ON TRUTH IN ADVERTISING

I recently likened a house to a Manhattan loft. The property felt cosmopolitan, urbane, as if it might have been drifted to town on steel cables strung beneath the mother of all choppers. A home that might have been pinched from the Marvel universe. Tony Stark in a bathrobe, steaming cappuccino.

I also compared a low-slung bungalow to a long boat moored curb-side. I had in mind a royal blue barge tied up along the canal in Hackney. I have photos somewhere.

There’s nothing wrong with evoking the far-off to describe the local. I like suggesting that connections can be made and sustained over great distances. “Like gold to airy thinness beat,” as John Donne said so immaculately of love.

However, I am much less fond of making forty-five minute drives to rural properties that have been described in the listing copy as being “twenty-five minutes to town”. I feel as if time, and a few moments, have been stolen from me. I tend to hold a grudge too, which means I am less likely in the future to recommend a house listed by the same agent.

This morning a house was listed as being in downtown’s Fruit Belt neighbourhood. Only it isn’t. Not even very close. The hope, I’m sure, was to locate the property (in the mind’s eye at least) in an area that doesn’t involve a busy arterial road at the front door. Something closer to the downtown core. And to make it a more valuable house by association.

Trouble is, this mis-labelling implies that the actual location needs to be disguised (never a good start). There is also the reasonable assumption to be made that this casual approach to geography might seep into other representations.

It’s an odd time to be playing fast and loose, is what I’m feeling. People are uneasy, they hold tightly onto their cash. My dad used to tell us kids (far too often) that when he was riding his bike home from the British Leyland factory back in the 1970s, he would check his back pocket pocket at least a dozen times, to make sure his paycheque was still in there. Well buyers in today’s real estate market are at least as cautious and nearly as worried. The faintest whiff of something poorly described, or a question not answered satisfactorily, is enough to send them packing (only not in the good way).

318 QUEEN ST

LISTED AT $499,000. I’m very fond of the well-restored cottages in Kingston’s downtown core. They sit well with me, feel like small, perfect treasures sewn into the city’s tapestry. 318 Queen St is a fine example, a star pupil. You are right downtown, of course, which means all your favourite shops and restaurants are right around the corner, and the university and hospitals are only a short walk.

BOXED IN

For years he had been trying to fight out of his corner. A wizened tree bent nearly double atop west-facing cliff. Tempests stormed in all hours. The ropes lashed back of his knees, both bum shoulders. The whiff of deflated leather bruised his every thread, rendered the world rank as a pond’s top. Between rounds, the sweat-wet padding was like a wave breaking over him, Defoe’s lighthouse cowl, and the head back slap-bang of nitrous was just a kid’s fortune mis-read.

ON THE HORIZON:

I have a two-and-a-half storey brick and limestone home coming in the Inner Harbour. And a detached white stucco home just off McBurney’s shoulder. And an Amherstview side-split set back from a long curve, which means a huge pie-shaped lot and enough mature trees to start your own newspaper. I’ll have mid-century bungalows in the Aylesworth subdivision and on Days Road too. And a log home or cottage (or corporate retreat) spread over three fairytale floors on the wild northern reaches of Sydenham Lake.

There are others, and as prospects become leading lights, I’ll add to this list.

(You can, of course, reach out any time, to talk about your own house search, or your own home.)

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