Not So Model Home

CHAPTER 3


Sign Now, Pay Later

“You ought to see this contract, Alex,” I said, waving the thick document in the air. “It’s worse than the amount of forms we have to fill out to sell a home. Sheesh. Listen to this, Alex, on page forty-five: ‘Said participant, Amanda Thorne, shall not, at any time, hold liable . . . blah, blah, blah . . . for physical injury or trauma, miscarriage, nor for mental distress caused directly or indirectly by an appearance on Things Are a Bit Iffy.’ ”

“Wait a minute. The name of the show is Things Are a Bit Iffy?”

“Yeah,” I replied, looking at Alex as if he had attacked me.

“Oh, I get it. The play off of Ian’s initials: I.F. Clever.”

“Well, I can tell you one thing. This contract is really making me think twice about being on the show.”

“All contracts are like that, Amanda. Look at the ones we get from the banks once you have an accepted offer on a foreclosure house. The house you bought from us is built right on top of the San Andreas Fault line? Too bad. You should have talked to geologists first. The former owners poured cement down the drainpipes? You should have sent cameras down the sewage lines.”

“So you don’t think I should do this TV show?”

“On the contrary. I think it would build character. You’ll build up a presence. You’ll learn to speak on camera. You’ll meet people. You’ll make some money.”

Make some money. Despite all the other reasons for being on the show, I think this is the one that stayed with me. We were still in the throes of the New Great Depression and I had exposure to several rental properties, none of which was fully rented. I needed cash, and the show was one way to bring in some money.

This Depression was like a speech being delivered by a presidential candidate—endless. It was all around us, but the real-estate agents were doing their best to hide it—even the ones with dozens of listings and a seemingly thriving business. You could see it in the clothes and the cars. You noticed that people were wearing the same outfits over and over—instead of tossing them into the trash after a few wearings when times were good. The cars said it all too. They were no longer sparkling clean every day of the week. Or, you noticed that they kept on being traded down, from top-of-the-line BMWs and Mercedes to the lower-end versions of the same models. Or worse, to Hyundais and Kias. When the mask falls off, it really makes a thud.

I went back into my office and signed the ominous paperwork, deciding once and for all to commit personal suicide and to stop worrying about it.

Then I had to get back to the business of selling homes in a market where no one was buying. I hunted Alex down and found him at the copier.

“I got another call from Angry Woman again. She wants to know why her house hasn’t sold yet.”

“Which Angry Woman? Be more specific.”

“Mrs. Begley?”

Alex raised his splayed hands on either side of his head to express mock surprise.

“Did you tell her that her house is uglier than the south end of a northbound pig, it needs tens of thousands of dollars in repairs because she’s either too lazy, cheap, or stupid to fix things when they start rotting, and it’s overpriced by $200,000?”

I shook my head.

“I told her that you and I work in the market. We don’t control it,” I said.

“To which she responded . . .”

“She said she wants to see her house on television. She thinks this whole Internet thing is a fad and TV is the way to go.”

“Amanda, we explained that to Mrs. Begley. Close to ninety percent of all people look for homes on the Internet. Local media is only for those agents to trumpet their listing and get more of them. Those ads don’t sell homes.”

“She said she wants to see her home on The Tonight Show. She likes Leno.”

“Let me tell you what, Amanda. Let’s just get rid of all the overpriced listings and all the f*cked-up sellers.”

“Then we wouldn’t have any homes for sale, Alex.”

“That’s not true, Amanda. What about James Murray? His home is mid-century, it’s priced right, it looks great.”

“The last agent who showed it said there were one hundred twenty rifles stacked in the closet and that there was a six-month supply of food, water, and ammunition in the garage.”

“So the guy likes to hunt, Amanda. . . . And hydrate often. What about Janis Frommer?”

“She shot her husband in the face with buckshot on the front lawn of her home after she found him in bed with her sister.”

“She has anger-management issues. So what?”

“Alex, I know you are fed up with all the shit in this business. Me too. This used to be a pleasant business to be in. You took people around, they found a nice home, they went to get a loan and got it without threatening anyone, and the house sold and we got paid. Now, it’s like a hatchet fight with the two opponents handcuffed to each other.”

“I think it’s more like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Week after week.”

“I have had just about as much as I can take. The sellers think they’re sitting on a pile of gold and that they’re in the driver’s seat, and when someone is stupid enough to put a full-price offer on a home, then we can’t make the appraisal and the whole deal falls apart and the seller yanks the listing from you after you’ve spent all this time and money, only to give it to another agent who’s desperate to have a listing under his or her belt.”

“That’s it in a nutshell, Amanda. The sellers are unrealistic and haven’t come to the reality that their house is worth a lot less than they paid for it. Then along comes an agent who’s terrified that he or she has another car and mortgage payment due, and that they don’t want to be known as the agent with no listings, so they take the overpriced listing and the abuse that follows while the agent tries to ratchet them down into reality adjacent. It’s a vicious cycle.”

“Like buying panty hose.”

“Exactly.”

I looked into Alex’s eyes.

“I think we should become door-to-door dildo salespeople. We would probably make more money.”

“And we’d have a lot more fun.”

“How’s about it, Alex? I said, offering my hand to shake and close the deal.

“I’m in.”