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).