ITV is banking on a home-grown version of smash hit Australian property show The Block, billed as a cross between Big Brother and Changing Rooms, for summer ratings success.
The show will pit four couples against each other as they compete to make the most money from their identical Brighton flats.
The Block was so popular in Australia it beat Big Brother in the ratings and ITV is hoping the UK version, made by RDF Media, the producer of Faking It and Wife Swap, will have a similar effect.
In the show, the couples all move into their apartments at the same time with little more than the clothes they are wearing.
Over 12 weeks they will each be given £15,000 and compete to redesign, renovate and redecorate their temporary homes. The flats will be auctioned to the highest bidder in the grand final.
The winning couple will pick up a cash prize - in Australia they received £40,000 - and all the contestents get to keep any profit they make on the original value their flats.
The couples taking part in The Block have to continue with their day jobs and must carry out the renovations in the evenings and at weekends.
The late nights, hard work and the fact the four couples are all living together in the same apartment building helped make The Block one of the most talked about Australian TV programmes of last year.
A second series is already in production in Australia and the first has also been shown in more than a dozen countries, including South Africa, the Netherlands and Sweden.
The rights to make domestic versions of the show have also proved popular with production companies around the world. Fremantle Media made the programme in the US for Fox.
The public's appetite for property programmes shows no sign of abating, reflecting the national obsession with house prices and home improvement.
A string of property shows has given Channel 4 a ratings fillip, with Grand Designs, Location, Location, Location and Property Ladder attracting more than 4 million viewers.
Channel Five has also got in on the act with House Doctor, Dream Holiday Home and Hot Property, all watched by between 1 million and 2 million viewers.
On BBC2 The Million Pound Property Experiment was one of channel's biggest hits of last year.
The show, in which designers Justin Ryan and Colin McAllister tried to convert £100,000 into £1m by working their way up the property ladder, was watched at its peak by more than 4 million viewers.
The show's success resulted in the duo being poached by Five's Ben Frow, who became known as "Mr Property" for commissioning a string of hits while at Channel 4.
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