One way to get your first step onto the property ladder is to renovate a rundown auction property with a complete stranger within a set deadline and have it filmed and then broadcast to the nation on Channel 4.
It might seem a bit extreme but that's exactly what house hunters experience when they apply for and are accepted to appear on Channel 4's The Great House Giveaway, presented by Simon O'Brien, the property developer and actor that some people might know from the 1980s Channel 4 soap Brookside and more recently Coronation Street.
And once selling fees, buying costs, and the renovation budget has been taken from the eventual sales price the participants split the profit. However, as the programme now in its third series reveals, not every episode ends in money and happy renovators.
