Anyone else got a psychotic realtor in their neighbourhood?

Every month, regardless of the fact I have no interest in selling my house (which I don't really own, anyway), I get a really fancy glossy flyer from my local realtor, Gord. According to his slogan, Gord is "PERFORMANCE DRIVEN!", and the flyer has a fancy headshot of Gord (who oddly resembles Bryan Ferry) surrounded by shots of action Gord - skiing, coaching kids hockey, and yes, shooting animals. Not sure why the fact that he can kill something with a rifle should make me want to have him sell my house, but as if that's not enough, every time Gord sells a nice house in the area, he buys one of those bus-stop seat ads, and all I see around my part of Calgary is the slightly sinister beaming face of this uber-realtor staring me down while I wait for the #199. It's like a fascist dictatorship really, Gord is always watching. Yesterday I even had a pre-recorded message from the Church of Gord inquiring if I was even sort-of thinking about selling my house.
Anyone else have a demagogic realtor? Is this one of the signs presaging the Apocalypse?

Can I get an Amen?

Amen, brother!

Greed is good. Those who don't want to fuck-over their neighbor are bad. Get with the program. ;-)

But, yeah, we have a real realtor cult in Alberta. It gets pretty scary.

the paper industry is supported by thier junk mail.Do people go for the ones with the best advertising saturation ?
These wankers spent too much time in the 80s at prosperity seminars walking over the coals.

I thought all those people had died out with Thatcher and Reagan.

And all top realtors do it. I'm in real estate myself, and spend a good bit of time and expense sending out farming materials to my clients. It's not so much what you send out, or it's quality, as it is quantity and coverage.

There's a few things you can do to curb "Gord-ism" from harassment:

1) Make sure your phone number is on the national "do not call" registry. If it already is, and he's still calling you or leaving voicemails on your phones, you can report him online. It is an $11,000 per incident fine if you can prove he's calling you and harassing you if your on that list (unless you've had a business relationship with him in the past 18 months).

2) You can call his broker in charge and ask to be removed from his mailing lists. Sometimes this works, sometimes not. Most realtors get their mailing lists from public tax roll records or from past client's homeowners association lists. However, if you keep pestering his broker-in-charge, you may see a reduction in mailings.

3) If all else fails, call the real estate commission. Every state has one. If you can prove to them (keep a journal and all of his mailings, tape record his voicemails and calls, etc.) that you've tried everything within your power to get him to stop corresponding with you, and he's still being a nuisance, you may have a remedy with the state board. They will fill out an incident report and send out an investigator if what he's doing is bordering on harassment.

i don't because i don't think it really helps you get clients. You get them by word of mouth usually and not by what you advertise yourself as.

When we bought our house in April, our very sweet Realtor put her "sold by" sign on the For Sale sign out in front. Not two days later, this psycho woman who lives near here took our Realtor's signs down and put hers up in their place! She had a tiny bit of involvement with the sale, but I had never even met her. She kept mailing me crap, calling and leaving messages asking if I wanted to sell (hello, I just moved in...) until finally she got me.

I told her I thought it was very tacky of her to remove my Realtor's "sold by" signs, that my Realtor had worked very hard on the deal, and that never in a million years would I deal with a person who would be so petty.

Thanks for letting me rant about that...

have taken over my part of town.

And they're always addressed to my late husband. As if the man automatically makes all the decisions.

Wow, I didn't realize until now how much I really despise that woman.

Particularly when we went to get a new car that Annie would be the primary driver of. The dealership guys directed all the questions to me, and I barely drive.

Any Red Green fans out there?

That's the ad campaign from Cathy Russell in my area...

Realtors....Pfahh! Never mind "Ah shudda lerned t'play the Gee-Tar...", I should've gotten my Realtor license. Stick a sign in the front yard, check your voicemail from the 17th Tee and let the MLS do the rest...Get yer money for nuttin', and yer chix fer FREE...

Don't mind me, I'm just bitter that 2 "Realtors" diddle-fucked me into a forclosure....

As a profession, Realtors are nationally ranked below used car salesman, but slightly above attorneys (source, N.A.R.).

Ya gotta love us!

but there are some people out there who make the rest of you look really bad. I'm sure you know all about that.

bottom feeders and they screw you whenever they get a chance. We have a guy in our office that will fight you over a phone in possible listing until he wears you down and you give in. Thankfully i work from home most of the time, i only go into the office when i need forms or something signed off on.

with the real irony being that most realors are POOR -- it's only the high volume "top producers" that make the real bucks, AND they don't put much effort into YOUR house cuz they have 30 other listings.

I'm pretty sure he'd claim he could cure cancer, if the newspaper would let him get away with it.

:shrug: