Go back to selling houses!
Last week the Greenwich Board of Realtors felt it necessary to once again remind its members that broker and public open houses were to be held for the sole purpose of showing the client’s house and not used as an opportunity to engage in retail sales. Certain agents have a hard time remembering this and, despite previous warnings and a few nasty comments in my old column, continue to offer for sale bad art and counterfeit goods. There’s no law against dealing in bad art, obviously, or New York City’s art world would have shut down decades ago but it is illegal to peddle counterfeit shoes, purses and whatever else strikes an old agent’s fancy, no matter if the proceeds are donated to charity or stuffed into her (knock-off) bra. If I had entrusted my house to an agent I would expect her to devote her time to answering fellow agents’ questions and pointing out the listing’s selling points, not extolling the virtues of an “almost-indistinguishable” Rolex from Shanghai. That’s not just my opinion, the Board thinks so too. I continue to be astonished at the behavior of some of my fellow “professionals”.
