A little story from my office this week...

One of our agents was showing prospective buyers through a unit in a gated community in Johnsonville this week. The automatic gates at the front of the set of townhouses closed while he was showing the buyer the inside of the property. Coming out on foot (he had parked outside the property on the roadside), he realised he was trapped inside the gates. Not noticing the BIG RED BUTTON to open the gates with manually, he proceeded to act like a car moving slowly backwards and forwards in front of the gates thinking that there was an electronic camera or trigger of some kind to open them!

After failing to open the gates, he proceeded to scale over the top of them to open them from the outside. Being in his late 60's, this was no mean feat!

As he recounted the story at our weekly sales meeting, the room was reduced to fits of giggles as we pictured him standing pretending to hold a steering wheel in the drivers position with his client pretending to sit in the back seat, moving back and forward on this driveway. I can only imagine the looks of disbelief he may have received had any of the other buildings occupants been home at the time!

 

 

Weird Property Awards

 

The Diner Room

thinnest buildings in the world

Torontos smallest home

worlds tallest competition is on again

the town of living books?

a live in/sleep in Internet Cafe

is there enough space for a home in an alley?

luxury houseboat in Dubai here

 

 

 

 

 Here is another collection of unusual homes.

Don't hire these builders if you want to be able to use your home.

Selling the features! Mystery adds to the appeal right?

 

This Gaudi-esgue architecture would make for an interesting life.

 

The best of the bad video blogs

This website gives a couple funny examples of the new wave of amateur video blogs employed by real estate agents to market homes.

 

Elephant Marketing

Estate agent Win Manu has been dubbed the Elephant Man by colleagues after pasting a photo of a pachyderm on to images of an Auckland house he's trying to sell.

Adverts displaying the $365,000, three-bedroom Manurewa home show everything an eager seller might want to emphasise, with an elephant thrown in. The large grey animal is shown standing at the bottom of the long lawn, head turned to camera.

Despite the scarcity of elephants in Auckland, Manu said a number of people viewing the advert had assumed the animal came with the property.

It also earned Manu a feature in the company newsletter entitled: "How not to market a property".

Manu disagreed. He said the image drew more attention to the house than it might otherwise have enjoyed.

"Everybody got to know me as the Elephant Man."

The property is still on the market, despite the elephant and the estate agency's new pledge is to find a buyer inside a month or give the seller $1000 cash.

Story from nzherald.co.nz  Jan08

 

Fire Sale after agent stays the night

Instead of taking a gander and returning home with a lively marketing campaign, agent Gail Hudson was aghast when an accident left the house a smoking ruin.

An estimated $500,000 has been knocked off the 54 Leask Bay Rd property after the early-morning fire wrecked the living and kitchen areas.

Although the place is listed by QV at $1.1 million, buyers may now pay only half that for the one-time luxury property so special that it featured on Campbell Live as the eco-friendly face of New Zealand's housing future.

So the marketing campaign has now become a fire sale.

"The owners have been left devastated by the destruction that has occurred to their dream and have no wish to return to reinstate this property, presenting an opportunity for a purchaser to take over what could well be an exciting and fulfilling project," says the ad calling for tenders by February 3.

A series of before-and-after pictures show the effects of the agent's stay, with parts of the interior uninhabitable.

"It's a wonderful site and it was a beautiful home," a regretful Gail Hudson said from Christchurch.

The cause of the 4am blaze had not been established but she suspected it started in the giant stone fireplace, once a major interior/exterior design feature.

Late last year, Manfred and Ulrike Herzhoff of Christchurch asked the agent to sell the house, where they had once hoped to retire. She estimated $600,000-plus had been spent renovating the 20-year-old house, installing eco-friendly features.

Electricity was to be generated on-site and sold to the local authority.
Mr Herzhoff said he had built a hybrid power-generating system including a wind turbine and solar panels.

"This was my baby," he said, although he was unsure about insurance and said his health had suffered after the fire.

Gail Hudson said she was initially thrilled to be involved. "The house was going to market and I had it listed for some weeks so I was going down to have a look.

"It's just so remote and we were having two nights there to get to know it and get the feel of the whole place.

"We flew over it and I was so looking forward to staying there. The next minute, zippidity-do! It's on fire and we're standing outside, quite shocked," she said.

A smoke alarm woke Gail Hudson and her companion, who escaped unharmed.

Breaking news of the calamity to the Herzhoffs was easier than expected. "They said, 'We'd better have a drink', at 1pm so we had champagne," she said. They never blamed her for the fire.

She remains eager to drum up interest and is even willing to escort genuine buyers through the house.

Story from nzherald.co.nz Jan08

 

A Huge what?

I'm sure Ms Hunsperger would have taken a few sniggering calls after this advert was published in the USA last year....

 

 

Real Estate One Liners

 

Why do you have your front door leading right into the dining room? So my relatives won't have to waste any time.

 

The sellers told me their house was near the water. It was in the basement.

 

How much are they asking for your rent now? Oh, about twice a day.

 

Agent: "first you folks tell me what you can afford, then we'll have a good laugh and go on from there".

 

The dream of the older generation was to pay off a mortgage. The dream of today's young families is to get one.

 

There is no longer a need for the neutron bomb. We already have something that destroys people and leaves buildings intact. It's called a mortgage.

 

If you think no one cares you're alive, miss a couple of house payments.

 

My buyers went through debt consolidation. Now they have only one bill they won't pay.

 

I listed a maintenance free house. In the last 25 years there hasn't been any maintenance.

 

Did you hear about Robin Hood's house? It has a little John.

 

My agent was always smiling. I didn't think anybody could have that many teeth without being a barracuda.

 

If you want to know exactly where the property boundary line is, just watch the neighbor cut the grass.

 

Houses today don't have enough wardrobe space. Sure they do. They're just called study alcoves or guest bedrooms.

 

Trivia: The floors of buildings are called stories because early European builders used to paint picture stories on the sides of their houses. Each floor had a different story.

 

A lot of homes have been spoiled by inferior desecrators.--Frank Lloyd Wright

 

I bought a two story house. One story before I bought, and another after.

 

The house is only 5 minutes from shopping . . .if you've got an airplane.

 

Home is where the mortgage is.

 

A housewarming is the final call for those who haven't sent a wedding present.

 

The best part of a real estate bargain is the neighbour.

 

The house was more covered with mortgages than with paint.

 

Charity: A thing that begins at home and usually stays there.

 

A man's home is his castle. That's how it seems when he pays taxes on it.

 

Fine print on bottom of Private Sale sign - We shoot every third agent and the 2nd one just left.

 

 

This house has every new convenience except low payments.

 

The trouble with owning a home is that no matter where you sit, you're looking at something you should be doing.

 

They have an all electric home. Everything in it is charged.

 

My buyers want a new home on the outskirts---of their income, that is.

 

A Happy Home is a place where each spouse entertains the possibility that the other may be right though neither believes it.

 

By the time you pay for a home in the suburbs, it isn't.

 

A Modern home is a place where a switch controls everything but the kids, and it has gadgets to do everything except make the payments.

 

The owner has wall to wall carpet and back to wall payments.

 

A typical home has a TV set that is adjusted better than the kids.

 

Our new house has one down payment and 240 darn payments.

 

 

Homesickness What you feel every month when the mortgage is due.