Panda pander or smart marketing? Real estate agent’s ploy dubbed wackiest 2016 story
Sex sells. But when it comes to houses, a giant panda costume beats out a bare bum every time.
Realtor.com has compiled its list of the most bizarre real estate stories of 2016.
At No. 1: Texas realtor Jessica Arnett. In June, Arnett put on a giant, sweaty panda costume and posed for listing photos in a home that had been on the market for three weeks.
“No doubt about it, 2016 was one very weird year for real estate,” the real estate listing website notes.
“Everywhere we looked, we saw unexpected, odd, and downright freaky ideas and stories about how to buy, sell, renovate and rent homes.
“Who would have thought, for instance, that you could dress up like a giant furry animal to sell a house, or that disgusting renters could become an internet sensation, or that the famous ‘Full House’ home would be snapped up by a surprise buyer?”
(That surprise buyer, by the way, was Jeff Franklin, the creator of “Full House” who recently bought the San Francisco home used in exterior shots for the show.)
Hollywood real estate firm The Agency gave Arnett a run for the wackiest title with the NSFW video it created to sell a $12.5 million Hollywood Hills home. The video shows a beautiful woman in the beautiful home doing yoga, swimming in a lap pool and, at one point, walking naked into a steam shower.
Take a peek here.
The video went viral, but the house didn’t sell, the website notes.
Arnett, her body and dignity swallowed up in that bulky panda get-up, posed in the kitchen, in the dining room, lounging in the living room and sitting like a stalker on the front porch.
“Call it creepy or call it cute, it drummed up 12 showings in the first two days and eventually yielded a sale,” the real estate website wrote. “Hats off to Arnett for the most original sales tactic we’ve seen this year.”
The chance that Arnett will ever pull a stunt like that again?
Slim to none, she told her fellow realtors, because “that would be stupid.”
This story was originally published December 9, 2016 at 2:26 PM with the headline "Panda pander or smart marketing? Real estate agent’s ploy dubbed wackiest 2016 story."