Real Estate Ads with Commentary

These are high resolution images if you want a closer look at any of these.



This was a card. I guess its just not enough to have your name and number on the card -- you have to have an image to help you market your "brand". Here Mitchell --this kid must have had a mother into soap operas or something -- has got his arms crossed. While his partner (wife/sister/cousin???) has the prime and proper look. That is until you flip the card, then she's all business with crossed arms. I don't know if anyone sees this besides me -- but when i look at it i get the sense that he's banging her. That's fine if he's married to her, but if she's related to him its kind of like incense.

Can't forget the catchy saying as well:

You pick the best
So we can do the rest

they got the rhyme right, but it looks off because the syllable count on the two lines is different so its loses something. They should have kept it simple
Forget the Rest
Work with the Best


I guess these little catch phrases are really important. Check out this guy.

So typical garbage unit ad with a prominent picture as well as the contact info. How does he set himself apart, he has an awesome passion for real estate. Wow. I didn't think that was possible. I can understand people being passionate about a lot of things (music, art, chicks, politics) but not real estate. Does this mean that he gets all excited when he sees stuff he's into? Like does flip out when he see hardwood floors or crown mouldings? It seems a little odd because I real estate agents are supposed to be professional in some sort of dimension.


This next one is really boring. The guy's saying isn't even worth making fun of. But it does illustrate the potential drawbacks of advertising on a garbage can.

You can get some shit on you and you could look really disgusting. I'm not sure if its coffee or coke that's spilling down on the guy's face, but it does make him look really professional.


In this one her outfit really grabs your attention: giant hounds tooth.

But what makes Magda special? She's an award winner!!!!!



A platinum award even, not just gold or silver. She also has some degrees, but I'm not sure what a B.Sc. and a M.A.Sc. have to do with real estate -- the last one looks like an engineering degree. hmmmm..... I wonder .....


Check this one out. What inspired this colour choice? Could it be Picasso's Rose Period? Perhaps, but then he would be wearing a harlequin outfit. Might be an improvement.

When I first saw it I wasn't sure what the point of this was. Was he an agent? Or was it supposed to be an ad to attract agents -- so like they put a generic picture (like with a picture frame) -- and you picture yourself selling real estate. It's confusing because there's no catch phrase; i guess the background colour is supposed to hold your attention. Also the contact info is really small and in the bottom. Probably not a great idea -- especially with a lot of snow then you basically wasted the money on the ad because no one can get your contact info.

Now this next ad really sets itself apart.



So this is actually creative. She's got the dog with her and she like says that a real estate agent is like a dog. So like they would always be there for you no matter what -- just like a dog.

But does that mean you have to talk them out for a walk?

Big Bunny's Girl of the Month: Random Girl

Who is she? I don't know. She kind of looks like she could be related to Kim Kardashian.


The pictures are from last night's party, check it out if you want to see her in more detail

Random Picture

Via Supertanga's, a website that never disappoints. Hit the website to get a better look at this.

Big City Agents and Aladdin Style Footwear

This real estate ad caught my eye.

That's Brad J. Lamb.

This is his team.


They used to have a reality show -- Big City Agent -- on what they did (and didn't do) in a day. Pretty high drama -- deals not getting closed, agents fighting with each other for stuff that is probably really insignificant.

I only saw a few episodes; I lost track of it after that.

He had this thing where he featured some of this agents and gave some of the background. I guess the show was supposed to be a giant ad for his brokerage and development business. That's kind of ironic because you would think that if someone was making millions from developing condo projects that they wouldn't have to advertise on a garbage can on a street corner. Maybe the condo business isn't as good as everyone thinks?

They had some really interesting poses. Check out the guy on the right, the way he's side ways but looking at the camera -- that looks really cooolll!!!. The guy in between mr. cool and the women is like going for the more casual guy next door look.


The guy with the red tie really standouts in the whole ad. Not only is he the only one wearing a tie, he also pulls off a more serious look because he looks more like a banker (like in the branch, not investment banking) than his colleagues. Everyone else while in a suit has basically got their shirt unbuttoned up top. Oh and he also has the cell phone pose, i think he thought of that hisself.

The woman on the far right, they featured her on one of the shows. She started out as a receptionist and worked her way up the ladder. She's in a relationship with this white guy who made her move out to Burlington and she's kind of stressed out because its a real hassle to chill with her girls because its a long commute. Guido next to her is a less sympathetic figure. Apparently, he was a bartender and Mr. Lamb had one of his drinks and decided that he would be a good real estate agent. I don't see the logic in that. It is kind of scary though.

The guy standing next to the one in the orange is supposed to be their top seller. He was a bit of a prima donna -- in more than the usual sense of the word sailor (pronounced with a lisp).

The second guy from the right was also having a bit of a complex on the show. He wanted to resell agent (where the money is better) and not be trapped in the showroom, where things can get pretty shitty. He actually got pulled from a showroom because of some sort of conflict with the developer of the project. I felt really sorry for the guy. He looked so hurt.


But really caught my attention after looking at this ad is the footwear. Your going to need the high resolution versions of the pictures so just click on them to see what i mean.



Look at the arc on the toe of the guy on the outside's shoes. I mean I can kind of seem him going home to his pad, with like cushions, carpets and a lamp -- a place with a real morrocan or middle eastern vibe. Maybe he changes out of his suit into some sort of vest and a baggy pant outfit. At the other extreme, the guy next to him has this super squared toed shoes -- probably kenneth cole -- that sort of look like duck feet.


