Our First Home: Rebuilding DIY reality

The three families competing in new TVNZ show Our First Home.

TVNZ'S first big reality show of the year is Our First Home, a brand new DIY reality show format. It starts next Sunday (February 8, TV One, 7.30pm) and will be on screen three nights a week, following three competing families.

OFH will show the three teams of four - parents plus younger couple - as they try to buy the right house for a profitable do-up (with their own money), and then spend 10 weeks renovating it with the budget and building materials provided by sponsors, producers Eyeworks TV, and TVNZ.

When the houses are auctioned, each family will keep whatever money they make over the reserve price. The family that makes the most profit percentage gain on the original purchase will win an additional $100,000 for the younger couple's first home deposit.

Phew. It's not the simplest of formats with more layers than the head-to-head contest of The Block. We asked Tony Manson (commissioner of factual entertainment at TVNZ) and Greg Heathcote (executive producer at Eyeworks) to explain the thinking behind the new show.

Why create a new DIY reality format?

TM: Our First Home is a locally originated home renovation and property format designed specifically with the TV One audience in mind. It also feels timely, given the amount of discussion around the dining room tables of the nation, and in the media, about the enormous challenge of getting on the residential property ladder here, particularly in our major cities.

How difficult is it to create a new show when we're already saturated with similar formats?

TM: There's nothing else like this on television. Sure, home renovation can be seen on any number of other shows, but the Our First Home story is much bigger than DIY. It's about families working together and making sacrifices for the good of the next generation. It is also distinctly Kiwi in that the idea has been created by New Zealanders with the local property market in mind. It's not an overseas idea that has been adapted.

GH: Buying and renovating your first home in 2015 is a very different proposition to when these other shows were created. Limited supply, rising house prices, first-time buyers coping with student loans all provide a very different set of problems and considerations for people entering the property market.

What's different about Our First Home?

TM: The first thing viewers will notice is that Our First Home is a home renovation competition between families, and although there are competition rules and some entertaining made-for-television challenges, much of the series will reflect what happens in the real world of the property market. For example, the "do-ups" they will set out to buy are genuine homes on the open market. So the families are competing not just with each other but with everyone else wanting to buy or sell a home.

GH: All the big decisions to do with the show are left up to the families. They themselves are responsible for purchasing the property, and the parents for paying the mortgage, and they can buy anywhere in Auckland, it's left entirely up to them. How much money they spend, what they are going to renovate and leave alone, what they will get building consent for, all these decisions are left to the families. And at least one family member is a qualified builder so the majority of the work is carried out within the family without the need for external tradesmen. OFH experts offer advice from the outset but the families can take it or leave it, it's up to them.

What were you looking for in contestants?

GH: The family's parents needed to be financially secure enough to purchase a house and then have the building skills to renovate it. They needed to be able to take 10 weeks away from work and love their kids enough to want to put themselves through it all.

* The show also has its own online virtual home renovation game, where players renovate and sell virtual houses. It will be available as a free smartphone app, or at ourfirsthome.co.nz

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- TimeOut