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Where do the ‘Real Housewives of Rhode Island’ live?
Real estate experts in Rhode Island give their take on how some of the Rhode Island’s cities and towns might translate into good reality TV.
In the Bravo universe, the real estate can be just as much a character as the iconic Real Housewives themselves. Consider that a point already shaping up by “Real Housewives of Rhode Island” (RHORI), debuting Thursday night. A sneak peek clip of the show opens with scenes of Providence and cast member Alicia Carmody’s all-white abode. Later in the trailer we enter Liz McGraw’s waterfront Cranston castle — complete with a suit of armor.
Home foreclosures are practically a regular plot point on the many iterations of the now-global Housewives franchise. But that’s only a small piece of the reality TV real estate pie. Who can forget the Garden State’s temple to onyx and marble where Teresa Giudice, longtime star of “Real Housewives of New Jersey,” resided in the show’s earlier seasons (before a prison stint in Connecticut). “Real Housewives of Atlanta” kept viewers hooked on the will-it/won’t-it materialize question of “Chateau Shereé” — cast member Shereé Whitfield’s suburban sanctuary that seemed to remain as elusive as her She by Shereé fashion line. More recently, former “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” cast member Lisa Rinna noted that nothing upset fellow ex-Housewife Lisa Vanderpump quite like the suggestion that her iconic Villa Rosa “looked like a disco.”
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So, it’s practically a foregone conclusion that the RHORI ladies — a cast helmed by Carmody, McGraw, Rosie DiMare, Ashley Iaconetti, Rulla Nehme Pontarelli, Kelsey Swanson, and Jo-Ellen Tiberi — will throw some shade at one another’s respective lairs. What will be said of the franchise’s first New England locale?
We reached out to real estate experts in Rhode Island to get their take on how some of the Rhode Island’s cities and towns might translate into good reality TV.
– NBC Universal
Cranston
If RHORI has a spiritual home base, it’s Cranston where several of the ladies were raised or now reside.
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“It’s going to be very residential with very much a mix of architecture,” said Bethany Eddy, Rhode Island native and chief of staff at Ricardo Rodriguez & Associates (a Coldwell Banker Realty-affiliated firm that expanded in recent years into the Rhode Island market).
Western Cranston in particular, she noted, offers slightly more land than its denser eastern counterpart — a dynamic that has drawn a new wave of construction alongside the area’s well-established neighborhoods.
Ricardo Rodriguez, who leads the firm, pointed to parcel size as a key distinction.
For buyers eyeing the RHORI zip codes on a budget, Eddy noted that Cranston offers some of the more accessible price points among the show’s primary filming communities.
Zillow lists the typical home value in Craston at $439,251. Homes on the market now range from listing prices of about $300,000 to $1.5 million.
East Greenwich and Newport
Reportedly home to Swanson, East Greenwich may be the show’s most cinematically ready backdrop for a dramatic dinner party or a loaded glance across a table at a waterfront restaurant.
“It’s a beautiful coastal New England community,” Eddy said. “Main Street runs through there with a beautiful, walkable downtown, shops, restaurants, and a really lovely waterfront.”
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She noted that the town offers a compelling architectural range: historic homes clustered near the waterfront downtown, with newer construction developments further out.
“It’s going to have more of that vibe like up north — like Kennebunkport,” he said. “It’s going to feel more like a village than maybe some of the other areas that are more purely residential.”
Among the show’s filming locations, Rodriguez and Eddy identified East Greenwich, Newport, and the East Side of Providence as the three aspirational anchors. But when the conversation turned to which municipality carries the most real estate prestige, the answer was immediate: Newport.
The show’s most-anticipated set piece isn’t a cast member’s home. Instead, it’s the privately owned Newport mansion Seaview Terrace, where the women descend for a weekend that Bravo promises will “rival the Gilded Age.”
Newport has been the standard bearer of American coastal luxury for well over a century, so why not give the enclave a little bit of drama that would make the Vanderbilts clutch their pearls?
“As far as luxury real estate is concerned — as far as coastal real estate is concerned — [Newport] is the gold standard,” Rodriguez said.
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According to Zillow, homes in East Greenwich carry a typical value of $776,458 and in Newport, $903,896. Homes on the market now in Newport range from listing prices of about $500,000 to a whopping $17.9 million.
The East Side of Providence
Production cameras have already been spotted on Wickenden Street in Fox Point, and anyone who has spent time on the East Side will not be surprised that Bravo found it camera-ready. The neighborhood, home to Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design, has long attracted a buyer profile that prizes walkability and cultural cachet over square footage.
“It’s the most urban of all the spaces,” Rodriguez said, reaching for a northern neighbor comparison: “It’s almost like a mix between the South End and the Back Bay.”
The proximity to the city’s best dining like Al Forno and its university energy give the East Side a valuation logic distinct from the show’s more suburban markets. The catch, as any buyer who has tried to crack it recently will attest, is inventory.
“It’s still a very competitive market [with] still low inventory,” Eddy said. “We’re definitely still seeing people coming in from the Boston area, because it’s very commutable.”
For transplants priced out of Boston proper, she added, Providence represents a compelling value proposition without the sacrifice of urban amenity.
Zillow lists the typical home value in Providence at $420,051. Homes on the market now in Providence range from listing prices of about $200,000 to $4 million.
North Kingstown, Lincoln, and Warwick
Not every RHORI address is a statement property. Rosie DiMare, the show’s former news anchor-turned-lifestyle host, calls North Kingstown home and starts the series in an over-the-garage apartment before trading up for a “sprawling dream home.” Financial planner Rulla Nehme Pontarelli lives in Lincoln, north of Providence. Additional reports indicate Warwick, perhaps best known to out-of-staters as the home of T.F. Green Airport, is also a filming location.
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Zillow lists the typical home value in Warwick at $404,953. Homes on the market now in Warwick range from listing prices of about $250,000 to $1.3 million.
Rodriguez and Eddy point to some of these locations as a market of pockets versus areas with a unified center a la East Greenwich.
“There’s some of that coastal influence and some inland as well — a mix of architecture,” Eddy noted of Warwick particularly.
Like Cranston, she noted, it represents one of the more accessible entry points among the show’s filming communities.
As for whether a Bravo camera crew rolling through these communities will move the real estate needle, Rodriguez is bullish.
“This cements Rhode Island as a bona fide real estate destination,” he said. “Luxury real estate is driven by lifestyle, and this is really going to feature that incredible diversity that you find in a place like Rhode Island.”
The show, he noted, takes its name from the state — not a city — which is itself a signal.
“It’s almost like they cast the towns,” Rodriguez said.
Let’s just hope nobody throws a wine glass during an open house.
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