Oh, vomit. Via Gawker comes a story from the Australian about Paramount Realty, a Manhattan company that is dealing with the rapidly deflating stupidly priced-real-estate bubble by getting cute chicks to sell apartments.
Paramount employs six fashion models, "decked out in Gucci and Jimmy Choo," as real estate agents. These women also have lunch with potential buyers, and the clients get to drive around in a 2007 Rolls-Royce. So basically, it's a gimmick that guarantees Paramount's properties will be purchased by people dumb enough to believe that they will also be getting the penis car and the woman in high heels at closing. Awesome.
Paolo Zampolli, who founded Paramount Realty and also owns ID Models (whence his new agents came), told the Australian, "We are transforming the experience of buying and selling real estate in much the same way the fashion houses and other premium brands are leaving the imprint of a memorable living experience." Of course, models are used to sell fashion because they show us what clothes look like on (admittedly unrealistic) human bodies. I guess the "memorable living experience" they're selling here is the fantasy of what a home might look like if it were populated by an unrealistic girlfriend.
Zampoli also generously noted that his model/brokers are "beautiful and confident, having traveled the world. They are also very ambitious." No shit! He's full of wisdom like that, including his explanation that these girls are like race horses: built to run fast, right out of the gate. "They start at 16 or 17 and can finish at 24, so they have to work very, very hard." Because by 24, they're no good as models anymore. Withered, dried up. Who wants to look at a 25-year-old? (Now, if they were chimps ...)
The only good news in this totally stupid story is that these women are apparently raking it in selling apartments. The article cites 21-year-old Maria Markova as having sold two multimillion-dollar pads to buddies of hers, and another agent as putting herself through Columbia on her earnings.
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