Misleading buyers a global realty phenomenon?

Track2Realty Exclusive: It seems misleading realty advertisements and promotions are not just Indian market specific but a global trend. While the Indian developers are being asked to stop misleading ads, misleading news with realty/marketing companies’ employees as potential buyers has been reported in other parts of the world.

For example, in Vancouver a news report that MAC Marketing had one of its employees pose as a potential homeowner in media interviews led to huge embarrassment for the company. It, however, prompted an apology from owner and former Business in Vancouver Forty under 40 winner Cameron McNeill and accusations from bloggers that this is part of a wider trend.

MAC Marketing’s manipulation of the media involved employee Amanda Lee along with another woman who said she was Amanda’s sister Chris Lee. Together they told both CBC News and CTV News on the weekend that they were waiting for their wealthy parents from China to come to Vancouver for Chinese New Year and potentially buy them a condo during the stay.

A blogger who goes by the name @Village Whisper exposed the manipulation and prompted McNeill to apologize.

“All I can say is that I deeply apologize for having misled the media for being there,” McNeill told media.

“We were busy and I don’t know if the girls were put up to it, or just put on the spot, or if it happened spontaneously. Regardless, it was wrong and I take full responsibility, on my own shoulders.”

Such tactics seem to be part of a trend of real-estate marketers manipulating media perception to sell condos.

In another report by Business in Vancouver it is alleged that VancouverIsAwesome.com editor Bob Kronbauer is being paid by the in-receivership Village on False Creek, formerly the Olympic Village, to promote life in the village, even though nowhere on his website does it make it clear that he is being paid to do so.

And @Village_Whisper’s blog points to a Global TV story in April 2012 where real-estate marketer The Key was launching what it called “Groupon for condos.”

The Global TV story by reporter Michelle Miller featured a woman named Tara Fluet, who was listed as an investor in the program to group-buy condos. A woman by the same name has a LinkedIn profile that states that her job is as a sales manager at The Key.

“The public has a right to know the behind the scenes connections when these stories are presented as ‘news,'” @Village_Whisper noted on the blog Whispers from the Edge of the Rainforest.

The Indian realtors can smile with such news reports with an assertive moral high ground that at least they don’t stoop to misleading news reports to sell their projects. And media can equally smile that even though paid news is eroding its credibility to a large extent, at least they have not been caught on supporting any with such mischief or news plant. Whether this is honesty or a case of Indian marketers/realtors way behind their global counterparts in misleading the buyers remains debatable.