If we look at the guy standing next to the woman in brown, we again see the aladdin style arc. However, in this case the shoes don't come to a point they are slighty squared off. The guy at the edge has a similar shoe, but no arc -- although it is slightly elongated. I never new that there were so many variations on such basic thing as an aladdin style show.

Its hard to sometimes get a sense of the sort of point we're talking about, but here we can line up a women shoes (at the far-left and one-from the right) with men's shoes and get a comparison.


The men's shoes are not necessarily aladdin version with the point, but they are quite pointy and elongated like a pointy woman's high heel. If you just had the tip of the shoe, it would be hard to tell whether we're talking about a man's or a woman's shoe.

Here again we can see the duck-bill shoe at the end and the flatter aladin style next to the woman.



So it looks like the agents in this brokerage tend to go for pointy shoes for the most part, but they also have some tastes for the aladdin style curl. This might be because they're into selling condos and lofts and they have to look more contemporary than an agent that deals with houses , where you might feel more comfortable with a squarer toe shoed agent.

But the thing I really want to know is whether Brad J. Lamb is rocking the aladdin style shoes?

Event Ads: High-brow vs Low-brow

Here are a couple of ads for two different events. One's a little more artsy, while the other is a little racier. These are all high resolution pictures so just click on them to see the details.

This one is for some sort of burlesque show. I guess that's what they used to call dancing before it was called dancing. Now burlesque is supposed to be classier than the dancing, and it seems that the pseudo-bomehian hipsters are advertising this event.

It's got a decent title, but I kind of look at the picture and woman doesn't seem too voluptuous to me. It might be because the image is kind of grainy (more like blocky because of pixels), but if the women are supposed to be the focus of the evening then it should be that the women should feature more prominently in the ad. Here she's kind of washed out.


You can tell that this is really artsy because its compared to the divine decadence of the weimar republic berlin. Wow; guess the person who put this together read some history books or some sort of movie on this period on TV. I seriously doubt that anything in this city could rival the cabaret culture in berlin between the world wars. To make a comparison like that the creator of the ad has to be delusional. This is supposed to an ad for a burlesque show, who cares about the historical references. I want to know how hot the dancers/performers are going to be and whether they got a celebrity performer (whose name might be recognizable outside of the little circle of people that organized the event)!!!!!

Now compare that ad with this little gem. This is a two sided flyer.

Here's the first side.The event is called "One Night Stand". That's already got my attention. It lists the location, the date, the DJs, the preformers and the MC.

Here's the other side. Again, the title is there. But on this side they amp up the attention by putting the picture of the girl in the bikini above the title. Here the title and the image work in tandem to get the basic message of the ad across.

An extra detail in the image that i didn't notice until i looked at the high resolution picture (click on it the picture below to see it), is that the girl is pouring milk over her body. Again reall highly suggestive and sexually charged.


Its clear that this ad is a lot better thought out and put together than the first one. So the artsy ad basically falls flat because they lose sight of the big picture -- guess they were too self absorbed or whatever. The second ad has a simple message that it wants to get across and it does it both with the title and the images. Even the artwork in the second ad is better -- the bikini matches the background and the lettering in the foreground. Both events are trying to use "ass" as the selling point, but only one of them does it effectively.

Lions versus Eagles

The royal houses of Europe often use lions and eagles in their coat of arms. For example, the english use the lion; the german empire, austria-hungary, tsarist russia as well as the roman empire used the eagle. Some other countries have also used these symbols in their national identity; the eagle (nazi germany and the acores), the lion (the venetian republic).

I guess some home owners want to add to the regality of their home by using lions and eagles as decorative symbols.

What i'm curious about is what makes someone a lion person, while a neighbour could be an eagle person.

Like here I'm thinking the columns probably give it like a NYC public library vibe and it should be lions.




This pad has got the frosted brick work and they go for a dark lion. I probably would've gone for one in plain stone, might be less of a contrast with the lightness in the brick work.

They also look a little undersized, not majestic enough.


Just down the street there is an "eagle" house. They're covered for the winter, but you can still make them out. Here the eagles are the prefect choice. They have the late-roman empire theme happening with the pottery and the concrete mini-columns. Still I probably would've gotten the eagles in stone instead of the dark finish. I think it would've made the place look more imperial.



It looks like the eagle look goes well with a roman theme to the house, while lions might be better suited to frosted brick and other looks.

The first few pictures I snapped were in Little Italy. However, I was suprised to find similar decorations when i was deep in scarborough.


We have lion on this place and also they have a little minature bear. When I saw the bear I was kind of thinking that the household might be russian, but it turns out that they are south indian or sri lankan. I was really shocked because it destroys the stereotype that italians or portueguese households use these decorations.



Just down the street from this house is a real masterpiece. I thought that a household is either a lion or an eagle house. But sometimes it s more than that. This house was a lion, an eagle, a collie and an angel house. Check it out.




The lions are like at the front (one on each side of the driveway) and the collies are in front of the garage. That's pretty regal. I don't really get the rationale for the collies, maybe they're into lassie or something. I would've thought that maybe you could have a crouching tiger or panther in front of the garage. The eagles are also painted to look like bald eagles (kind of harley davidson-ish), but the collies, the angel and the lions are kind of coppery.

So I guess you could be an eagle or a lion person, or perhaps you could be really into animals and be into have more than one in front of your place.
This is really confusing.