Every profession has its cringe-worthy clichés. In real estate, like other endeavors, some crystallize a concept and others are open to interpretation. But there are those that have echoed like broken records for so long that they are almost impossible to avoid. Others are so trite they’re trotted out as punch lines.
The tried-and-true tropes — “location, location, location” and “you get what you pay for” — can be imprecise. Clearly, a crummy product can fail anywhere, and one can get ripped off in any price range.
“And how many times can a neighborhood represent a ‘new frontier’ or be ‘up-and-coming?'” said nightclub broker Alex Picken.
Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of the appraisal firm Miller Samuel, tries to avoid clichés when describing the market, and recoils when he hears them: “I tune out because it’s a scripted response,” he said.
His “number one pet peeve,” though, is the phrase “Manhattan is an island,” connoting the borough’s insulation from the national real estate market.
“The implication is that we’re insulated from reality and that we beat our own drum,” he said. “That has been true in the latest housing cooldown, where we haven’t seen the damage, but in the early 1990s, Manhattan got hit harder than the rest of the country.”
Back then, people referred to the real estate market as a “black hole,” Miller said. “I saw a place in Tudor City that was going for $11,000 and I thought, ‘Gee, I could put that on my credit card,’ but I didn’t — and now it’s worth around $275,000.”
Though most established clichés grow from the grassroots and spread through repetition, some players try to impose overgeneralizations from above. When clichés rear their heads, nuance is generally not in play, Miller said, pointing to the National Association of Realtors’ ads promoting the idea that “it’s always a good time to buy real estate.”
“It undermines the industry’s credibility because it gives the impression that everything is always rosy,” he said. “Clichés don’t come down to right or wrong, they’re just tired and superficial.”
Of course, brokers have secret codes to describe properties — lingo that can change over time. The term “triple mint,” for instance, has shifted in the last few years, said Rick Wohlfarth, who runs his own firm.
“It used to mean that nothing needed to be done,” he said. “Now, it’s being used when a property needs some work. Likewise, the phrase ‘original condition’ meant that something needs a major restoration, but that’s being replaced by ‘estate condition,’ which has a different connotation.”
Treadworn expressions that irk Barak Dunayer, president of Barak Realty, include the maxim that “summer is slow,” he said.
“It drives me crazy. There’s business out there. It tells me that brokers don’t want to work.”
Another phrase that sticks in his craw is “buyers are liars and sellers are worse,” he said. “That’s what brokers say; I hear it all the time.”
The term refers to buyers who flirt with other brokers behind their steady’s back and to sellers who puff up the pedigree and condition of their property.
For him, the bottom line is “if a buyer doesn’t honor exclusivity, it’s the fault of the broker, who failed to win loyalty,” he said.
“To me, it’s an excuse for not providing good service. No one’s lying, they’re looking for values.”