The Home-Shopping Show : Japanese TV Viewers Are Tuning In for Tours of Exclusive O.C. Properties

A TV cameraman checks out the Italian marble floor, the stunning ocean view, the polished walnut desk.

Homeowner Robert Misitano, 56, worries aloud, as the cameras start to roll in his $1.1-million townhouse. What will Tokyo think?

He turns to his real estate agent, Miyuki Rann. “You want me to clear the desk?”

It’s show time for the ultimate open house--a spot on a network TV show in Japan that features homes for sale in Orange County and other U.S. urban areas. The program is a Japanese take-off on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” said Rann, who helps coordinate the shows for a Prudential real estate office in Corona del Mar.

“They only want to see the expensive homes--above $1 million,” said Rann, who was born and raised in Tokyo.

Every week, more than 4.5-million viewers watch Yomiuri Television’s “Sekai No Gootei” (“Estates of the World”) and TBS Network’s “Fudoosan Butsuken No Goshookai” (‘Properties in America”). (TBS is unrelated to the U.S. cable network of the same name.)

Sometimes, the programs feature an American home seller who learns to say “konnichiwa” (hello) or “arigato” (thank you) for the cameras. Mostly, a velvety voiced Japanese announcer gushes over rosy pictures of rich Americans at play on yachts or in front of a roaring fireplace.

In Japan, TV shows that feature aspects of American lifestyles typically score high ratings, Rann said. The real estate shows provide U.S. home sellers with a huge, captive market that they would not otherwise reach, she said.

“Japanese people are always interested in the U.S.--what’s out there,” Rann said. “When I grew up [in Japan], I saw ‘Batman’ and ‘Flipper,’ and I’d watch and say, ‘What’s that in the kitchen? What’s that over there?’ ”

The program is thought to be the only one of its kind, according to the National Assn. of Realtors and agents who specialize in Pacific Rim clients.

By exclusive agreement with the producers, the shows feature only Prudential homes, Rann said. Prudential does not pay or receive a fee in connection with the broadcast.

Because the homes are represented by a number of Prudential real estate agents from all over the country, Rann does not know how many homes have sold as a result of exposure on Japanese TV.

In Orange County, she has sold one house directly from Japanese TV exposure and two others through Japanese clients who saw her name in the closing credits.

But in the broader marketing context, Prudential likes the exposure on Japanese TV because it connects American affluence with the company.

“We are selling imagination--and a dream,” said Steve Hayashi, a Prudential real estate agent in Arcadia who has shown houses on Japanese TV.

“Give them a very homey and warm feeling of the property. Make them feel, ‘This is what I want,’ ” he said. “You have to expose some of the things the Japanese don’t have. You don’t have a big backyard. You don’t have a swimming pool. You don’t have a tennis court at your own home.”

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Rann started working with Japanese TV last year, after she heard about the shows and approached the producers about featuring Prudential homes. With the U.S. real estate market dragging, Rann wanted to go beyond the local buyers, the routine for-sale signs, the humdrum listings.

The Japanese market is a natural target, she said. The strong yen makes U.S. homes cheaper for the Japanese, prompting families who want overseas vacation homes to look to tourist hot spots, such as Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“With this currency exchange rate, everything outside looks cheap, so the interest is there because they see all these beautiful house [on TV],” said Yukuo Takenaka, an investment banker and Pacific Rim specialist with Takenaka & Co. in Los Angeles.

“Houses in Japan are very expensive and very, very small. . . . You see a house four or five times larger at the same price [on TV], and it catches consumers’ eyes and interest.”

Japanese investment in U.S. real estate is nowhere near the buying binge in the mid- to late-1980s, when Japanese buyers paid record prices for properties in California, New York and Hawaii.

But those who are looking to relocate are steering away from Los Angeles and focusing on Orange County, which is viewed as safe, clean and welcoming, Rann said. South Coast Plaza, for instance, offers Japanese-language store directories, and Yaohan supermarket in Costa Mesa sells everything from fresh mochi (steamed rice cakes) to umeboshi (pickled plums).

The TV cameras tend to show elegant Orange County homes, mostly in the beach cities. Once, Rann got a call from a Japanese TV viewer who wasn’t interested in the house, but wanted to buy the furniture.

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On a recent show, the camera opened with a long shot of the harbor in “Deina Pointo” (Dana Point), which, the announcer said, is a city by the sea, near San Diego.

The camera lingered on a peach-colored Mediterranean-style house, surrounded by palm trees. A jeans-clad man in his mid-30s opened the beveled-glass door to his $1.95-million house.

“Welcome to my home,” the American homeowner said in English. “Please come in.”

The homeowner, an international business lawyer, talked to an off-camera interviewer about the open feeling of his house. The camera panned his living room, zooming in on the plush forest-green couch and ocean view. If you lie down on the sofa, the announcer said, it’s like being in a dream.

Although that home didn’t sell, Phil Meyer had more success.

His 2,600-square-foot Irvine house sold after Japanese TV cameras taped a segment, with “all the pillows set just-so,” he said.

He figured TV would offer exposure without the inconvenience of an open house, in which “we’d have to figure out a way to occupy ourselves for eight hours on a Sunday or Saturday, and some people coming back three or four times and calling and making some outrageous demand and trying to knock you off your feet.

“It’d be different if they were showing it on [local TV] but this is on the other side of the world,” said Meyer, 46. “I thought it was somewhat adventurous. Everyone I know had sold their house more or less very traditionally, and this is an option I had not thought of.”

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The producers only want a certain type of house in a specific location--maybe a mansion outside New York City or a Colonial-style home in Chicago. Rann works on the producers’ requests, trying to track down Prudential agents nationwide who represent the type of homes they want.

After the shows air segments on Orange County homes, Rann usually gets two or three calls on her Japanese-language answering machine. Callers include retired couples who want an overseas vacation home near the beach or a businessman searching for a new family home because of a company transfer to Orange County. They ask about the schools. They want to know if a community is gated.

Sometimes, potential buyers fly out to look at a house featured on TV. One couple flew out to look at a $4.9-million house on the water in Newport Beach that they saw on TV, but then decided it was too big.

American home sellers usually aren’t disappointed if they don’t get an offer, Rann said. They get a kick out of the idea that families in Japan are gathered around the TV, looking at their home.

“These people living in $5-million homes--they want to feel special,” Rann said. “They want to feel, ‘I’m different.’ They can tell their friends, ‘My house was on the air in Japan!’ ”