Can we say a word about the real estate agent fandango?

That’s my term for the interminable balderdash stemwinders that real estate agents vomit on their victims over every property, no matter how fair or foul the structure is. I’ve been subjected to it now and then in the flesh, and literally tens of thousands of times on real estate listings. It’s my considered opinion that the accuracy and the honesty demonstrated by real estate agents would make a used car salesman blush.

The reason I call it the fandango, is because while it’s often offered to the public in writing, the plan of all real estate agents is to get you trapped in their car, being squired (dragged all over the landscape) to a series of inappropriate structures that they think they can sell to you by waving their arms around and saying things like the following, from a listing for a house for sale in Perry, Maine:

It’s important to note that many real estate listing are written by chatbots. It’s possible that this one is at least partially written by Chad, as we call him. Um her. Er, it. Well, anyway, there are several telltale signs that this listing was written at least partially by a female human. First, there is mystery capitalization. “Its” in the middle of a sentence. A comma or a space has been elided between “roomideal.” “Plus a generously sized living room” is a sentence fragment. If I had a gun to my head, I’d say Chad wrote it, and then the agent decided to work her magic on it while cutting and pasting it into the listing.

Now if you’re unfamiliar with Maine (who isn’t? I live here and I am), I’ll fill you in on Perry. It is literally the ass end of nowhere. You can throw a rock in Perry and brain a Canadian if you’ve got a strong arm. It’s north of Lubec and Eastport, places I’ve visited during a Donner Party-worthy journey. Eastport is the easternmost city in the continental United States, if you can imagine that. You could swim to New Brunswick, Canada from Eastport. Well, you could if you were a very strong swimmer, and you wouldn’t die after four minutes in that water, which you would. I suppose someone in Chocolate Cove, N.B. could stamp your passport when they fished your body out. At any rate, calling Eastport a city is generous. The population is less than 1,300 people. The appellation of “city” is a vestige of days gone by. Eastport has lost population in every census since 1910, sometimes as much as 24% in a single decade. And Perry is less popular than Eastport, so do the math that the real estate agent won’t.

So in keeping with our suspicion that Chad is involved here, let’s ask Chat AI to produce images of the house in question simply from the description that is offered. Here’s the prompt I gave it:

Here is the description of a house for sale in Maine. Based on the description, can you produce an image that shows a generic picture of what is being described? The image should be photographic, and horizontally oriented:

Here’s how Chad pictures the exterior of a house in Maine that might fit that description:

So far, so good. That’s a five-bay Adam colonial with a console hood over the front door. You can find thousands of those in Maine. I kept going:

Can you make another one, based on the same description, that shows an interior view, of say, a kitchen and dining area?

Say, that’s pretty good. It’s got old sheet vinyl on the floor. There are built-in china closets, like an old house might have. The cabinets have 50s-70s-era hardware, and look like built in place plywood stuff that’s been painted over, very typical of a fixer-upper. The furniture looks like abandoned grandma stuff. We’re on a roll. Let’s press on!

Can you make me a third one, that shows a bedroom on the second floor?

Aw, man, you gotta love the boob light. Chad’s nailed that, and the six over six sashes, the backband trim, and the six-panel doors. Let’s tempt fate, and ask for another exterior shot:

The house has a single car garage, attached to the house by a shed addition on the back of the house. Using the description that began this chat as a guide, can you make a picture, using your impression of the state of the house?

Great stuff, Chad. You are rolling, brother. Peeling paint, lower on the sidewalls where rain splashes, end of useful life asphalt shingles on the roof, a modestly punky fascia, and a dirt driveway.

So now that we’ve got Chad in our corner, using the property’s description to guess what we’re in for, let’s look at the property itself. Ladies and germs, I give you Perry in the flesh:

Exterior:

Ah, asbestos shingles. Before vinyl siding there was aluminum siding. Before that, there was asbestos. It’s fairly harmless as siding, although it’s awful compared to the wood bevel siding it covers. Your house is an instant Superfund site if you ever want to remove it, or even cut a hole in it. And unlike the real estate fandango in the listing, no one has ever used the word “charming” within mortar-shot range of asbestos shingles.

Well, let’s be fair. Maybe the charm is on the inside, like a tubby girl your friend is trying to fix you up with. Let’s check out the kitchen:

Oh, this is definitely a “gem in the rough,” ain’t it. Very, very rough. Like, a lump of coal kinda rough compared to the gem of the description. Perhaps the charm is hiding in the next room. I know I would.

Well, there’s nothing more charming than that light fixture. We used to call that the landlord’s halo. It’s the only halo you’ll ever encounter hanging over a landlord’s head. But let’s be fair. Maybe if we go upstairs, the bedroom “off the bright and open hallway” will have some of that charm we’ve been promised:

Well, this bedroom is, ahem, commodius, but not in the usual sense. And by “bright and open,” I guess they mean open to the elements. But the “welcoming and functional design” is here in abundance. Even bodily functions are included over there in the corner.

The garage is our last hope. Let’s see:

Hmm. I wonder if this garage was originally designed as a trapezoid, instead of a rectangle. Hard to say.

Well, if you’re the real estate agent, and you’re reading this, I’d like to remind you that taking people to places under false pretenses and holding them against their will is considered kidnapping. It’s probably against the law even in Perry. In the unlikely event that they can afford a police department, you might even get into trouble. Other than that, start dancing.