I've just spent the last half hour reading all the blogs about real estate movies and the consensus seems to be that the play adaptation of "Glengarry Glen Ross" is the best one out there. While I've seen this a couple times and thoroughly enjoy it, these guys are NOT real estate agents! They are more like those sleazy salesmen who push times share places on you.
While these characters are certainly deep and wildly entertaining, they do not come close to doing what we as true real estate professionals do. They go on "sits", which are almost like listing presentations, but once they coax someone to sign on the dotted line, they're done! No showings. No open houses. No walk-throughs. No inspections. No crying on shoulders and hand holding. No stopping by on moving day with pizzas and soda. Nothing!
There seems to be NO movies out there that show real estate agents in a thoroughly positive light! The agents in "American Beauty" are unfaithful and do an unreasonable amount of cleaning before an open house at a vacant home. Pacific Heights just showed how a professional renter and criminal can use the system to his advantage. Richard Pryor in "Moving" gets hosed by a FSBO who rips out out the pool after he jokingly said that he was taking it with them and has the whole conversation recorded as proof that he was really serious. Even the agents in "Panic Room" and "Wall Street" had lines that just seemed like they were for pushy stereotypical salespeople.
I cannot think of any role is any real estate movie (and I feel I've seen most of them) where the real estate agent is portrayed at the hero or even the good guy. We need a movie where kids walk out of the theatre saying they want to be real estate agents when they grow up and their parents want to call up their agent and thank them again for all the great work they did for them. Will it ever happen?
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