Friday, April 3, 2009

First impressions

For whatever reason, this real estate agent has decided that only one photo is needed in this listing Danielle found. Just one. So, to really sell the house, to show the potential in this fixer, she went with... this?


The rest of the house must be a little messy or something, and not worth taking photos of.

19 comments:

mudslicker said...

"....all you see is the money coming in after the repairs are made. Dont wait make your move it wont last."


Aah..a multi-family of what? Mole people? Burnt? As in Beirut? And yes, all you see is the money coming in after the money goes out (like a tsunami wave!) for the repairs....I find it appropriate that the property is on Beardsley Street....Aubrey Beardsley I presume! YIKES!!! on so many levels. But please "don't wait to make your move because it won't last.." (because these walls can't hold the roof up forever!) I'm crushed they only had ONE picture to show off the potential of this property. *sniffle* ..I must stop now....

Mid-C Frank said...

Real estate here in NYC is insane -- plain and simple. But then I "turn on" It's Lovely every morning and I feel a little less crazy. Thank you for my daily affirmation!

B. said...

The scary part is this might be the best part of the house. The phrase "units have been burnt" seems really suspicious. I think you may be paying 50k for land, firewood, and asbestos.

The key is marketing. I think this works better:
"Purchase these four 60 year-old, caved in, apartments and become a slumlord overnight!"

burhanistan said...

Is that a harpoon at the bottom of the picture? Perhaps this house was the victim of drunken whalers having a bit of target practice.

Claire said...

She wanted to show you that this property comes with a Portal to Eternal Whiteness. That's worth 50K right there!

Unknown said...

It looks like the "before" picture on extreme makeover.

Christopher Busta-Peck said...

I just don't get it. I've seen listings that fail to mention that an entire wall of the house has collapsed (140 year old masonry) and then I see listings like this.

Is it impossible for agents to show the potential of a house without hiding the major liabilities?

Stuart said...

The pitfalls of showing off one's mad tetherball skillz in the family room.

dguzman said...

This looks frighteningly similar to a house my partner and I came to call "The Uninhabitable" (for obvious reasons). Only it was on VALENTINE Street.

Scott said...

Don't you hate it when you want to hang something but you can find a stud? You bang on the walls for that tell-tale sound until you accidentally punch a hole. But then you think, "No problem. I'll just hang it over the hole and no one will ever know!"

Then a couple of hours and twenty holes later, you give up and put the house on the market.

Scott said...

And the thing at the bottom looks to me like a pole that was concreted into the ground and somehow pulled out of the ground and used as a tool of mass destruction. It sounds crazy but it looks just like a galvanized steel pole with a standard depth of concrete still attached to it in the sloping shape of a hole dug into the ground.

Austen said...

What I can't figure out is if aforementioned portal of whiteness is a crappy MS Paint job of trying to cover something up. But....what on earth could even be under it??

Anonymous said...

Stuart:

Your tetherball comment made me smile, and then I looked at the picture again and almost peed myself from laughing so hard!

eireann said...

i love that there was something awful enough on the heating unit that it had to be whited out of the picture, something more awful than the holes in the wall.

ShortWoman said...

I wish I could say that's the worst listing I've ever seen... but it's not.

The one that comes to mind not only had holes in the wall, it had no back door, the pool pump and most of the plumbing fixtures were missing, all the windows had been boarded up, and there was graffiti. The listing agent posted like 10 pictures so everybody had the idea!

Anonymous said...

My guess - this *is* the best view and no real estate agent in their right mind is spending any extra time trying to make this look better!

V- said...

I swear if I squint just right, I can see those holes spelling out a secret message.

The Mef Thing said...

@ Austen : that's what I thought too.
Weird.

Anyways I guess it is convincing. Just not in the right direction.

Pretty Lush said...

The house is like, I haz potential. I swearz.