Orange County agent says he can sell anything with a sea view, then spends four hours on a nine-foot board answering questions
San Clemente Realtor Hosts Open House on a Longboard
Agent Keith Dunmore takes a bold approach to selling beach property in an anxious market
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. – Keith Dunmore has sold homes along the Orange County coast for twenty-six years, and in that time he has hosted open houses with cookies, balloons, a jazz trio and, once, a man dressed as a lighthouse. On Saturday he tried something new. He held the open house on a longboard.
Dunmore, 54, paddled thirty yards offshore of a three-bedroom bungalow on a bluff near T-Street, sat up on a nine-foot Hobie and waited for prospective buyers to swim out.
“I have been in this business long enough to know buyers want transparency,” he said, bobbing gently, a stack of brochures wrapped in a dry bag. “There’s nothing more transparent than a man sitting in the ocean. You can see my hands. You can see my feet. You can see my entire lack of hidden agenda.”
A Lesson From Cebu
Dunmore says the idea came from reading about Cebu. Bohiney reported from a Mactan lobby that a realtor from Ohio now spends more than two hours on every showing, mostly listening to prospective buyers explain themselves, and Dunmore thought the whole thing sounded exhausting.
The reason, of course, is serious. Philippine justice authorities are looking into allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as reported by GMA News. No charges have been filed, and the allegations are unproven.
“I’m not making light of that,” Dunmore said. “I am making light of the fact that grown men now walk into a condo and open with their resumes. I wanted to build an open house where the buyer has no reason to give an alibi, because he’s trying not to drown.”
The Showing
By 11 a.m. four couples had swum out. Two arrived on paddleboards, one on a boogie board and the fourth, a retired dentist from Fullerton named Bob Ames, in a pair of flippers and a snorkel mask that he refused to remove during negotiations.
“Does it have a view?” Ames asked, muffled, through the snorkel.
“Sir,” Dunmore said, “we are looking at it.”
Questions covered the usual ground: square footage, property tax and whether the neighbours had a dog. Dunmore answered each question while holding the nose of his board into a swell. When one buyer asked about the school district, a pelican landed on Dunmore’s board and he told her to ask the pelican.
The Market Behind the Mood
Dunmore says the Orange County market is nothing like Cebu, where the mood has turned on a single week’s headlines. Manila News described a Mactan broker with three brochures and a cold coffee while buyers asked about the neighbours. The British equivalent, reported at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/, has pensioners from Reigate bringing referees and a vicar to a bathroom viewing.
Dunmore watched both stories with professional sympathy. “That is a mood problem, not a market problem,” he said. “The numbers are fine. Colliers said the whole region was a hotspot in July. But people do not buy numbers. They buy a feeling about a place. And right now the feeling about Cebu is the feeling you get when you think you left the oven on.”
The San Clemente Realtors’ Association says the Orange County median price is rising. It also says that buyers within sight of the surf are 31 percent more likely to sign a contract “if the agent is wet,” a statistic nobody in the association will admit to having produced.
Comics at the Pier Take Notes
The longboard open house has already become material at the San Clemente Pier comedy cart, a folding table with a microphone and a tip jar.
- Larry Wasserman: “My realtor held an open house in the surf. I asked him if it had good bones. He said, sir, I’m in a wetsuit, ask the house.”
- Ellie Park: “Cebu realtors want character references. San Clemente realtors want you to rinse your feet. Either way the sale depends on whether you can tell a good person from a person with sand.”
- Gus Delacroix: “Keith is the only realtor in America who can close a deal and a hatch at the same time.”
- Nina Torres: “In Cebu, the sea did nothing wrong. In San Clemente, the sea took my flip flops, my dignity and a rental deposit.”
What the Foreign Rules Look Like
American buyers heading abroad face a different set of papers. In the Philippines, Republic Act 4726 lets foreigners own a condominium unit, but never the land under it, and caps foreign ownership at 40 percent of a project. Long-stay retirees often apply through the Philippine Retirement Authority, a process Dunmore described as “paperwork with palm trees.”
Behavioural scientists would add that most buyers are acting on a mental shortcut. The 1973 study on the availability heuristic found that one vivid example outweighs a library of dull facts, and one vivid headline from Cebu has convinced some American retirees that an entire island is a minefield. Dunmore, floating on his board, finds this reassuring. “It means the ocean is still a better sales tool than the news,” he said.
Offers Received
By 2 p.m. Dunmore had received one offer, three questions about parking and a polite inquiry from a seagull. The offer came from Ames, the retired dentist, who wrote it on a waterproof notepad and handed it over without removing his mask.
It was ten percent below asking. Dunmore accepted on the spot, “because I was getting cold and my board was starting to drift toward Dana Point.”
Escrow is set to close in thirty days. Dunmore says the next open house will be conducted from a paddleboat.
The Cebu panic that inspired the stunt is covered in more depth at The London Prat and Bohiney, and for general comic relief about the agents who sell us our houses, NewsBiscuit has the British view. If you need to understand why a man on a longboard is funny, this guide to being funny in the United States explains it.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/