Lawyerly Lairs: A Finnegan Associate's Televised House Hunt

Last week, we mentioned that D.C. lawyer Chris Chan was going to be featured on My First Place, on HGTV. The episode aired last Thursday — and, for those of you who missed it, it will re-air on Tuesday, May 11.

Here’s a brief blurb, from HGTV, about the episode:

For Chris Chan, buying a home in Chinatown would allow him to stay close to work in Washington D.C. and also stay connected to his heritage in a neighborhood he grew to love as a renter. After a long search in this expensive city and some tough negotiating, he finally gets a good deal on his dream condo. But surprise lending restrictions on new construction bring everything to a halt. For months, the only thing Chris can do is wait and wonder whether he’ll ever get to close on his first place.

We chatted with Chan, a patent prosecutor and litigator at Finnegan, about his experience appearing on television….

ATLcolor>: So, tell us a bit about the show.

CCcolor>: The show is called My First Place. It basically follows a first-time home buyer around and documents the process of looking for places, going through the negotiation process, doing the home inspection, and finally moving into the house. It’s meant to offer viewers a taste of a particular city – in my case, DC.

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They’ve done 14 seasons. This is, to my knowledge, the first time they’ve done DC. They use DC loosely and this season includes episodes in the DC suburbs — northern Virginia and Maryland. According to my producer, mine was the only one actually shot in DC.

In my episode, I consider two different properties. I place an offer on one of those places. There’s a heated negotiation over price. Near the end, there’s a hang-up with a federal regulation, which provides that Fannie Mae will guarantee mortgages in new condo developments — like mine — only if 70 percent of the units are sold or under contract.

ATLcolor>: What did you think of the episode?

CCcolor>: It was definitely entertaining. I had a bunch of my friends over to watch it. It’s typical HGTV cheese – not great television, but quite amusing. It’s interesting — they shot maybe 20 to 30 hours of footage, over about two months, and condensed it down to 25 minutes.

ATLcolor>: So I suppose the editing makes a difference?

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CCcolor>: Yes. They can put a lot of different spins on it, through the editing. In my case, some stuff was out of sequences, and a lot of stuff was cut. But for the most part it was fair.

When they’re doing the shoot, it’s done “for real” the first time, and then they have you retake it and retake it. For example, your initial reaction might be to curse at something, but that’s now allowed on TV. So then you have to retake it. You can’t even say the word “sucks” on HGTV, so I had to use a lot of PG adjectives.

ATLcolor>: What gave you the idea to be on the show?

CCcolor>: I actually don’t watch much TV. A friend of mine happened to apply for the show because she watches HGTV all the time and you get a “gift” at the end of the episode. This friend got accepted by the program, but she couldn’t be featured because the timing didn’t work out. The DC housing market moves pretty quickly and she found a place and had to move on it right away. But the show needs a little ramp-up time, to cover the buyer’s backstory and reactions to various points in the process.

When she told me this, I reached out to her producer and volunteered to take her spot. I had to fill out an online form. The main questions were about how serious you are about buying a place. I had been looking for a house for a while, so I was pretty serious. They also sent a film crew over to do a pre-screening video interview to see if I was “fit for TV.”

ATLcolor>: Did you run this by the powers that be at your firm?

CCcolor>: HGTV actually asked to film in my office. The firm thought about it and said no. So we ended up filming at a local coffee shop, a rock climbing gym, a local pool, a Chinese noodle shop, and my old apartment in Chinatown. They also had me walking around Chinatown in general. They were really big on the Asian theme. The place I purchased is very close to Chinatown.

ATLcolor>: What kind of reactions have you gotten?

CCcolor>: Mostly positive. Lots of friends have come out of the woodwork, high school and college friends, who have sent me e-mails or posted on my Facebook Wall about it.

ATLcolor>: Do you plan any other forays into TV?

CCcolor>: I’d love to do something like this again. It was a great experience. I also had a small, random cameo in a documentary on PBS about Cleveland [where I went to law school]. But, this was much more fun. I definitely enjoy the public speaking aspects, and besides, any coverage is good coverage!

Chinatown Featured On HGTV Tonight [Penn Quarter Living]
Upcoming episode of HGTV’s My First Place features the ‘hood [The Traingle]
Occupancy Rules Keep Occupancy Down [HGTV – My First Place]