Selling our life to 70 million

A Sydney film crew shoots a scene of Chris Allen from Hang Loosa Property with his daughter Amy Allen and her friends Carmel Lewis and Grace Stamnas.

John Mccutcheon

Noosa’s new celebrity real estate agent Chris Allen has always sold the special lifestyle he fell in love with as a visitor.

But now thanks to a couple of South African clients, Chris will be selling Noosa’s charms to a likely American audience of 70 million people as a television reality show realtor on the cable ratings runaway House Hunters International.

Episodes of HHI are top five viewing in the US as they trace the journey of newcomers arriving in a foreign land, looking for that fresh start via a new roof over their heads.

It was South African couple Shaun and Carol Cairns who suggested that Chris, co-owner of Hang Loosa Property Noosa in Tewantin, audition to be a part of their Aussie odyssey. Shaun is an experienced hand at television production, while Carol has international modelling experience, so their telegenic qualities were hardly in doubt.

When they arrived in Noosa to make a new life, they liked what they saw in Chris and the funky Hang Loosa Kombi van and climbed on board.

But Chris, who had worked in tourism bringing Japanese tours to Australia before falling in love with Noosa and making a permanent move, was not sure if he was TV material.

So they shot a five-minute demo and sent it off to the show’s New York bosses.

Chris said he heard nothing back until a sudden call to say HHI wanted to send a team and shoot a Noosa episode the first week in January.

The whole episode is being handled by Kin Kin’s Anita Poteri Auckland of Itchy Feet Media, who is the producer in Australia for HHI. It has now been shot this week and is “in the can” by a Sydney film crew working for US production company Leopard.

“Chris has been an absolute delight to work with and had all the right lines when the camera was rolling,” Anita said.

“We filmed mother of two Carol in her home land in the South African mountains to the family’s huge move to beautiful Tewantin.”

On Tuesday morning Chris was being tailed by the film crew at Main Beach, showing him dropping off his daughter Amy and her friends Carmel and Grace for a spot of holiday surfing. An international audience will see Chris go all out to find the right place to settle down for Shaun and Carol, with a house inspection on Noosa North Shore, a look at a Cooroibah property before filming what was a successful Tewantin house auction.

“They (the Cairns) are like so many people who come to live in Noosa – they came here on their honeymoon and fell in love with the place,” Chris said.

He said the crew was rushing their shoots back to the US for editing and eventual broadcasting on cable, and he hoped the show would eventually be picked up by Australian pay TV.

Anita expects the show to air in the US at the end of January. On Wednesday morning she was flying out to film the usual highs and lows that go with shifting house, only magnified by shifting countries, of a New Zealand man who has bought a house in Port Douglas.