In case you missed it, the L.A. Times gave some front-page love today to North County real estate broker Jim Klinge, detailing his “Jim the Realtor” persona and his shaky, amusing YouTube videos of houses for sale found on his blog.
Here’s a bit from the story:
Lately, his videos have been picked up on Calculated Risk, an influential economics blog whose followers include Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. In one clip, the camera pans across the kitchen of a million-dollar fixer near Interstate 5. He pointedly notes the house’s proximity to the freeway, which he calls the “De-troit river.” There’s mold under the sink and a foot-sized hole in the drywall just above the floor.
“December 2006 this house sold for a million dollars,” he says. “Nineteen hundred square feet, built in ’78, right across the freeway. One million.”
On the off-chance the real estate agent who sold the place is watching, Klinge puts in a request: “I want you to put your mai tai down, go grab your shingle and send it in to the DRE [California Department of Real Estate] right now. You don’t deserve a job,” he says. “Everyone who was on that deal deserves to be fired, even the janitor at the escrow company. This is embarrassing, $1 million. Right now it’s listed at $575,000 and that’s probably optimistic.”
It’s not the first paper with the word “Times” in the masthead where Klinge’s shown up this week. The New York Times included his take on Tuesday.
Of course, Klinge and his blog have been oft-quoted in Survival and in my full-length stories about the housing market. I’ll be back in touch with Klinge when his head’s back down to size — or at least the size it was before.