You want a chance to meet TV’s red-hot Property Brothers?
You’ve got it.
The brothers, Drew and Jonathan Scott, are appearing at this weekend’s Cleveland Home + Remodeling Expo. They’re scheduled to take the stage at 1 p.m. Saturday to impart their home-renovation wisdom, answer audience questions and provide a peek behind the scenes of their HGTV shows.
“And then we make fun of Drew a lot,” Jonathan promised in a 15-minute phone interview earlier this week from their home in Las Vegas.
So it goes when you give the two a spotlight.
Their humor and brotherly banter is part of the charm that has helped elevate the 37-year-old identical twins to rock-star status among home-improvement TV stars. Well, that and their leading-man looks.
The Canada natives are riding high as the stars of Property Brothers, plus the spinoff shows Buying & Selling, Brother vs. Brother and Property Brothers: At Home. Their music single Hold On was No. 19 this week on the Great American Country chart. Their first book, Dream Home, is coming out April 4.
Yet still they manage to juggle 10 home-renovation projects at any one time and make personal appearances around the country.
“So we basically are going all the time,” Drew said. “… It’s definitely hard on the sleep schedule.”
On the outside chance you haven’t seen Property Brothers, here’s the premise: Real estate agent Drew helps buyers find neglected houses that contractor Jonathan turns into dream homes. There’s usually a budget crisis or construction calamity along the way to lend intrigue.
The stylish renovations — and the Scotts’ unquestionable sex appeal — have made them two of HGTV’s most popular personalities. But their success is hardly a fluke.
The self-described overachievers have been buying and fixing up houses since they were 18 and looking for a way to keep from starving as they pursued acting careers. They devoured all the information they could find on property investing, put down $250 on a house, renovated it while juggling full-time studies at the University of Calgary and then sold the place a year later.
They made a $50,000 profit.
“That’s when the light bulb went on,” Drew said.
Or maybe it was Jonathan. The two sound so much alike that even their mother has trouble telling them apart on the phone.
Jonathan said their entrepreneurial spirit comes from their parents, who followed their dream of owning a ranch near Vancouver and encouraged their sons to pursue their own passions.
That drive led Drew and Jonathan to start an independent film company with older brother J.D. in 2004 and to launch their own production company, Scott Brothers Entertainment, in 2010. SB Entertainment produces the Scotts’ HGTV shows.
Like most twins, Jonathan and Drew are unusually close. They work together. They know what each other is thinking. They even share a home in Las Vegas.
“It’s hard to have bunk beds when you’re in separate houses,” Drew joked.
Seriously, it’s a big house. Jonathan has his own area; Drew and his girlfriend have another. They have a guest house for their parents’ visits.
Still, it’s a lot of togetherness. That could be a problem, Jonathan said, if it weren’t for what he called their no BS policy.
“When something bothers us,” he said, “we get it out.”
If you think they’re just pretty boys lending their looks to the shows, the brothers insist otherwise. Although teams of designers and contractors do much of the labor, the two are still heavily involved in their projects.
They’re working with real people, they pointed out, who are spending real money to buy and renovate real properties. And those homeowners often have strong opinions when it comes to their homes, Jonathan said. Although he gives the homeowners input in the design process, he said he sometimes gets resistance from clients who have trouble accepting his vision.
That’s probably not surprising, given the investment involved.
Property Brothers supplies $10,000 for each renovation, which includes the labor — except for the work of Jonathan and his design team, who don’t charge. The homeowners also get about $20,000 to $30,000 worth of free products from sponsoring companies, they said. But those homeowners are still putting up the majority of the cost of buying, renovating and furnishing their houses.
And yes, the clients on Property Brothers get to keep the furniture. Not so with Buying & Selling, because the Scotts are staging the houses for sale and often rent that furniture, they explained.
The properties they’ve renovated have been in Vancouver, Toronto, Atlanta and Austin, Texas, although the locations aren’t revealed in the shows. That’s because the Scotts want to focus on information that could apply to houses anywhere, they explain on their production company’s website.
Want them to renovate your house?
Keep an eye on the show’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/PropertyBrothers, they suggested. That’s where application opportunities are posted for the cities where they’ll be filming.
The show will be working next season in Westchester, N.Y., and Fairfield, Conn., but who knows? Maybe Northeast Ohio will be in the Property Brothers’ future.
Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com. You can also become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MBBreckABJ, follow her on Twitter @MBBreckABJ and read her blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/mary-beth.