By Luis Arellano
Palm Beach power broker and Passport Properties™ creator Billy Nash on why scripted property TV feels tired — and what comes next
For more than a decade, real estate television has relied on a familiar formula: big drama, bigger commissions and agent conflict scripted for the camera. Homes became backdrops, brokers became characters, and the communities around them were reduced to scenery. The recent reaction to the lifestyle and real estate reality series Members Only: Palm Beach suggests the formula may finally be losing its grip.
Much of the backlash has come from Palm Beach residents themselves, who have criticized what they see as a sensationalized portrayal of their town — particularly as the series was not filmed on Palm Beach Island itself. Their response reflects something broader than local frustration: a growing discomfort with how real places are sidelined into entertainment sets.
It’s not the first sign of fatigue in the genre. From the long-running Million Dollar Listing franchise that’s been canceled, to glossy shows like Selling Sunset that feel more like a runway for Paris Fashion Week and its global spin-offs, real estate TV has become increasingly caught in a loop.
The locations change, but the storylines don’t. Rivalries, scripted confrontations, and luxury excess have come to define these shows more than architecture, culture, history, or place. It’s become stagnant.
Netflix’s Buying London—positioned as a sophisticated European counterpoint—struggled to gain traction, ending after a single season. The issue wasn’t production value, but credibility. Viewers could sense the scripting, and it undermined trust.
For Palm Beach’s luxury real estate power broker Billy Nash, the mixed reaction to Members Only isn’t about one show failing to land — it’s about an entire genre reaching saturation point.
“People aren’t rejecting real estate television,” Nash says. “They’re rejecting repetition. When every show relies on the same manufactured drama, audiences stop believing what they’re seeing.”
That belief led Nash to create Passport Properties, a 9-episode, truly unscripted hour-long international docuseries conceived as a deliberate departure from the commission-driven, dramatized model.
Filmed across North Africa and Europe — including Morocco, Portugal, France, Spain, the UK, Croatia, and Florence, Puglia, Sardinia, Italy — the series approaches property as a lens into culture, history, and the lives of the communities that shape it.
Rather than centering on agents, Passport Properties focuses on the people who live in these homes and the communities around them. Nash spends time with chefs, artisans, historians, and locals, exploring why places matter beyond their price tags and what it would be like to live there.
“Audience appetite hasn’t disappeared for real estate content,” he explains. “People want context. They want to understand how a home fits into a community, a landscape, a way of living.”
Escapism, he acknowledges, has always been part of real estate television’s appeal. Shows like Members Only offer glimpses into rarefied worlds of wealth and beauty. But Nash argues that authenticity doesn’t undermine escapism — it deepens it.
“We lean in when something is real,” he says. “When authentic storytelling respects its surroundings, it becomes more immersive. Passport Properties is for dreamers — people who can imagine themselves living in these extraordinary places.”
The experience of filming Passport Properties reinforced that idea. Real homes and real communities, Nash argues, offer a richer form of escape — one built on curiosity, trust, and human connection. As scripted formats begin to feel tired, the future of real estate television appears ripe for reinvention — not louder drama, but quieter confidence.
“I’ve seen and have access to the world’s best homes. They’re not ‘members only.’ What makes them extraordinary is the people and stories behind them,” concludes Nash.
Passport Properties is scheduled for release in 2026 and is distributed exclusively by Blue Ant Media.
