Real estate agents drive me nuts. As I tell people, it's not that they're lying, exactly: their skill is that they believe whatever falsehood they're presenting to you at any given moment. Because they believe it, and moreover because acting like that fluid belief is solid and permanent is core to their self-presentation, there's no point in presenting them with facts that represent reality. In fact, I find confronting them to be a little mean, because they'll
- fracture their sense of reality and have a nervous breakdown in front of you (this seems nearly impossible), or
- engage some kind of defense mechanism to preserve their internal narrative, and you have created needless tension in the conversation.
Then I said, "Prices seem to be dropping."Reality intrudes! Internally, she seemed to convert her terror to disbelief, and thence into counter-narrative (she really needs to work on her poker face).
"Well! I don't know where you're looking, but around here, prices are going up. Now, some things aren't priced appropiately, so some things don't sell, but as soon as the owner prices it appropriately, it sells."Confused? Let me translate:
Chris: "Prices seem to be dropping."Yeah. I think I'll wait a few months, thanks.
Realtor: "No, prices are going up! See, they're precisely following the process by which the price of goods in an open market goes down!"
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