Stoneham Home to be Featured on House Hunters

If you are a fan of HGTV's House Hunters, you won't want to miss an episode in April. Reading residents Rocco and Christina DiRico will be featured on the hit show with Principal Broker from Colonial Manor Realty Rick Nazzaro. The couple will look at a home in Stoneham and two in Reading.

According to Nazzaro, the show contacted him and asked for an audition tape. 

"I thought it would be a fun experience," he said. "So my wife taped me showing my own house."

Producers of the show liked Nazzaro's 10-minute video, and asked him to find a buyer in the process of finding a new home. Nazzaro though of the DiRico's, and they sent along an audition tape as well.

HGTV thought they were perfect candidates for the show, and they sent a director and camera crew out in January to film the episode. The couple was looking for a home with an in-law apartment and in a family-friendly neighborhood. They both work in Boston, so something close to the highway was also on their list.

The director and film crew met the DiRico's at their current home and filmed them playing with their kids and other day-to-day activities, “to get a sense of who they are as a family,” Nazzaro said.

Then the camera crew filmed Nazzaro showing them three different houses in a three-day period. Two of the houses were in Reading, 11 Melbourne Ave. and 154 Sanborn Lane. The other home was in Stoneham, 3 Gigante Drive.

Each day took about seven hours of filming, Nazzaro said. Every scene had to be filmed several times in different ways. 

"At the time, I never would have thought that we needed to be in one house for an eight hour period," he said.

The show was not scripted, but “they would ask us to elaborate on our own points a little bit,” he explained.

The episode was sponsored by Mazda and they provided a vehicle for the buyers to drive for the weekend. A lot of the shots incorporated the car, Nazzaro said. 

They filmed about 50 hours for a 22 minute show, he told Patch. There is one more scene to shoot: the couple in their new house. That will happen at the end of February.

"It's a nice opportunity for Reading to be highlighted on a national level,” Nazzaro said.

The episode will air in April, watch to see which home the DiRico's chose.