Just like design itself, there’s no one-size-fits-all real estate show. Want an endless array of West Coast real estate luxury paired with a healthy serving of drama? There’s Selling Sunset for that — and its new spin-off, Selling the OC. Do you have a love for practical design and renovation? Dream Home Makeover or Instant Dream Home is your destination. Are you looking to spice up your life beyond switching out your rugs? How to Build a Sex Room wants to help. But all of these series’ best tips and tricks have been scattered across their respective realms... until now. We’ve asked the stars behind Netflix’s robust reality real estate lineup what it takes to find, design and sell the perfect home. Time to pull out the blueprints.

Finding a home
 

Pick an agent wisely. According to the Selling the OC cast, “trust” is the top quality you should be looking for in an agent. “This is someone that you are communicating with constantly throughout every single day — for quite some time,” realtor Lauren Shortt says. “You want someone first and foremost that has knowledge of the current local market, but also that you vibe with.” The entire crew agrees you’ll need at least 30 days to figure out if an agent is someone you can know, like and trust (the three must-haves in any client relationship for star Alex Hall). Once you have that relationship, agent Brandi Marshall begs you to simply “listen” to your agent.

Be open to the wild card house. You would assume picking a house should be fairly straightforward. Once you find a property that fulfills your wish list, you’re in love. Not always. “I’ve shown [clients] homes that check every single thing on their box, but it just didn’t feel right. You have to understand that vibe is a thing,” Lauren says. Her co-star and co-worker, Polly Brindle, adds, “That’s why it’s always fun to slip in a wild card, because sometimes that’s the vibe they actually want. They just walk in and they’re like, ‘This is it!’ ” In fact, that’s how Lauren once sold a house with an indoor pool.

Think beyond the house. “Focus on the value of the land when you’re buying a house,” Selling the OC boss Jason Oppenheim recommends. Meanwhile, Brandi reminds you to avoid “buying a place with zero parking at all.” No one wants to circle the block after work.

But have some boundaries. It’s OK to have a few immediate no’s. Like, say, the “confusing” and “tacky” house Selling the OC agent Sean Palmieri once toured that was filled with statues. Or the very, um, unique property shown to Alex Hall by a prospective client. “This guy, with probably a $10 million house, had pictures of him — just him, a married guy — nude on the beach. With a hard-on. In all the photos,” she recalls. “I’m thinking, ‘Who took these?’ They were professional photos at a beach that I’ve been to.” Brandi has also glimpsed this now infamous abode. Let’s just say they both politely passed on the property.

Look for entertaining space. While Selling Sunset and Selling the OC star Brett Oppenheim jokes “$20 million” is the secret to obtaining a beautiful home, his co-stars instead say it’s all about focusing on the spaces you’ll gather in. High ceilings are a must for Selling the OC agent team Alexandra Rose and Alexandra Jarvis; they, along with the rest of the cast, also prioritize an open floor plan and natural light. “The kitchen is part of your living space so you’re cooking and you’re making drinks, but you also have that living space,” OC agent and dad Austin Victoria says. “You have the doors to the outside. Kids can run outside.” If a home has a gorgeous kitchen but it’s closed off from the backyard or living room, Alex Hall says “it might as well not be there.”

When it comes to the outside entertainment space, the group has a few wish-list items. Agent Gio Helou recommends a fire pit, barbeque, room for a large TV, surround sound and “a fridge too so you don’t have to be trekking up and down to the kitchen.”

Decorating a home
 

Find your design voice. Starting the design process is daunting. If you aren’t sure what your taste is just yet, Dream Home Makeover couple Shea and Syd McGee recommend starting to simply save “a bunch” of design photos that speak to you on Pinterest. “Shea would look at that and be like, ‘What’s the common theme across those? What elements are you liking?’ ” Syd says of his wife’s process. “It’s like, ‘You sent me 15 photos, and they all had this in them.’ You might not have realized it, but that’s a note to take of ‘OK, that’s something I’m drawn to,’ ” Shea explains.

Design a long-lasting kid’s room. Transitioning a baby’s room into a kid’s room might not seem easy. But Shea has figured out how to make the process as painless as possible. “We can make the room feel youthful. But let’s choose things that aren’t so trendy that we’re going to get tired of them in five years. Because kids grow up fast,” she says. “We want to be able to swap that crib out for a bed and nightstands, without having to scrape wallpaper off of the walls.” Shea created an example of such a room in her own home in Dream Home Makeover Season 3, Episode 4, as she prepared to welcome her third daughter. As kids grow — and therefore want more of a say in their space — Shea says to give them “lots of options. But good options,” and let them pick from there.

Create “luxurious” spaces — including a sex room. How to Build a Sex Room mastermind Melanie Rose says a few important elements make a great sex room: ambience lighting, lovely linens and “sumptuous and beautiful” pillows. “Go that extra step of luxury if you can, and comfort,” she advises. “I’m a pillow whore. So I like to have a bed that looks as if you just want to jump into it — hopefully with your partner.” Melanie even ensured that extra bit of “luxury” was included in Episode 5’s polycule sex room with the velvet wall panels.

Get out of your comfort zone. While creating a sex room, Melanie says communication is key between partners. “Talk to each other! Just talk about, ‘This is what I would like to try, are you up for it?’ ” she recommends. “As a woman, I would certainly look at vibrators. If it’s a couple, definitely look at toys you can interact with each other. You don’t want one person to feel they’re having all the excitement.” Melanie also says to go “balls to the wall” and experiment as much as your boundaries allow, including some adult material perusal. “There’s nothing wrong with porn either,” she reminds everyone.

Learn how to (really) budget. When designing — whether it’s updating the decor of a room or starting a major renovation — budget is key. If you’re dealing with a smaller budget for a room refresh, Dream Home Makeover’s Shea says to “splurge” on integral items. For example, she says that when tackling a living room, “Buy a good quality sofa so it sits comfortably.” Then feel free to pick up an “inexpensive rug that has a beautiful pattern on it” to tie the room together.

When it comes to a bigger renovation project, Shea’s husband, Syd, says to get “a couple of different bids from contractors you feel good about” to understand the “reality” of what your design dreams could cost. “Because that might just cause you to scale back,” he explains. You may think you could have five rooms with your current budget, Shea says, and you could decide “I’m going to start with these two. These are the main spaces that I use the most. This is where I live the most and entertain. I’ll start there.” One McGee hack to keeping costs down is choosing your materials before speaking to contractors. “It’s a lot of legwork up front,” Shea says — but it pays off.

Selling a home

Make your home anyone’s home. When preparing to list your property, Selling the OC’s Brett says to “​​make it as turnkey as possible.” That means staging it with plants, candles and anything else that will make prospective buyers “feel like they’re already living there.” Selling the OC agent Kayla Cardona recommends ensuring you have the “right-sized furniture” to show how big a space is, while Gio always has a Bluetooth speaker on hand to create the right kind of musical ambience during a showing. “There’s nothing worse for me than just a quiet cricket room,” he says.

As his boss, Jason, concludes, “Don’t leave anything to the imagination.”