Navigating Spin City

Newlyweds Denise Monaco-Marchewka and Rich Marchewka’s four-month-long search for their first home earlier this year turned out to be an eye-opener. The fashion merchandiser and her photographer husband ended up getting a good house in Valley Village at a price within their budget. But throughout the process their hopes were repeatedly dashed.

The couple pored over real estate ads every weekend. “We’d read the descriptions and get all excited and revved up,” Denise said. Then they would go to open houses only to find that reality fell short of the ad copy. “It was so disappointing. The words definitely fooled you.”

Granted, the expectations of home buyers, especially first-timers, may be unrealistic. But the practice known as “puffing” in the real estate business doesn’t help matters. Puffing is spin.

“I would prefer to call it describing the property to its best advantage,” said Bonnie Burke, Coldwell Banker’s director of training for Los Angeles’ Westside region. “And it is all in the eyes of the beholder. We have a commitment to our sellers to do that. Otherwise they wouldn’t be happy with us.”

Puffing can mean mentioning a “view,” even if the only view is from the second-floor master bathroom, or including “convenient to freeways” when a property is mere feet from a 405 onramp. But most often, it means using a specific lingo.

“Agents know how to read between the lines,” said David T. Kessler, an estates director for the Prudential John Aaroe Beverly Hills branch. “We know how to decipher the words. But for buyers, it’s almost like a different language.”

Rachel Agajanian-McDowell, a social worker who recently bought a home in the Melrose area with husband Patrick McDowell, a music executive, recalled visiting an open house described as charming and finding “doilies everywhere.”

Monaco-Marchewka, who was intent on an older home, said, “Sometimes they would say ‘20s character and ... it would have warped floors.”

Before buying her Sherman Oaks Hills home this summer, Michelle Bolton checked out one canyon property promoted with the popular “one owner” tagline.

“The house was Smithsonian bound,” said the public relations professional. “There were things I’m sure prop decorators would be salivating over. My Realtor made an offer on something, an old canister of Aquanet from the 1960s. There was so much stuff in the house that probably hadn’t been moved in 60 years.”

Of course, sometimes charming really is charming and character is character. And only one owner, Bolton said, can be a “really wonderful thing if they’ve put a lot of money in and taken pride.”

But even those in the business admit the words and phrases used to promote properties can be deceptive. “If a house says ‘charming and cute,”’ said Kessler, tongue only partly in cheek, “that means dark and small. ‘With your imagination, make this a showplace’ means spend a lot of money to fix it.

“We’re so into describing a house with adjectives,” Kessler said. “We’re always looking for the new adjectives. It’s sell the sizzle not the steak.” Plus, he added, “Realtors like to impress other Realtors.”

The descriptions are especially overwrought in Caravan Express, the weekly trade publication highlighting broker open houses. Here appear such phrases as, “passionate and lyrical expression of refined luxury” and “only heaven has a better view.”

“I think Caravan Express is so much fun to read,” Kessler said. “Everyone is trying to outdo each other. I always call them frustrated screenwriters. Sometimes I read the ads to my mother in New York and she is hysterical. The ads seem to be more important than the house. You’re not even describing the house. You’re describing a lifestyle.”

Fortunately, most house hunters quickly learn to cut through the spin. “Whatever they fluff it up with I kind of ignore,” Bolton said. “I go for the meaty part of the real estate lingo, the things you can’t make up. With my house, I don’t think they jazzed it up too much.”

Rather, the description stuck to the facts. It included the number of bedrooms and bathrooms as well as features such as a double-door entry, brick fireplace and wet bar in the family room, Pergo floors in the dining room, and cul-de-sac location.

“It gave me enough to give a mental picture,” Bolton said, adding, “you can’t exaggerate a bar or Pergo floors.”

Monaco-Marchewka honed in on location and the year houses were built. DeAnna Cooper, who, with husband Kevin, closed escrow in August on a Valley Village home after a yearlong search, said, “We just stopped getting our hopes up to think that what we were going to see was what was written about.” Instead, the Coopers, both of whom work in the film industry, focused on how long a home had been on the market.

“Anything that was sitting on the market for more than a few days or weeks, it was sitting there for a reason,” DeAnna said. “There was something that wasn’t quite right.” So the Coopers wouldn’t rush out to see it.

In fairness to agents, their business is sales. And the words they use, whether in the multiple listing service, Caravan Express, newspapers or such Web sites as Realtor.com, really do make a difference.

“People are looking for a home. They’re not just looking for the number of bedrooms and square footage. It’s like telling a story,” said Alice Plato, a Coldwell Banker agent specializing in Marina del Rey and Venice, and a former journalist. “It makes a huge difference how you even start an ad. People respond to terms like ‘sunny’ and ‘bright.’ They have an emotional response. I found that for my kind of buyer--young entertainment buyers--things like ‘loft,’ ‘open floor plan’ and ‘architectural’ can make a big difference.”

New construction is another powerful lure, Plato said. “People love the fact that something is new. ‘Almost new’ is second best. I just read something about marketing in general and ‘new’ is one of those key words, whether you’re selling widgets or houses.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum are descriptions like “fixer” and “needs TLC.” While these might discourage the majority of buyers, who are generally looking for move-in condition, there are plenty of buyers who know a less-than-perfect property might yield a deal and allow them to do things their way, rather than simply accepting the aesthetic decisions of a previous owner.

What if a property has limited appeal? “Sometimes you have doggy properties you can’t do much with,” Plato said. “In those cases, you go for functionality. You go for convenient location. I have a big thing of being pretty accurate and not so full of hyperbole that [my write-ups] make people angry.”

As for the distinct absence of negative qualities in ads, agents said such issues as freeway noise are usually reflected in price. Besides, their job is to get people in the door, not scare them off.

“The truth is there’s always a buyer for a home,” Burke said. “We encourage agents to preview homes [before showing them to their buyers].” But this isn’t always possible. Burke recalled taking a client to a home she hadn’t previewed. “It sounded wonderful,” she said. “It was a nice community. I knew it was well priced for one reason or another. Turns out, there was a huge electric power line across the street. I got there and said, ‘I don’t even want to show you this house.’ She [the client] said, ‘No, I want to see it.’ She loved the house and she bought it.”

Had the ad made mention of the power line, it is likely neither Burke nor her client would have bothered to visit.

“Real estate agents might puff a bit,” Burke conceded, “but they do not misrepresent.” Added Kessler, “People forget those ads in 30 seconds. No one walks into a house and says, ‘This is all that heaven could ask for.’ All that stuff goes out the window. If you have a great house and it’s at the right price, it’s going to sell. “

“Ultimately,” Plato said, “it all comes down to supply and demand.”

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Leslee Komaiko is a Santa Monica-based freelance writer.