Duff says producers had their choice of locations in which to film, and she's proud that the Bay Area won out, especially considering the stiff competition.

"It was between the Bay Area and Hawaii, and we beat out Hawaii," she says.

Producers located the Duff and Holt agency, which works out of the California Properties/GMAC brokerage at 6155 Almaden Expressway, through the agency's website last March, and contacted the pair. Holt, a Willow Glen resident, says she believes the amount of energy they put into their phone call to producers made a huge impression, but what sold the producers on bringing the show to Silicon Valley was their audition tape.

House Hunters, which follows a family as they sell their existing home and hunt for a new one, is based out of Los Angeles and usually focuses on buyers from Southern California. Because of its popularity with viewers, show producers last year received a budget for six "traveling" shows.

Normally, Holt says, the show locates agents and then matches pre-approved homebuyers with the agents. In this case, the agents had their own buyers: the Lieberman family, who recently relocated from Cupertino to Belmont. It's the first time the show has used existing clients of the agents featured in the show, Holt says.

The Liebermans, Ebon and Linda, wanted a new house with a ready-to-use basement family room and a more diverse neighborhood for their children, high school freshman Abbie and junior high student Elliott, to grow up in, Holt says.

There was a bit of television magic involved in the purchase, Duff says. The show appears to follow potential homebuyers as they tour three different properties and film them as they make their decision, make an offer and have their bid accepted. It also returns to the buyers a few months later to show any upgrades they made and how the new home works for them.

However, Duff says, in order to avoid the chance that buyers may not find anything they're looking for that a bid is refused, in reality the buyers have already chosen their home, had their bid accepted, and are in escrow. During the two to three days of filming, the agent and buyers revisit the home they have already purchased and role-play the process.

Holt, who was the agent who guided the tours, says the easy part of the experience was the talking; however, she was surprised at how much work filming the episode required. A noisy motorcycle, low-flying plane, or technical difficulty with the film crew would force multiple retakes of scenes.

House Hunters returned several months later to see how the family is doing in its new home. Though the family purchased its new home in August, film crews revisited the family in November.

"The owners wanted to remodel the kitchen in the Belmont home," Duff says.

Even though the episode featuring Duff and Holt isn't set to air until late February, the added attention has already made a difference in the agency's business.

"It seems like we're getting an increase in our phone calls. Things have picked up quite a bit," Ron Capp, broker and owner of California Properties/GMAC, says.

Both agents agree that it's been an "unbelievable opportunity" to be on television.

"GMAC Real Estate corporate advertises heavily on HGTV," Holt says. "It's really great to be able to give back to them."