Australia’s favourite reno show is on our screens just when we need it, writes Seanna Cronin

IN THIS time of uncertainty with the coronavirus pandemic, there’s something comforting about sitting down to watch one of your favourite shows.

And one of Australia’s favourite TV shows, and Foxtel’s most successful original series, is here to lift your spirits – or at least offer a distraction.

The award-winnings lifestyle series Selling Houses Australia – which follows host Andrew Winter, interior designer Shaynna Blaze and landscape designer Charlie Albone as they help homeowners transform unsellable properties – is back for a 13th season.

“Our shows are something you can pick up and put down. We thank Foxtel for keeping with us,” Winter says.

“There are not many reality shows – except for The Block and Better Homes and Gardens – that manage to hit double digits. In the TV world 13 years is a lifetime. All I want to do is keep going to 25 (seasons) and then retire. They can wheel me around the houses.”

Winter is a real estate guru who loves his data, and he’s surprised by the wide demographics of the show.

“It never ceases to amazing me how many people in the industry say ‘I use your show all the time’. It’s amazing how many real estate agents use it as a reference point,” he says.

“Streaming has been a massive friend for Selling Houses because you don’t have to remember to record it anymore, so we can reach a younger audience, and the older episodes are now a record of the property market. They’re educational, which is fascinating.”

This season will be the last onscreen hooray for the trio, with Albone moving to Seven’s Friday night lifestyle program Better Homes and Gardens.

“We’re really happy about him leaving. We couldn’t wait for him to go,” Winter laughs.

“In all seriousness, we knew he was looking at doing less travel to spend more time with his family.

“But while we were filming it was business as usual and we have some great episodes this time.”

A 1970s home in Deception Bay on the northern outskirts of Brisbane presented one of the biggest challenges of the new season.

“The house had architecture that almost beggars belief,” Winter says. “Aesthetically from the exterior a bulldozer would be the best job and inside the layout couldn’t flow worse if it tried – things were not only in the wrong place but the wrong level. I’m not going to say what the result is but I was really worried about that one.

“It’s a really interesting one, especially for people who have older homes in the value of $300,000 to $500,000 because the cost to redo things costs the same as a $1m home.”

Winter says one of the biggest mistakes homeowners can make, when it comes to resale value, is to not update their homes every 10 to 20 years.

“If you stay in a home for a long time you have to realise that about every decade you have to change the colours, then at the two decade mark you need to look at redoing kitchens and bathrooms,” he says.

“We all know about the Pantone colour of the year – that’s only good for cushions and your front door because you can repaint it. You have to look at a pattern over a period of years and fairly timeless things, which is hard to do.”

The new season of Selling Houses Australia premieres tonight at 7.30pm Qld, 8.30pm NSW.

Gloria pressures Katy to design a wedding dress.

Aisling Franciosi stars as a young Tasmanian convict hellbent on taking revenge on a villainous British officer.

Bishop and Pike become involved in their most dangerous case yet.

Mckenna Grace stars as a demonologist's child menaced by a possessed doll.

Dermot heads to Rathfarham to look at an unusually small house.

Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt star in this tale of the end of Hollywood's Golden Age.