The Amazing Spandex Room

How stupid do real estate agents think we are?

Once upon a time, all we had to contend with was predictable, ridiculous but fairly transparent real estate speak:

• renovator’s delight – do you know a good arsonist? This placed needs to be gutted and rebuilt
• original features – think gold suede wallpaper, this place hasn’t been updated since 1973
• cosy – so small that if you walk too fast, you’ll bump in to yourself
• spectacular view – if you stand on the coffee table and crane your neck around the high rise next door
• efficiency kitchen – I hope you like takeaway.

But with the advent of the internet, there’s a new wave of real estate traps to look out for. My pet peeve is the trick I’ll call the Amazing Spandex Room.

A fifth grader can stretch a photo of a room to make it look more spacious (and they could probably do a more convincing job than many real estate agents).

Do real estate agents believe viewers don’t notice if standard doorways look so wide they could accommodate a trio of sumo wrestlers, side by side? Do they think their audience doesn’t know that your average bath can not comfortably contain a full grown crocodile, tail and all? Do they figure we don’t observe that in real life, paperbacks lying on a shelf are not the length of roadtrains?

And if an internet researcher somehow overlooks the flagrant inaccuracies portrayed in the outrageously doctored photographs, do these agents not suspect that a potential buyer might be somewhat surprised and disappointed by the actual proportions of the room upon real life inspection (or, if interstate or overseas, by the dimensions on the plans)?

Disappointed is probably not the ultimate state of mind for your prospect to be in when you are trying to encourage them to part with half a million dollars...

...Unless you’re about to launch in to bait and switch tactics, which I wouldn’t put past some of these dirt merchants, and which is a whole other blog post.