From the South Florida Web site: The Real Deal recently asked a number of New York City residential real estate agents what the strangest thing was that they had seen at an open house. Well today, The Real Deal did the same in South Florida. The responses ran the gamut from a man crawling into a bed to check out the mattress and dozing off to a broker having to basically carry a client off a railing-less bridge to being chased by a wild boar while showing houses. Here is a sampling of what the agents have encountered: 

Andy Weiser, Coldwell Banker, Fort Lauderdale: There is the ordinary finding, the couple having sex in the bedroom. Every real estate agent worth his salt has seen that. That happens all the time. Some people do that as part of their whole fantasy thing. On a more serious note, it would have to be the guy who crawled into the bed to see what it would be like, and then fell asleep. That’s one of the more bizarre things. Click here for more. Compiled by Alexander Britell [more]

From the November issue: New York’s real estate market is at something of a crossroad. For more than a year now, the industry has been dealing with the fallout from Wall Street and the credit crisis, leaving brokers, developers, city officials and everyone in between groping for strategies to keep financially afloat. While it’s hard to fault real estate professionals for throwing any ideas they have at the problem to see which ones stick, some of those approaches have worked better than others. This month, The Real Deal dissected some of the biggest policies and proposals that are being used — or considered — to help shore up the industry.