Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/20/realtor-used-inflatable-t-rex.html
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This guy knows what’s up.
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Related valid excuse to post a G&B vid on a Friday (at 90 mins till pub o’clock and counting):
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It’s a dog whistle that herbivores aren’t welcome in the community.
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So very glad that I am not on @beschizza’s gift list.
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Sure they are! They’re delicious!
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Home for 90k? Man i wish, definitely not the going rate in Austin.
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Looks like a nice little place, though I’d prefer to decorate with paintings. Wish I could afford it.
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certainly makes the homes look bigger and the lawn mower. I would like to see this scene in Jurassic Park 6 .
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And we’ve got a bazillion house staging companies here in ATX anyway. Morbidly curious, I did a search for “funny house staging Austin” and among the list of notably unfunny results is this:
https://www.thestagingguy.com/
Uh… wow. I am clearly not with the trending tastes in interior decorating.
I feel like a “Keep Austin Weird” house stager, or Hilarious House Staging Company, Inc. is a truly overlooked market segment.
As for pricing, yeah, you can forget anything reasonable in our 5-county Austin metro area. Nearly nothing out there that doesn’t get snapped up in a week (I have been looking), unless it’s something needing to be stripped down to the stud walls, or next to a truly obnoxious commercial area. Texas law these days has redefined “nuisance” grounds pretty much in favor of business over residential property owners. Hey depressed property values could actually be a win! </bitter cynic>
I took a friend to lunch recently, he had lived for a time in the SoCo lofts near the intersection of Ben White and South Congress. He told the apartment managers he needed a quiet place because he got up really early (he’s a school teacher). They put him in a unit directly across from a strip club. The music blared through his windows until the wee hours every single night. He broke his lease after a guy died trying to jump into the complex’s swimming pool from a third floor balcony. And that apartment was considered a pretty good deal given location and date of construction, acc. to my friend (which is I guess why he went for it in the first place).
Across from my very very South Congress office, the apartment building dropped their rental prices, stopped doing background checks, etc. because it was having trouble filling mostly vacant units. It’s got quite a few junkies in it now. I spoke with someone who lives there and was walking her dog right past my office window. Someone tries to steal the battery out of my truck about once a month when I park there, and the dog poop trash containers are filled with needles (careful how you put that filled poop baggie in there!).
I’d love to see how to stage that building to rent out more of their units. Inflatable T-Rexes from Amazon wouldn’t begin to make up for it. The whole area would need to some kind of art installation by Andy Goldsworthy or Patrick Doherty. Something amazing yet not worth stealing.
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First apartment i moved into in Austin was in the Hyde Park area near UT. about a 460sqft tiny and old apartment. I hated it, the owner was a cheapskate that wouldn’t fix anything but it was cheap and in a good location. I did like the area though, very quiet despite being near the university. I’m now more north but not too far and i do like the area as well though its more busy.
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I’m in that area twice a week, minimum.
My realtor friend tells me that >65% of the total ownership of housing stock there is rental market (aka “investment property”). She’s representing a seller right now with a 2BR/1B detached garage original clapboard and wood construction for $1.3 mil and she fully expects yet another investor to show up with full cash offer over asking price.
It’s like a different version of London’s housing problems in its urban core. None of the people who want to live in this town can actually afford to live in this town.
I lived flightpath on 54th with roommates. I could count the belly rivets on the planes as they made their final approach from my back porch. The air conditioner worked about 20% of the time. I could not believe our awesomely good cheap deal. Then the airport moved from Mueller to Bergstrom. Goodbye cheap!
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Compared to the drum of personal lubricant, an inflatable dinosaur suit is positively tame.
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Whatever floats your boat. I won’t yuck your yum.
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I feel like these are from a postscript to a Chuck Tingle novel where having sex with a t-rex eventually leads to mundane suburban domesticity.
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Oh hell yes, that’s doing it with style! 
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I’ve noticed a trend in realty pics to really amp up the HDR filters. Enough is enough.
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I’ve been the person that scoots the couch over just 2 more inches for a few home stagers. I can’t say anything for fear of getting fired, but I’m always thinking: “Stop trying to dictate how the new owners should decorate!” It never occurs to them that their ‘Good Taste’ might actually be Lower-Middle-Class. Their provincial socio-economic backgrounds limit them to a love of beige and 20-year-old throw pillows.
An inflatable T-Rex? Anything, anything, but that F#@king fascist Martha Stewart!
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If this means there’s an open slot for being gifted one of these T. rex items, I’d like to be considered.
Let me know if there’s an application form I need to fill out.
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