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The Property Brothers are hot property in Singapore

SINGAPORE – HGTV’s Property Brothers, Jonathan and Drew Scott, had been in Singapore for only a day before scoring 12 marriage proposals.

TWICE THE FUN: Flipping homes and rejecting marriage proposals are all in a day's work for TV twins Drew and Jonathan Scott.

TWICE THE FUN: Flipping homes and rejecting marriage proposals are all in a day's work for TV twins Drew and Jonathan Scott.

SINGAPORE – HGTV’s Property Brothers, Jonathan and Drew Scott, had been in Singapore for only a day before scoring 12 marriage proposals.

Well, specifically, Jonathan received the proposals, because Drew brought his girlfriend with him (sorry, ladies). But the irresistible twins come as a pair: On Property Brothers, which has run for seven seasons, as well as their new show, Buying And Selling, they team up to help harried homeowners turn dilapidated dwellings into astounding abodes.

Drew is the spiffily-suited real estate agent who helps snap up houses for the best price, while Jonathan is the plaid-clad contractor making sledgehammers and safety goggles sexy again.

But they don’t dress differently just to make it easier for people to tell them apart. The 37-year-old Canadian brothers, despite being equally easy on the eye, have personalities as different as their wardrobes: Drew is meticulously organised with a colour-coordinated clothes rack, while Jonathan hates shopping so much, he steals his brother’s clothes.

It’s their first time in Singapore, but their fans have already descended upon them. “We’ve already got, like, 20 names on a list of people who want us to come and do their house. So, we could do a whole season here. Property Brothers: Singapore Edition,” quipped Drew, adding: “Do you think we could flip Marina Bay Sands? 4.5 billion? It’s pretty cool, though – I love the cruise boat feature on top.”

What else have local fans most commonly said to them? “Everyone says, ‘You’re so tall’. I think TV takes off a foot of height and adds on about 10 to 20 pounds,” mused Drew, who stands at 1.93 metres (Jonathan is three centimetres taller). “Everybody says, ‘You’re skinnier than I thought you were – and you’re a lot taller.’”

Things are much simpler for Jonathan, who just keeps hearing the same two little words over and over: “’Marry me’”. We Singaporeans sure do love our contractors. Phua Chu Kang, eat your heart out.

Q: You meet all kinds of homeowners in your line of work. What are some of the weirdest requests you’ve received?

Drew: You know, in Austin, Texas, the slogan is Keep Austin Weird. And people like really weird things in their gardens and for their landscape. We’ve had people who wanted mannequins half-buried upside down, so you have just the butt and the legs sticking out of the ground in their garden.

Jonathan: I had one client whose best friend lived in the house next door, and she wanted to have a tunnel underneath leading to the neighbouring house. I’m like, ‘What happens if you stop being friends with that person? That’s a lot of money wasted.’ Don’t be lazy. Just go outside.

Drew: What happens if you go and ask that person, ‘Hey, are you best friends?’ and they’re like, ‘Who’s this person?’

Q: Drew, do you ever get jealous that Jonathan gets to kick back in those plaid shirts while you’re always in a tie?

Drew: Hell, no. I never get jealous of Jonathan’s plaid shirts. I have a very large wardrobe. I have a lot of shoes.

Jonathan: I like to be comfortable when I fly – he will wear, like, a three-piece suit to fly. We’ll go camping, and he’ll show up in a tuxedo.

Drew: I dress comfortably. I sleep in my three-piece PJ suit. No, I have a lot of suits. Actually, we did this big renovation to our house… I’ve blown out the back of one of our garages and I’ve added 17 feet to my closet because I needed more shoe space.

Jonathan: I have eight pairs of shoes and that’s it. I spend so much time working that I have no time to go shopping for clothes.

Drew: You know what he used to do? He used to sneak in and steal my clothes.

Jonathan: Oh, I didn’t sneak in. I would go into his closet with my shopping cart and go, ‘Ooh, that looks nice, I’ll take that. And one of these.’

Drew: I’m a weirdo: Everything is organised and colour-coordinated. Everything is evenly placed in sections. And so, I would come into my closet and I would see hangers that had been slid from one side to another. I would see hangers with nothing on them. That’s how I would know he had been in my space, taking all these things.

