Realtor Mugshots
What is it about real estate sales that they feel compelled to include mug shots of the agents? I notice that Reflux Realty, Windy-Rear, all of em down here on the island, they run ads with photos of dozens of these salespeople. Half our ads in the local papers are pictures of these piranhas. Looks like a geezer version of a high school yearbook.
Now that I think about it, the insurance agents pretty much do the same thing. Is this a sales thing? They think if we see their faces we’ll trust them more? I always considered myself a pretty trusting sort. I take checks from clients. I never ask for money up front, just at the end when the job is done, that kind of bad bizness practice. Call me naïve. Call me stupid. Call me an artist. But … in the end I’m a salesperson too. Maybe I can blame my lack of business on not advertising with a photo of myself. Or just on not advertising. Duh.
Something, though, troubles me about these photos in the paper all the time. Maybe the sheer numbers. There’s dozens of agents under each office. Even the post office doesn’t have this many photographs in their lobby with wanted felons. I wonder if the point isn’t to brag on the hordes of agents they have, a hungry sales force in the market, desperate to serve me, ready to kill if necessary to make a sale, to put food on their tables no matter what the cost, no matter what price it takes. Darwinian real estate. Only the strong survive. Only the ones with the best photograph. The ones with honest eyes, beautiful features, reliable visage. If you look like a terrorist, don’t bother applying. If you’re old or ugly, get a different career. If your teeth are crooked, get em fixed. Who’s going to spend $300,000 on a fixer-upper bluff cabin if they think their agent never flossed?
I admit, I might be biased. Wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve only had a couple of real estate agents in all my life. My last one, old Bob whose last name I’ll withhold out of respect for the dead, cheated me out of a wood stove that was part of our original deal. Said he couldn’t remember if we’d agreed that would stay with the shack. I said that’s kind of your job, Bob, really, to remember things like that. Course, being the trusting sort, I didn’t have it in writing.
Bob, it turned out, lived a few doors down from my newly purchased palace. Needless to say we weren’t real good friends and not much for neighborliness. Bob passed on a few years later. I guess I should be more thankful he helped me find a place to live here on the South End. Maybe keep a photo for memory sake. Back then, though, the realtors weren’t so photogenic.
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