shows are somewhat immune from changes in the marketplace.

"The programs are somewhat marketproof," Miraj Parikh of StarLink Worldwide, a Chicago advertising firm said to the newspaper. When housing sales were sky high, viewers watched to learn many multiple offers the seller got, he said.

"In a marketplace like we're in right now, maybe it's harder to sell your house," he said in the Tribune article, so the viewer is "using these programs as a benchmark of whether the market is good again."