Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Snake oil salesman.

It's fascinating to me how some salesmen can spin words to make the a bad situation sound wonderful and they can do it with a straight face. Take, for example, the sales pitch that comes from Summerhill's blog (a bay area home builder) which disguises itself as an informational site but is really a commercial.

In one article, they are reporting that the real estate market has turned around. The message is clear: better buy their houses now as they are flying off the self! For "evidence", they use their own sales figures such as how they've sold 14 out of 30 homes... over 12+ months. So that's a rate of about one a months, so hurry up before another 16 months go by and the last house is gone.

Notice that they they spin the words so that it says "40% sold out". What does it mean to have 16 houses available but is 14 houses sold out?

Seriously, though, do they really think consumers are that stupid?!? Do they really think that we don't know what these terms really mean?

Temporarily sold out - The market is bad and so we stopped construction and there is nothing to buy.
Next sales release – We don't have anything to sale now but give us some money and encourage friends to give us money and we might give you something in the future.
Priority list – Please, for the love of green points, please just say you're interested.
Sold Out – We’re sorry but there are no more homes of this plan or this community available for sale by us, but there are 16 other similar plans next to it that isn't sold out.

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