Love It or List It is a Canadian real estate and renovation show that premiered on W Network on September 8, 2008; the show also airs on HGTV in the United States. Each episode features a couple who are unhappy with their current house. They are aided by expert interior designer Hilary Farr and smarmy real estate agent David Visentin. While Hilary attempts to win over the homeowners by renovating their current home, David tries to find them the new home of their dreams. Once all work has been complete and all potential homes have been viewed, the couple must decide whether they now love their home or want to list it for sale and buy a new one (hence the name).
Several international spin-offs have been made:
- Love It or List It Vancouver (released in the US as Love It or List It Too)
- Love It or List It UK, also known as Kirstie and Phil's Love It or List It
- Love It or List It Australia
- Vendre ou rénover (Sell or Renovate), a Québec version
- Remppa vai muutto Suomi (Love It or List It Finland)
Love It or List It provides examples of the following tropes:
- Artistic License – Economics: Occasionally there will be the odd homeowner who has a giant list of expensive requirements for their new home and offers a budget that can't possibly pay for it.
- Deadpan Snarker: Make that snarkers. Hilary and David are both masters. (Their banter drives half of the show.)David: You think everything has potential!
Hilary: No, I don’t. When I look at you, I know everything doesn’t.- Even the homeowners get in on it whenever they see something they don’t like in a house. Sometimes it comes off as a stealth insult.
- Doom It Yourself: A not-infrequent problem is that the homeowner has tried to do their own renovations and made everything worse. One owner tried to renovate his bathroom. Guess how that turned out? He managed to get nothing done for a year, so the family had to hop on cross beams to get to the house's only working toilet.
- Everyone Can See It: The backbiting between David and Hilary could easily be mistaken for Belligerent Sexual Tension. They aren't in anything but a professional relationship, but it doesn't stop the show from playing off their popularity as a couple.
- Evil Gloating: Between the two hosts on the drive-off after one of them wins an episode. The amount and style of the bragging depends on the host's personality and the extent to which the other is willing to be a gracious loser.
- Failure Montage: Sometimes, if the homeowners are picky or Hilary is having numerous problems of her own, the episode will feature a montage of David showing half a dozen homes, none of which will be what the owners want.
- Home and Garden: Families shop for new homes while their current one is being renovated, and must decide at the end of the episode whether to buy a new house or stay in their renovated home.
- Like an Old Married Couple: The mature dynamic between Hilary and David, after seasons of competition. Not only do they know each other well enough to guess how the other will respond to a problem, they know when the other managed to get it almost right — and naturally they will poke that sore spot for maximum annoyance.
- Like Brother and Sister: How Hilary and David officially describe their relationship. RIIIIGHT.
- Moving the Goalposts: On the homeowners' side, adding new requirements midway through the episode and causing David or Hilary extra stress. On Hilary's side, discovering that the couple's budget can't cover expenses (particularly if the existing house has major problems), leading her to either ask for more money or look for ways to cut back. On David's side, being unable to find a house that meets the couple's criteria for their price, meaning he has to either go over budget or try to sell them on a house that isn't exactly what they want.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The person on the "Love It" side effectively does this to themselves, since their renovations improve the value of the owned property and make "List It" a more viable option. Neale runs into this a lot in the Australian version: he does such a good job on the renovations that the house increases in value substantially, allowing the homeowners to afford a more expensive place than they had originally expected.
- Oh No You Didn't:
- Happens a lot, especially on Hilary's end. Although she is professional enough to stay mum about the issue, she has perfected the art of giving someone the finger with her eyes alone.
- Homeowner: "Nothing's going right! David's giving us crap. And here we're getting..."(Cue Hilary's Oh No You Didn't /You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!! face) "...none of our must-haves."
- Once an Episode: Hilary discovers something horribly wrong (knob-and-tube wiring, no insulation, structural damage) that annihilates her budget, forcing her to drop one of the major things the homeowners want.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "When I'm done with the renovations, You. Will. Love. It."
- Rule of Three: Notice how the third house David shows them is always the "One?"
- While it's usually indicated that David shows several potential homes to the would-be homebuyers, only three of the houses are given the full on-camera walk-through (with, yes, the third house typically being the one to compete with the homeowner's current house).
- Seinfeldian Conversation: The Canadian version usually opens with Hilary and David in the car having a discussion of something unrelated to their business, like coffee or David's socks.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: Between everyone on this show. Seriously. Hilary and David snark, David and the homeowners snark, Hilary and the homeowners snark... Hell, even the construction crew snarks with Hilary who is only too happy to give an equally snarky reply or sassy hair flip or eye roll.
- Spin-Off: The show has several: a version set in Vancouver with a different designer and real estate agent (the original is based in Toronto), a French-language version set in Quebec, and international versions in Britain and Australia.
- In 2021, Hilary was given her own HGTV series, Tough Love With Hilary Farr, which focuses on her design business and fixing dysfunctional houses that strain the relationships of her clients.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Watch the 30 plus second house tour and you’ll see what we’re talking about. Half the comments for Love it or List it on the internet pretty much comment how “the designer and the real estate agent have so much sexual tension.”
- Unsatisfiable Customer: All installments have had their share of these.
- Both homeowners are typically pretty obstinate, with one insisting they want to move no matter what renovations are offered and the other would rather scrap almost all renovations and continue their less than ideal living situation than consider moving anywhere else.
