Well, that’s one way to sell a home.
By all accounts, the Texas house for sale looked like a slam dunk: It came with a fenced yard, gleaming hardwood floors and an open-concept kitchen. Starter house, perfect for a starter couple.
But real estate isn’t exactly booming in Conroe, Texas, perhaps because the city, about 40 miles north of Houston, collects water like an aquarium. It suffered catastrophic flooding last year during Hurrican Harvey, which literally ripped nearby homes from their foundations. Like a lot of homes there, the $230,000 house got less than a thousand views on Houston real estate websites, and fewer than a dozen in-person visits in 40 days.
It’s not an uncommon problem in Conroe, where agents have had to take some unorthodox measures to put homes in the River Plantation subdivision on buyers’ radar. Among their tactics: offering $250 worth of tacos with a purchase, listing expensive-looking houses for $1 to spark bidding wars and personally posing in rooms of unwanted houses while dressed in plush panda suits.
Enter realtor Kristin Gyldenege, who decided to go a step, er, longer.
She hired scantily clad fitness models to pose in the listing photos. In one of the images, a tanned blond woman in knee socks, black panties and an open-backed T-shirt leaned provocatively into the breakfast bar, her back — and back end — provocatively arched.
Other shots showed her climbing the stairs, perching on a kitchen counter and folding towels in the laundry room, all pant-less. Meanwhile, her male counterpart, whose bulging biceps are covered in tattoos, climbed a ladder to change a light bulb and cooked a meal in a cast-iron pan on the stove. Later, he gave the woman — now shirtless and face down — a massage.
Outrage inevitably followed, and offended viewers demanded the listing be removed from the Houston Association of Realtors website, which meekly complied. Even cowardly media outlets caved, describing the pictures instead of displaying them. Apparently, not only is a picture worth a thousand words, but a thousand canceled subscriptions, they figured.
Since The HB doesn’t care about subscriptions, we kindly make a counter-offer to southern media: fuck you. Do some real reporting.
“When I found out I had 100 complaints, I’m like, ‘Sweet, that’s like 10,000 people that have seen it,’ ” Gyldenege (who goes by “pottymouthedagent” on Instagram) told reporters. “I didn’t want anything slutty. I wanted to represent a young couple who was on top of their game all the way around and who had just moved into this great house.”
Within a week, the house averaged six visits a day. The listing racked up more than 20,000 views.
Perhaps unaware of of her pun, Gyldenege was unapologetic, explaining that the owners approved the strategy and her job requires “doing what’s best for my client.
“In the end, that’s what matters.” Hear hear, pottymouth.
The house hasn’t sold yet, but Gyldenege isn’t worried. Square footage is good, the foundation obviously solid, and the mortgage is reasonable: 2,300 condoms a month.
Now that’s how you hold an open house.
