Bay dream location on TV show

LIVING THE DREAM: Harcourts real estate agent Pete Scott's own home featured in fantasy real estate TV show Live Here Buy This!PHOTO PAUL TAYLOR

"Ever fantasise about selling your house and moving to your dream location?" asks HGTV Canada.

Fantasy TV show Live Here Buy This! features Hawke's Bay as a dream location, among places such as Florida, Hawaii, Costa Rica and Portugal.

Showing on Tuesdays at 6pm, it tells the story of Canadian couples looking at properties they could afford to purchase if they sold their current home.

Harcourts real estate agent Pete Scott said the producers of the show sent an email about 10 months ago, asking for suitable properties in varying price brackets.

"They picked out three agents at three different levels, with me in residential, another in rural and another in luxury.

"Each of us went filming with them for two days and did two properties each."

Mr Scott's own home featured on the show because of a shortage of suitable houses in a requested price bracket, which the producers agreed to "because it is not a real situation where they are going to come over and buy", Mr Scott said.

He was unaware it was showing locally until he went shopping.

"I had no idea it had started on Choice TV until I walked into Mitre 10 Mega and a chap in there, for whom I sold a house many years ago, said 'Pete, I seen you on the telly last night'.

"My secret was out."

He said the show was good for Hawke's Bay's international profile. "It is all good advertising for New Zealand and Hawke's Bay."

Choice TV, free to air since 2012, specialises in lifestyle topics such as property, travel and cooking.

Canadian company Blue Ant Media, which produces and distributes Live Here Buy This! bought a majority shareholding in Choice in 2014.

Choice TV general manager Julia Baylis said the channel ran the second series of the show because New Zealand was a destination.

"Performance has been pleasing to date and on par with the other titles we run in our weekday Property Hour at 6pm," she said.

"It is the aspirational element of this show that appeals to our viewers and this relates to both local and international destinations."