I knew a guy who is a producer on several reality shows (mostly home improvement type shows). He says pretty much all of them are either fake or have significant portions of the show faked. All the drama you see about things like "Oh my gosh, this floor is all rotted! What are we going to DO?!" was known about well ahead of time and planned for or blown completely out of proportion.
House Hunters? Fake - the people in the show already bought or are under contract on a house before they film. They just do a walk through of the house the people are buying already, plus two similar houses. Apparently it's funny when they get walked through a house that is preferable to the house that they've already bought. I assume "Love it or List it" is similar - people have already bought a new place and are renovating their existing place to sell better or are simply renovating their existing home and have no intentions of moving.
Not that it matters all that much. A well shot show makes it fairly irrelevant as to whether or not it's faked. Storage Wars is interesting whether fake or not because the characters in it are pretty interesting and they don't tend to go overboard. It's entertaining.
