Everything I learned about buying my first home I learned from HGTV.

OK, that might not be entirely true. I had a great realtor and I asked practically everyone I knew for advice. But for years before I even entertained the idea of owning a home, I hunkered down most nights and watched a slew of TV shows about doing just that. Shows such as “House Hunters’’ and “Property Brothers,’’ which brought me into the process of shopping for a home, bidding on the home, and then tearing apart the home to transform it into exactly what the owners were actually hoping for.

HGTV seemed to give me the confidence to think, Hey, if those dummies on TV can buy a house, then I definitely can, and the open-mindedness to look at houses that needed a little work — otherwise known as “homes that would actually be in my price range’’ — which I previously wouldn’t have even set foot in.

“Lots of these shows make you feel like you can do these things yourself,’’ said Brittany Grannell, 29, who just bought a house in Scarborough, Maine, with her husband and two kids.

Other millennials like Grannell and me seem to be doing the same. Millennials — people ages 19 to 35 — watch a lot of HGTV.

“It is watching the American Dream,’’ said Tina Hildebrand, 28, who bought a house in Georgetown with her husband, Matt, last summer. “It shows you what you could have and shows other people being successful at it, so you think, I can do that, too.’’

While there are numerous reports, including a Pew Research study, that show millennials are opting to live at home with their parents longer, a lot of them are still pretty young for home buying. According to a Zillow study, the average age of the first-time home buyer was 32½ in 2013, so the youngest millennials may still be more than 10 years away.

So many millennials aren’t buying homes, just watching shows about buying them instead. What lured them in?

“House Hunters,’’ which AdWeek called “HGTV’s gateway drug,’’ has been popular for a long time now. It debuted in 1999 with 26 episodes. Counting the flagship show and all its spinoffs, such as “House Hunters International,’’ it aired 447 new episodes in 2015. On the show, prospective home buyers visit three places, then choose one. They always pick one of the three; and if that seems oddly convenient, it has been alleged that the show is staged and the couple has already chosen or even bought one of the houses. At the end, viewers see a clip of the owners once they’ve settled in and are delighted with their new home.

Also big is “Property Brothers,’’ where twins — one a real estate agent, the other a contractor — help people buy a house that needs a lot of work and turn it into something they want to live in. (The brothers also have a spinoff, “Brother vs. Brother,’’ where they compete against each other as they fix up homes.)

“Fixer Upper,’’ one of the station’s newest stars, first aired in 2013. Its 2016 season finale was one of the highest-rated episodes in the channel’s history. On the show, the husband-and-wife duo of Chip and Joanna Gaines take dilapidated homes in Waco, Texas, and renovate them to have a mix of modern amenities and a rustic decorating scheme. Chip, known as the goofball, heads the construction; Joanna, meanwhile, works closely with the clients to personalize the décor. The two of them are knocking down walls, installing shiplap, and creating open floor plans without a care in the world.

“I feel like I want to be Joanna,’’ Grannell said with a laugh. “We’d walk into a house and my husband would say, ‘OK, what walls are coming down?’ ’’

Realtor Kerrin Rowley of Hingham, who has appeared on “House Hunters’’ herself, said this is common. Over the 11 years she’s been selling homes, she said, she’s had clients — typically younger ones — reference HGTV in showings.

“Real estate is such a visual business,’’ she said. “The shows help them see an empty room and envision a cozy one.’’

She said people who watch HGTV also say they’re more open to a home that needs work.

“They aren’t afraid to take on some of the projects,’’ she said. “They’ve learned that they can do that.’’

But are these shows — with their expert contractors and designers and major renovations that seem to happen during the course of a commercial break — setting homeowners up for failure? Especially in Massachusetts, where renovations can cost more than they do in places like Florida and contractors are in demand.

“ ‘Fixer Upper’ or ‘Property Brothers’ makes you feel like: I can do this, I totally can do this,’’ said Matt Hildebrand, 33, whose Georgetown house didn’t need a total renovation. “Then you get in there and think, maybe I can do this,’’ he said.

His wife was more gung-ho to pick up a hammer — just somewhere else. “I didn’t even want to buy this house,’’ Tina said, “because there wasn’t enough stuff to fix.’’

There were others she did want to buy — and to renovate extensively. “I had to sit her down and say, ‘Listen, what you want is going to cost us like fifty to a hundred grand,’’ Matt said.

“Now I’m like, ‘yeah you might have been right,’ ’’ Tina said, “because even the small stuff we’re doing is so much work.’’

So if the adage is true that working on your house takes twice as long as you think it will, does working on your house take four times as long as the people who watch HGTV think it will?

I’m glad I bought my house before “Fixer Upper’’ captivated audiences, or I may have ended up in a money pit. Instead, a modular home that is less than 10 years old is almost too much for me as a twentysomething, even if I don’t have to tear down walls.

Heather Ciras can be reached at heather.ciras@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @heatherciras.