Fans of the HGTV series "House Hunters" might have recognized a local couple on a recent episode.
The show featured Dr. Rink and Kristi Murray, who moved into a 3,400-square-foot white cottage in Lookout Mountain, Tenn., in September 2016. The episode documenting their home search debuted in May and is expected to air again this month.
The show takes viewers behind the scenes as prospective buyers tour three homes and decide on the one that best meets their criteria.
Murray says he and his wife looked for months but found fewer than five homes on the mountain that they both liked.
On the show, the couple worked with longtime Realtor Katherine Smith to find three homes they both agreed to see. The also-rans were on Sylvan Drive and on the brow on Scenic Highway.
They chose a tucked-away white cottage on Highland Avenue.
"It's a little gem," he says.
"We picked this house because we loved the privacy and the lot and just the style," says Kristi Murray.
They rejected the other two because only the Highland Avenue home offered a house where the couple's 10-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son could have their own bathrooms.
Kristi Murray applied to HGTV nearly two years ago, with her attention focused on another show.
At that time, she had her heart set on a home that needed major work. She says her husband was concerned because the house appeared to have structural damage. But she thought they could make repairs and renovations that would make the house more valuable.
She had hopes of getting on "Property Brothers," a show in which the hosts, brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott, oversee the purchase and remodeling of a fixer-upper. But she never heard back from anyone.
It was at least 18 months later, she says, that she got a call asking if she wanted to be on "House Hunters."
Producers asked her to send in a tape of herself. And Smith, her Realtor, recorded herself showing a house. They sent the videos in and were approved for the show.
The premise for each episode of "House Hunters" is that viewers go along with the potential buyers to see the three houses in contention. The viewers often have a favorite, or think they can guess which will most appeal to the buyers, and the buyers' final decision is revealed at the end of the episode.
It took about a week to film the selection process as the Murrays toured the three chosen houses. The crew returned three weeks later to film the family in their new home.
Besides private baths for the Murrays' two children, the new home gave them lots of yard space and the shade of 27 soaring oak trees.
"It's picturesque," says Rink Murray of the $718,000 home.
One of its best qualities is the space it has for entertaining, he says.
It has a spacious yard, front and back, and many of the rooms have doors to the outside. When all the doors are open, the house becomes one large space.
The property also gives Kristi Murray an opportunity to use her renovation skills because they want to add on a couple of bedrooms and baths for guests.
On "House Hunters," the featured couple select their own Realtor and pay for the home. So the biggest incentives to being on the show is marketing yourself on TV and having fun, the Murrays say.
"How many times in your life are you going to have a chance to do something different like that," says Kristi Murray, a financial adviser at Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc.
The buyer gets a small stipend, adds Rink Murray, a local reproductive endocrinologist. But there are risks, he says, because there is plenty of footage and no control over the editing.
"There were two themes that emerged while they were interviewing [us]," he says. "One was I didn't really want to move."
"House Hunters" also could have told the story of how Kristi Murray had a hard time finding enough closet space or how the family moved so much because she enjoyed fixing up and then moving out of houses, he says.
The Murrays estimate their family relocates every two years. Their Realtor says she has shown them at least 100 houses over the years.
Rink Murray says he wanted to be on "House Hunters" to showcase Lookout Mountain and so people could see how nice Chattanooga is.
The couple agree that "House Hunters" offered a great depiction of the Chattanooga area. And everyone on the show was portrayed well, Rink Murray says.
Smith, of The Mountain Girls team of Keller Williams Greater Downtown Realty, says the show also increased her visibility as a Realtor.
And it was the fastest the Murrays ever moved to get into a house since everything needed to be settled before the production crew returned to film the follow-up footage.
Kristi Murray called on friends to borrow lamps and furniture. One friend who makes furniture provided a wooden dining room table to be featured in the house for the show. She liked the table so much she purchased it.
Contact Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.