It would seem natural that real estate, one of the most-talked about topics nationwide, would spawn some sort of (non-reality) TV show.
It did. Alas, that show is “Hot Properties.”
At least, that’s the general critical reception for the new ABC sitcom about four female real estate agents navigating the Manhattan market for their clients and for themselves. The latter seems to be the main bone of contention for critics writing about the month-old show that airs Fridays at 9:30 p.m. and that, according to Nielsen, drew 6.1 million viewers in its debut.
“Location is everything,” New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley wrote shortly before the Oct. 7 premiere. “‘Hot Properties’ tries to dazzle with high-rise glamour there are offhand references to ‘a duplex in the Ansonia’ but the series has only a hazy sense of place: it could just as easily be set in Los Angeles or Miami… It’s a very conventional, sedate sitcom about sex.”
Inevitably, critics drew comparisons to another show about four women in the Big Apple, but none of the comparisons were particularly favorable “Sex and the Witty? Hardly” was Newsday’s headline on a review that summed it up as “smutty.”
Warner Bros. Television, the production company behind “Hot Properties” along with Interbang, declined to comment for this story. Brokers, however, did not.
“There is nothing that would give me more pleasure than to comment on this truly third-rate sitcom,” wrote the Corcoran Group’s European sales director, Patricia Warburg Cliff, in an email to The Real Deal. “It is vulgar, inaccurate, and non-representative of 99 percent of this city’s hard-working, professional brokers, many of whom have advanced degrees and come from other respected professions. There are many interesting, quite adventuresome aspects of being a real estate broker in New York City. This sitcom captures none of them.”