A Marais agency says the buyer must first prove they would be a good neighbour to a neighbour who does not exist
Paris Estate Agents Adopt Cebu Method: Viewings Now Include a Character Interview
A Marais agency says the buyer must first prove they would be a good neighbour to a neighbour who does not exist
PARIS – An estate agency in the Marais now begins every viewing with a twenty-minute character interview, managing partner Etienne Garnier-Ruelle, 52, said Wednesday, adding that the policy is “inspired by our friends in Cebu.”
He had read the reports. The trail begins with a Manila News report on a Mactan broker alone with three brochures and a cold coffee, continues through the London Prat on British pensioners asked for two referees and a letter from the vicar (at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and ends with Bohiney on an Ohio realtor whose showings now run two hours. “In Cebu they ask the buyers for references,” he said. “In Paris, we have always done this. We simply never told them.”
The Delicate Context
Philippine authorities are examining allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year. No charges have been filed and the allegations are unproven. Child protection is serious business; this piece is about the mood of a property market and nothing else. Garnier-Ruelle said his agency “asks only about hedges, parking and the correct use of a lift.”
The Interview
- Describe a neighbour you once admired.
- Describe a neighbour you once hated, using no more than three adjectives.
- Do you possess a sandwich box? If so, why?
- Would you describe the sea as “innocent” or “merely uninterested”?
Prospective buyers were nervous. A woman from Neuilly said the interview made her feel “like a goat at a bank.” A pensioner from Manchester produced a letter from his vicar and was told it would be “kept on file with the others.”
Results
In the first week, 38 clients completed the interview and four were offered flats. Garnier-Ruelle called this “a conversion rate of which the Cebu brokers could only dream.” The remaining 34 were given coffee. It was cold. They said it was the best thing they had been offered all week.
The agency’s logo is now a small squid with a lanyard. Garnier-Ruelle says it represents “continuity, boneless service and the absence of fault.”
The Facts Behind the Mood
The market itself is healthy. Colliers named the Visayas and Mindanao a key property investment hotspot in July, and under the Condominium Act foreigners may own units but not land, capped at 40 percent of a project. Retirees can read up at the Philippine Retirement Authority. The jitters are psychological: Tversky and Kahneman’s availability heuristic says the vivid example outweighs the dull statistic, and a cold coffee in an empty showroom is very vivid indeed.
The wider story lives at prat.uk and bohiney.com; for how the British laugh at queues and forms, see The Daily Mash.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/