A THOUGHT ON TRANSPARENCY

See, to my mind, the above isn’t a vacant one-bedroom apartment at all, whatever the listing says, even if that copy does caution that “improvements” might be needed. That, my friend, is just a really wet cinder block basement with some pretty ominous dangling electrical. The sort of room Keanu Reeves fights his way out of during a career slump. 

And that would have been a better way to write it up, I think - truth in advertising and a crowd-pleaser too. As it is, every agent who braves the steps down to that cellar is going to have a disappointed client or two right behind them. Disbelief is going to fill up that space quicker than the floodwaters (see how the dehumidifier is stacked proactively on a garbage can and a Tupperware?).

Luckily I didn’t have to travel far to view this one. But I’d still have appreciated some warning. Instead of a Saturday afternoon sales opportunity it felt a bit like a set-up, a real estate version of Candid Camera. 

Because you have to be up-front with people. You don’t tell them your listing is an easy twenty-minute drive to town and then send them on the thirty-five minute road trip. You don’t claim the ten-year-old roof shingles are new, and you don’t describe a waterlogged cellar as an empty apartment. You come by your traffic honestly.