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Real Estate News

This Risky Business parody video is trying to sell you a house

By Steve Kupferman
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Realtor Karyn Filiatrault, whose work we’ve noticed before, is a former television producer who now sells houses for a living—and it would appear that she’s reluctant to leave the media industry behind. Her sales strategy is unique: where most real estate agents would favour a slideshow of a pristine home interior, perhaps set to some light jazz, Filiatrault creates short films set in her clients’ homes, complete with actors and plotlines.

She has been doing these films, she says, for about five years. The latest one, shot to promote a home at 903 Lansdowne Avenue, features an actor doing his best Tom-Cruise-in-Risky-Business impression. Yes, he’s in briefs. (And yes, whoever buys the home will need to live in the knowledge that his crotch bulge was there before them.)

According to Filiatrault, the films are all about getting her listings noticed. “People like to be entertained. Entertainment will get them to watch a listing longer and in that regard they’ll actually get to see the property longer,” she says.

She runs her ideas by her clients before she shoots them, and there’s no additional charge for the service. “I’m a full-service agent,” she says, “and this is just something else that I offer. When I do the films, I notice that we get more eyes on a property, and we get more offers on it.”

You can watch the rest of Filiatrault’s oeuvre on her Vimeo page.

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