December 23, 2025
Craig Lerch/RSN/YouTube
Craig Lerch, real estate agent and host of the new series 'Selling 215,' is filming across the Philadelphia region to showcase the city's lifestyle, culture and local businesses. The series is one of several produced by Real Shows Network, which feature agents leading viewers around their markets.
Philadelphia's trend line as one of the hottest metro areas to buy and rent homes was reaffirmed this month by Zillow's year-end ranking of the most popular markets in the United States.
On a list dominated by small towns in the Midwest, Philly came in at No. 19 as the only major U.S. city to crack the top 20. The median home value in the city stood at about $230,000 in November, according to Zillow's figures, and the U.S. Federal Reserve put the median list price for the entire metro area at $370,000. Nationally, the Fed's median list price for U.S. homes stood at about $415,000 last month.
While much of the interest in Philly has been driven by its comparative affordability next to other big cities — especially on the East Coast — longtime real estate agent Craig Lerch thinks the region's growing appeal also is a reflection of its people and traditions.
"Philly is rare," Lerch said. "We have grit, passion, love and history."
Lerch is the host of "Selling 215 — Made in Philly," a new series that debuted last month on Real Shows Network. The platform gives real estate agents runway to showcase their markets in 30-minute episodes available online and broadcast locally. The network is a spinoff of Ignite Now Media, the company founded by San Diego entrepreneur Craig Sewing, who hosts "The American Dream TV" series that streams on major platforms and airs on networks including HGTV, Travel Channel and CNBC.
Lerch's show is one of more than a dozen now produced by RSN, including series based in Chicago, Houston, Nashville and the Silicon Valley. The series will debut new episodes on Philly 57 before they are posted on YouTube and streaming platforms.
"I'm an SOB. I'm a son of a broker who's been doing it for 36 years and sold more than 4,000 homes,"Lerch said. "'Selling 215' is showing the city of Philadelphia, the character and the feel of the neighborhoods people want to live in. It's about the real estate and the lifestyle — the value we have."
In the first episode of the series, Lerch takes viewers inside a luxury condo on the 43rd floor of the Laurel in Rittenhouse, to the Renaissance Estates town homes in South Philly's Packer Park neighborhood and inside Stephen Starr's new Italian restaurant Borromini on Rittenhouse Square. He also visits the Italian Market, stops by Angelo's Pizzeria to chat with owner Danny DiGiampietro and pays a visit to John's Water Ice to interview third-generation owner Anthony Cardullo.
At Borromini, Lerch talks with developer and former City Councilmember Allan Domb, who had a major role in transforming Rittenhouse Square in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Domb bought the former Barclay Hotel, converting the 22-story building into custom luxury condos, and later partnered with Starr to open the steakhouse Barclay Prime on the ground floor. The pair worked together again to renovate the former Barnes & Noble bookstore on Rittenhouse Square and open Borromini.
"Today, if we look at the assessed values of real estate just surrounding the square, (it's) $3.7 billion," Domb says in the episode.
Lerch, who's based in Jenkintown, branched out as an agent in the years after the 2008 recession ravaged his family brokerage. He said he felt "stuck in a snow globe" only selling in one ZIP code, so he decided to join eXp Realty as a way to expand business. The publicly traded real estate company, founded in 2009, lets agents work virtually across state lines with other agents in a revenue-sharing model that rewards recruitment and networking.
Lerch's connections since joining eXP have opened doors, including the start of his weekly "Unscripted Real Estate Talk" radio show on WWDB-AM and his chance to pitch "Selling 215" to RSN.
"They talked to a bunch of people and dwindled it down, and in the end it, it was funny. I was like, 'Dude, you've got a lot of 39-year-old dudes who could walk around saying how great their car is,'" Lerch said. "But I told them, that's not Philly. And they said, 'You're it.' It was like a Godfather kind of thing. They said, 'Your raspiness is there.'"
Future episodes of "Selling 215" will venture into city neighborhoods, including Fishtown and Fairmount, before showcasing the Main Line and communities in Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware counties. The second episode, which features stops at McGillin's Olde Ale House and Reading Terminal market, is due out in January.
Philly's competitive housing market poses new challenges to buyers, sellers and agents who are feeling the impact of overall headwinds in residential real estate. First-time buyers now make up just 21% of the U.S. market, down from about 40% before 2008, and the median age of first-time buyers is now 40, according to the National Association of Realtors. The brief stretch of low mortgage rates during the COVID-19 pandemic sent home prices soaring as buyers competed for a limited number of homes. In recent years, many would-be buyers have faced the new landscape with expectations distorted by the rare pandemic market.
"We had an anomaly, which brainwashed everybody," Lerch said. "You have to control your controllables."
Lerch hopes "Selling 215" will give people in the Philly area and beyond a better feel for the region and help them figure out what they want in a home here.
"For me, it's a 1-acre spot in Rydal in the middle of a luxury neighborhood. To my son, it's walkable and living close to Angelo's and the Italian Market," Lerch said. "To others, it's Ambler or it's living in Bucks County on 20 acres, or being close to the airport in Delco. What are the yikes and yields you're looking for in the end? Everybody says, 'Where do you think the best place to live is?' And I say, 'Let's talk about your story.'"
