Home at first sight, the interview with real estate agents Ida, Mariana and Gianluca

Since when Home at first sight has landed on Real Time, the lives (and careers) of Ida Di Filippo, Mariana D’Amico and Gianluca Torre, that is, the three real estate agents who operate in Milan within the program produced by Blu Yazmine e listening champion, have changed from one day to the next, and with impressive speed. «You never get used to being interviewed and listened to», Mariana says on the phone in the company of her two colleagues who, from simple agents, have gradually transformed into little stars which everyone would like to rely on to sell and buy a house in Milan. They, who since the recordings have founded a chat on Whatsapp with a very unoriginal title Home at first sight, they remain with their feet on the ground and, in this interview, they joke not only with each other but also with this sudden fame that is slowly changing their lives and habits. «We are taking measures with all this, and it’s not bad at all», adds Ida. «We used to sell houses, but now we inevitably sell ourselves too», she insists, while Gianluca, who has meanwhile become a phenomenon on TikTok and Instagram, confesses that he would never have expected such a rapid and shocking change.

Let’s start from the beginning: when you first auditioned, what were your intentions?
Gianluca: «The world of entertainment has always attracted me a little and that’s why, when the opportunity came, I told myself to try, also because what I was going to do was linked to my profession».
Mariana: «None of the three initially realized the media power that TV would give us. We sold the houses without preparations and without scripts and, in no time at all, we were catapulted into a reality that was not ours. When the success began we said to ourselves that it was working and that something could come back in terms of visibility, as well as on the customer front.”
Ida: «We made the program totally unaware. I remember telling my family a few weeks before the broadcast adding a simple “it’s no big deal”: we didn’t have a concrete idea of ​​what it could have been. Now they all stop us on the street, a little while ago I had to hug a grandmother in via Torino after she told me that I keep her company on television every evening.”

On a work level, what changed afterwards Home at first sight?
Ida: «So many requests arrive, to the point that they have become difficult to manage. They give me houses to sell because they see me on TV and now they trust me a priori: agencies struggle to gain the trust of clients, but now this problem doesn’t arise for me because it’s as if they already know me, so that when I show houses they always ask me to prepare coffee and pizza.”
Gianluca: «There are so many requests that it is necessary to put a filter: everything comes to you, and they ask to have us personally take care of the negotiations and the rest».
Mariana: «Requests have now arrived from all over Italy, from email to Instagram. We get houses in Milan, the problem is that it takes a long time to sell them from there. Today prices are high and housing is slowing down: there is much more product, but with interest rates so high you struggle to get mortgages, and people are turning to renting. In short, there is no shortage of houses, but you struggle to place them.”

Milan’s house prices are not the same as other Italian cities: why, in your opinion?
Gianluca: «Because it is the only Italian city with European appeal. It is a city that will continue to hold up on the price front, even if there will now be adjustments to interest rates. Before, tourists went to Rome and Venice but, after the Expo, Milan became a new world. Not to mention the imminent arrival of the Winter Olympics.”
Ida: «I’ll just tell you that, in anticipation of the Olympics, many investors are also buying in peripheral areas like Corvetto».
Mariana: “Now the price per square meter in the suburbs has reached 5 thousand euros, which is crazy.”

Is it better to have an unsold property or to lower the price in order to sell it?
Ida: «There is no one answer that applies to everything: it depends. If you need money, remodulate the price, otherwise you’re better off renting the house.”
Mariana: «It’s obvious that if you sell today you earn a certain amount while if you wait you risk selling it for less. The more time passes, the more it depreciates: a year ago you sold better than now, it’s a fact.”

I’m curious: where do you live?
Ida: «Not in Milan, but in Trezzano sul Naviglio, in a house he owns. My partner is an operating room nurse: we wanted a quiet area because he would like to sleep during the day.”
Mariana: «I live in a house I own in the center, purchased through real estate brokerage after 15 years of work».
Gianluca: «I live in Milan in a house I own, in a non-central and non-peripheral area».

Be honest: what sells worse in Milan?
Mariana: «Nothing, everything is sold in Milan».
Ida: «In the real estate sector, even cellars and attics now have a market. After Covid, however, many are requesting an outdoor space, be it a balcony or a terrace.”

What do you think of the Roman colleagues of Home at first sight?
Ida: «They are good, they have a different way of approaching than us, not to mention that with Ida and Gianluca there is a particular chemistry that reaches the viewers. Now I see them more than my partner.”
Mariana: «Now the fans who meet us see us as one person».
Gianluca: «We are like Cerberus, the dog with three heads».

Are colleagues envious of your success?
Ida: “Hard question. Let’s say that you feel the respect even if, if there was the possibility of replacing you, they wouldn’t hesitate for a second.”
Gianluca: “Within the agency the climate is calm and supportive, the problem is the outsiders, given that at the beginning they wrote very nasty things on social media, wondering who we were and why we were on TV.”
Mariana: «Without my colleagues at the agency I wouldn’t be here: ours is a team effort, but it’s true that with outsiders it’s a little more difficult. However, it remains their problem, not ours.”