2015

Admit it. You’re a complete addict. You look at them in bed, at work, on your phone. Your heart flutters, you feel tickles inside your lower belly, and you’re totally obsessed. “You like to think that you’re immune to the stuff. It’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough. You know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to…” Robert Palmer.

I know your addiction. I read my own analytics and see what you’ve done and when you’ve done it. Naughty, naughty! Your boss would not like you spending so much of their dime on your passion. Lucky for you, your habit is free and so accessible and there are no monthly fees which you have to hide from your spouse (although recently you’ve been going over your data plan limits on your shared mobile service). Go ahead and admit that you are powerless over house porn and that your life has become unmanageable. When you were in college you talked with your buddies about sex all the time and now just a few years later all you can do is show home tours on your computer at the hipster coffee house to strangers.

People call me and admit their desires to me daily. They text me about how so and so’s website has such beautiful photos of a house and that we must dash there immediately to see its glory. Or how a home that just appeared on the MLS is stunning and we must run. It appears my client has been stalking houses for months and days and he has become turned on by images aglow in soft lighting and the appearance of new glossy finishes. He hasn’t paid attention to the Google street view too closely because he might have seen that the one house sits next to an 8-plex apartment building, and the other is a new listing done by a flipper I know. I run anyway and meet him at the first house. It too is a flipper that is staged inside to the nines with groovy furniture and IKEA lighting. The lovely neighborhood is perfect with sycamore-lined streets dotted with faux-period street lights and little traffic. Then I show him why he doesn’t want this house (8-plex neighbors). He gets back in his car and we drive to the second house. It appears nice too. “Look how the exterior brick was just painted to hide the major crack in the wall and foundation. Do you notice the wet smell in the basement-that’s the foundation crack. And for the price of this home, do you want cabinets that just have new fronts and hardware or do you want all hardwood?” The crack scares him and he looks sad. He wants to go back to the interwebs and look at more pretty houses.

House porn is wonderful. I know because I’m addicted too. Read between the lines when you’re sitting in your jammies. If the photos are great, read the remarks about the house. If all the agent talks about is the area around it and not the house, there’s no updating. “Minimal yard work” means your dog won’t have room to pee. Most of all, tell your wife what you’re doing and get your own place ready to sell so others can lust over you. You might find she’s been looking at the same porn when you’re not around.