Real estate agent takes couple on search for a home on island
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK
Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY — The producers of HGTV’s “Beachfront Bargain Hunt” shot an episode of the series in Ocean City in September 2019 that was released on the cable channel’s streaming service discovery+ on Feb. 2.
Young parents Cody and Ceiara Panetta, both 30, along with children Brody, 10, Savannah, 5, and Mason, 2, are featured in the episode as they search for a year-round home on the island.
“We recently got the information that it aired, so that was pretty exciting,” Cody Panetta said last week, noting that the network broadcast several episodes of Season 28 live and reserved the rest for release on discovery+.
“Ours was one of the ones they chose to hold onto, obviously because Ocean City is the best,” he said.
Real estate agent Brian Logue, of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, Fox & Roach Realtors, said HGTV approached him about shooting an episode in the city, asking if he had a buyer at a certain price point. He said he had recently met the Panettas, who were selling their home in Medford Lakes to move to the city.
“Their agent contacted me to represent them down here. So, I drove up to Medford Lakes to meet them one day and I walked in their house where they had just completed a renovation. After the initial niceties, I said, ‘So, I guess you think you are Joanna Gaines (co-star of the hit HGTV show “Fixer Uppers”). She said ‘Oh, my God, I love that show and it would be a dream come true to be on HGTV someday.’
“So when I got the phone call from the casting people, I reached out to her and said, ‘Hey, when we first met you said it would be a dream come true to be on HGTV. ‘So, do you want to do it?’ That’s how it all started,” Logue said.
Opportunity brings family to the region
Cody Panetta had worked for Texas Roadhouse for about 10 years when he was offered an opportunity to buy in and open a restaurant in Egg Harbor Township, where he is now managing partner. He described the business as a corporate mom and pop.
“It’s not fine dining but everything is made from scratch,” Panetta said, noting that every steak is cut in-house and is the same prime choice beef that customers will find at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse but at a much lower price. “We take less margin of profit.”
Panetta said the company gave him just 24 hours to make a decision.
The Panettas had been flipping houses in their hometown for a few years, living in them while they fixed them up, and had settled into one where they had planned to stay. That’s when he got the offer.
“We had just finished flipping our dream house in Medford Lakes,” he said.
When he told his wife, whom he described as “an Ocean City girl,” she looked at a map and said, “that’s pretty close to Ocean City.”
So, he took the offer and began the process of finding a new home.
“We had to sell our single-family home to buy into this, so Ocean City was a no-brainer to move to,” he said.
Panetta and his wife were students at Shawnee, where they were high school sweethearts, he said, but always had close ties to the beach.
Panetta’s parents own a home in Long Beach Island, where he spent summers surfing and living the beach lifestyle, and his wife’s family has owned homes in Ocean City for decades, making it the perfect fit.
Logue said the couple was looking to see what they could get in the city that fit their budget, adding that they focused on year-round locations rather than something in the Southend.
Logue said they looked at multiple properties but only three were featured on the show: the middle unit of a triplex in the 800-block neighborhood, a second-floor condominium on the 300 block of Asbury Avenue and a single-family cottage on West Avenue.
“They wanted something they could put their own touch on,” Logue said.
At the same time, Panetta was working to open the restaurant. He was hoping for a January start, but the coronavirus pandemic delayed that until July 2020. Even then the eatery opened under state restrictions for gathering and indoor dining.
“We were the first Texas Roadhouse to ever open with no dining room,” he said, noting that the restaurant was well-received.
Family, agent enjoyed process
Panetta said being renovators, he and his wife are big fans of HGTV.
“We are always watching HGTV, so it was pretty awesome to be able to do it, and at a local shore town was even cooler,” Panetta said.
He said the production process was a lot of fun. The crew followed the family around for three days.
“Literally from morning to night they followed us around for a few days, filmed us in our element. It was very real — a lot of that stuff I know gets scripted — they really just let us do our normal thing and it was all homes we actually had looked at when we were looking,” he said. “They wanted us to be ourselves, so there were many times when we had to regroup because you get nervous but the crew is amazing and honestly I thought the entire process was pretty natural.”
He said in addition to filming in some of the homes they looked at, the crew shot the family at other locations.
“They got us at the beach, they got us at the parks. We went over to the rides and stuff. They really showed Ocean City to be a family community,” Panetta said.
The family wanted to buy a single but most of those in their budget needed extensive work.
“We really wanted something that was more turn-key so I didn’t have a lot of projects. We could get into something and enjoy the outside living versus worrying about the inside,” Panetta said. “We really were open because you are there to be outdoors, so that’s what we were looking for the most.”
Logue said there was a casting interview for him and another for the Panettas “to see if we were good on film.” They then began the shooting.
“It was a ball, a lot of fun,” Logue said. “It was fun getting used to a camera watching your every move; walking around with a microphone on was kind of different. Driving around with like seven cameras in the car, that was different.”
Logue called the family “total naturals.”
“When you see them, they are just like made for TV. They are so good at it. The way you see them on this is exactly who they are in everyday life,” Logue said.
He said the Panettas were perfect for the show.
“These guys are just adorable, the perfect little all-American family,” he said. “They could be on the Ocean City visitor guide cover, they are so adorable.”
The family eventually bought a 1,137-square-foot home on the 300 block of Asbury Avenue, something they said completely changed their lives.
“We know probably this is the best decision we have every made, just from a community standpoint, being so close to the beach and seeing the kids less on the inside activities that they used to do and doing everything outside. Every single day we have been up at the beach or on the boardwalk. It has completely changed our style of living,” Panetta said.
Brody is now a fourth-grader at Ocean City Intermediate School and Savannah is in kindergarten, while Mason has a few years to go before entering the school district.
Logue said the show highlights a lot of what’s great about the city.
“I look at it like a 22-minute ad for Ocean City on national TV,” Logue said. “We share all the great things about Ocean City. It just gets the word out about town. In the middle of COVID and the middle of winter, I think for a lot of people it’s something to warm them up and make them think of happier times enjoying the beach down here instead of what mask you’re wearing or when you are getting the vaccine,” Logue said.