Real Estate and Literature – Imitation is Flattery

Are you tired of being kicked around just because you’re a real estate agent? Do you feel dissed and misunderstood? Does your mother brag about your brother, who is in county lockup, while pretending that you were something the stork accidentally dropped into the birdbath out back? Well take heart, as I can prove that the greatest minds in literature look to the real estate world for inspiration. My proof? Check out the following famous books, and see what real estate moments influenced these authors: 

Gone With the Wind (Stated Income)

Hard Times (L.A. Agent Driving a KIA)

From Here To Eternity (Time required to close a Short Pay)

The Mousetrap (A Starter Home in Los Angeles)

The Divine Comedy (Housing Prices in Beverly Hills)

The Taming of the Shrew (Doing an “upside-the-head” on the seller’s wife who thinks you want her fat, hairy husband)

A Streetcar Named Desire (An agent’s bus trip home after his Porsche is repossessed)

The Odyssey (Driving around Los Angeles with a flaky buyer)

Cat on A Hot Tin Roof (An agent trying to explain the naked girl in the seller’s pool)

A Confederacy of Dunces (Agents in a conga line at Last Call)

The Sound and The Fury (The sounds of an agent’s stomach when the word “cancel” is used in a sentence)

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Free coffee for down-n-out agents at a Rodeo Drive boutique)

Shogun (Good advice when showing houses in South Central)

The Godfather (A deal where everyone gets bloody, but the pizza at the open house is great)

The Call of the Wild (A real estate convention in Vegas)

Reservoir Dogs – (Former Indymac employees fighting for panhandling space at the freeway off-ramp at Lake Hollywood)

Huckleberry Finn (A seller who whitewashes the disclosures)

Les Miserables (Four agents in a Focus…clipping coupons)

A Room With A View (The only affordable housing in Malibu)

The Fountainhead (Spontaneous weeping and sputtering caused by a low ball offer)

Ship of Fools (Six drunken mortgage brokers in a hot tub, reminiscing about the days when lying was considered a talent. )

The Turn of the Screw (Seller asking an agent to reduce his commission. This is usually accompanied by Grapes of Wrath, which is bad wine in a box.)

White Fang (Agents overlapping at a listing presentation)

Atlas Shrugged (Swartzenegger, when asked why California cannot pay first time buyer’s their tax credit.)

Slaughterhouse Five (Five agents in a bidding war)

Heart of Darkness (New Requirements for Appraisers…For Whom the Bell Tolls!) 

And my personal favorite for all reading lists:

Moby Dick (A whale of a deal with a client who is a d__k.)