I have a whole new appreciation for families who are trying to sell a house. As a single person, it’s proving to be quite the chore to keep my place spotless and vacant on the weekends.
Take yesterday: I wanted to lounge in bed doing a bit of work, then hit a yoga class. My phone started ringing off the hook at 9am with agents eager to bring buyers over. When I pieced together the various requests, I needed to vacate my place from 10am – 4pm to accommodate everyone.
My solution? I went to the pool at 10am, swam a mile and a half, showered and primped there before meeting Alan at my place around noon. We walked down to the Mall to see the Kite Festival and Cherry Blossoms, and essentially killed enough time to leave the realtors in peace. Thankfully it wasn’t a rainy, lie in bed and nurse a hangover kind of day. I would’ve been screwed.
I had a dozen different agents bring clients through yesterday, which is great traffic for my third weekend on the market. As I sifted through the pile of cards on my stove, one jumped out:
I think this is brilliant marketing. People often use their friend/relative/friend’s relative to help them with a transaction, which seems pretty random for the largest purchase of one’s life, especially since these friends/relatives are often part-time, sell-one-property-a-year agents who – at most – only dabble in real estate. Someone has clearly recognized that decision-making is arbitrary and hinges on common ground more than specialized knowledge, so this GayAgent.Com thing might take off.
I mean, I can’t imagine there is a separate set of buying decisions that affect my gay friends that makes it necessary to have a gay agent. If you’re looking in Dupont or Logan, it’s pretty safe to assume you’re in a gay-friendly neighborhood, and if you want to know which clubs/restaurants are LGBT-friendly, well, just stick your head in the door – they all are.
That said, we all know it’s infinitely more fun to shop with a gay man than a straight one. My gay friends drive better cars, have a funnier running commentary, offer better decorating suggestions and will meet me toe-to-toe when I decide to turn the snark on. So maybe that’s the angle?
Whatever the case, I think it’s pretty cool that I live in a city where we’ve achieved enough progress on equality that gayness is considered such a selling point that people are voluntarily tying themselves to the brand and printing business cards proclaiming it. Can you imagine someone doing that in the 1960s?
It also gives me some marketing ideas, should I ever get back into real estate. Here are the names I’m considering for my own company:
- MySingleWhiteFemaleAgent.com
- MyBitchyAgent.com
- MyBallBustingAgent.com
On the other hand, maybe I’ll keep my day job. I don’t think I’d like the clients I’d attract.
pithypants 
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