Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer have opened up about working together for a quarter of a century and their fears over being replaced by artificial intelligence

Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer have been working together for 25 years but have one fear

They are one of TV’s most brilliant, bickering odd couples but as 25 years of Location, Location, Location attests, Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer are right at home in each other’s company.

In a quarter of a century, the dynamic duo have conducted 469 searches involving 1,810 home viewings and helped buyers secure property worth more than £176million. And as they cast a nostalgic eye over their time together on the much-loved Channel 4 show, Phil quips: “Twenty-five years? You’d get less for murder!”

It is an apt way to start a documentary special to mark the milestone, especially given some of his joking mistreatment at the hands of “particularly fiery” Kirstie. But he adds: “Little did I know we would go on to become long-term colleagues and lifelong friends.”

There have been many funny on-screen moments between the pair over the years, including Kirstie wondering: “Have you ever been bitten by a horse, Phil?” and also, “Do you think anyone thinks we’re spies?”

Phil and Kirstie have worked together for 25 years(Image: Channel 4)

But now their biggest worry comes from not being needed any more. “There are chatbots helping people decide where to live. Well, we were going to be replaced one day,” Kirstie says. “I thought it would be a younger, thinner me but clearly it’s AI.”

The show, originally given a working title of The Great House Hunt, launched in 2000 alongside Big Brother during a golden period for Channel 4. The name was changed after a slip of the tongue from Kirstie during a recording meant she used an errant “C” that turned the air blue and almost ended her fledgling TV career before it had even begun.

“I was mortified,” she says. “I almost said, ‘This is proof telly is not for me’.” The pair admit that, at the start, they were not too hot on the presenting side of things, but they had plenty of time for making some improvements.

Although the pair don’t socialise outside of work, they class one another as the best of friends(Image: Channel 4)

Phil laughs: “We were good at house hunting but we were pretty terrible at pieces to camera.” Back at the beginning, many of the offers they were making to estate agents were rung through from a red phone box. There were no smartphones or property portals, and agents were only just getting into websites.

“You had to search physically to see a property,” Kirstie recalls. By 2004, the programme’s popularity had surged along with the house prices, with the average home costing £140,000, a rise of 80% in just four years. When the financial crisis came in 2007, former head boy Phil, 55, admits he thought they were done for. “I remember worrying people wouldn’t want to watch property programmes any more. But in actual fact, people needed advice.”

Kirstie, 53, says their long-running role on the series has been an ­“absolute privilege”. She and Phil agree that while they have helped others pursue their homeowner dreams, the many couples and families they have met along the way have had a huge impact on them.

“They’ve changed our lives, too,” Kirstie says. They also agree that, over the years, they have been through a lot together. Not least in 2023 when, tragically, Phil lost both his parents in a freak driving accident at their Kent home.

Each of them has got married – Phil in 2001 to Australian girlfriend of six years Fiona, with whom he has two children, and Kirstie to property tycoon Ben Anderson in January, after spending more than two decades together.

Kirstie and Phil have changed the lives of people who appear on the show but their lives have also been changed by it(Image: © Channel 4/ IWC Media 2021)

She and Ben have two sons, plus she became stepmother to his two older boys, and all four were ushers at their recent wedding. Phil and Fiona met at the famous London nightclub Ministry of Sound in 1995, with Phil once admitting: “It is not the place where you usually meet your one true love.”

Both the presenters have also moved house several times. While Phil and Kirstie do not socialise, claiming it would be too much when they spend so much time together for work, it is clear they have a deep and genuine affection for each other, with Phil saying last week: “I put Kirstie among the most important people in my life.”

Luckily, she feels the same. “We’ll never be apart. I can’t imagine a time when he and I go more than a month without seeing each other.” As they wander down memory lane, they also ponder what their real legacy is.

Kirstie says: “Are we in a situation where a lot of people think the best way to make an offer on a house is in a pub? Is that what we’ve achieved?” As they toast the “next 25 years together”, Phil declares: “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”