From today's SMH...
Sydney's real-estate agents aren't renowned for being dead straight in their descriptions, but faced with selling a complete dump, one of them has decided honesty is the only policy.
In a regular property blurb, 25 Waterloo Street, Rozelle, might be described as "quaint", or a "renovator's delight" - realestatespeak for a screaming disaster-zone.
But its selling agent Paul Cooper has tried a different tack - the two-bedroom cottage is in such a state he decided to reveal the awful truth, cheerfully admitting it's a "dump".
"Situated directly next to a petrol station and metres from the almost stationary peak-hour traffic of Victoria Road, one can imagine they don't come much worse than this," his ad says.
The half-page ad, for Mr Cooper's agency Ray White Balmain, goes on to point out the home's other "features".
It is "particularly popular with talentless graffiti artists", the "holes in the wall provide natural air-conditioning" and its lack of kitchen is "irrelevant as the club does great food".
The property's owner approved Mr Cooper's unusually upfront sales pitch, which the 28-year veteran of the real-estate game says he's successfully used before.
"It was a place in similar condition to this, it was pretty much derelict, and we hadn't had any luck," he said.
"We put out an ad like this one and went from gettting two people to view it, to getting 30 people along."