Q: Now for some property-themed questions. Which of you has better “kerb appeal”?

Jonathan: I do more manscaping. Wait, what?

Drew: I don’t know, I think that’s in the eye of the beholder. People say they like a man in a suit. However, I find that more people like a man who likes to get his hands dirty. So, there are a lot of fans who message Jonathan. He gets marriage proposals daily on Twitter.

Jonathan: I’ve had about 12 Singapore marriage proposals since I’ve been here.

Drew: And also, Jonathan is known as ‘The Hair’ of the network. Everyone loves his hair. We’ve been on People Magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive list for the last two years in a row. But the funny thing is, they picked the 50 Sexiest Men, and the list has 51 people on it because they count us as one person. (Laughs)

Q: Who does better bedroom eyes?

Drew: You mean like, ooh (wiggles his eyebrows)? Obviously, me.

Jonathan: Drew used to claim, when we were in our early twenties, that ‘That girl just gave me dreamy eyes.’ And we were like, ‘What?’ And it’d just be someone walking by and just glancing.

Drew: He would always make fun of me, saying, ‘No, they didn’t.’ But then, what would happen? They would walk right back around and start talking to me. I’m like, ‘See? I told you.’ But um, I would have to say, I don’t know, I think I’ve got better dreamy eyes because I’m the one with a girlfriend, so it obviously worked.

Jonathan: Can you teach me how to do the dreamy eyes?

Drew: Don’t do it like this (wiggles his eyebrows). That’s called creepy eyes.

Q: Who packs everything but the kitchen sink when you travel?

Jonathan: Drew will travel with, like, 22 bags for an overnight trip.

Drew: I will point one thing out, though – we always do carry-on. But I am a pro at getting the largest carry-on bag that I can possibly take on a plane and packing as many pairs of shoes as possible—

Jonathan: And then arguing with the airline that it does fit.

Drew: Oh, yeah. I like to have options. This shoe (points at his left foot) is a bag on its own.

Q: Who has more bats in their belfry?

Drew: I’d say Jonathan’s the crazy one. He’s the kind of guy who will try everything once – and even a second time to make sure it’s something he shouldn’t do again.

Jonathan: 90 percent of what I say on our show is useless. What fun is life if you don’t keep it interesting?

Q: If you could “renovate” one thing about each other, what would it be?

Jonathan: His nose.

Drew: His hairy chest. Hmm, not the face, because I have to say, he’s got the best-looking face I’ve seen. Ever. (Whispers into the voice recorder) We’re twins!

Jonathan: I would change Drew’s always-too-serious business mode. We were in Paris and he took a conference call on top of the Eiffel Tower.

Drew: I had very good mobile reception, though. My girlfriend and I are the same – we’re workaholics, so a romantic evening for us is both of us on our mobile phones, sitting in bed.

Drew: I’d renovate Jonathan’s shirts. His plaid shirts. This one’s not bad, actually. This is his dressy shirt. But he has too many boring plaid contractor shirts. He’s getting better, though. Some of his shirts are getting more fitted. Some of them are more stylish.

Jonathan: Some of them are too fitted.

Drew: Some of them, I just find, are too contractor-y.

Jonathan: You know I am a contractor, right?

Drew: Now, I would say, 30 percent of his wardrobe or less is actually plaid.

Jonathan: Let’s talk about who has way more followers on social media. I think people like my style.

Drew: I’m not renovating your social media. I’m renovating your shirts. You know what I’ll do? I’m going to do this for the fans. I’m going to renovate his style on camera. No more plaid shirt. Jonathan will be shirtless, doing renovations. Slow-motion sledgehammering.

Jonathan: I’ll do more crunches.

Drew: We’re always really active on social media, with our fans. Even when we saw our fans here in Singapore at the meet-and-greet, they were posting on Instagram and Twitter… If they want to post pictures of their space and ask questions about how to renovate, by all means.

Jonathan: Or if they want to post pictures of themselves topless, with sledgehammers, I’ll reciprocate. No. We answer fan questions every single day, so we’d love to hear from them.

Catch the Property Brothers in their new show, Buying And Selling, from March 8, Sundays at 9pm on HGTV (StarHub TV Ch 437).

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