Real estate’s P.T. Barnum
To some, it’s a clever marketing ploy in a desperate real estate market.
To others, it’s obnoxious and makes homes look unsafe.
But no matter, everyone’s talking about it.
Palm Beach Gardens real estate broker Mike Thomas, a computer whiz, has taken to posting video tours of the luxury homes he sells on YouTube.
Nothing new about that.
Except if you stay long enough to watch the 30-second bits, Thomas then gets his Jackass streak going.
In one $3 million home for sale in BallenIsles, PBG, he pretends to be electrocuted in the kitchen after having shown the palatial digs’ salt-water aquarium.
In a $560,000 home at Ibis Country Club, in West Palm Beach, Thomas pretends to be burned on a stove.
And in a $750,000 place at Jupiter’s Egret Landing, he ends the tour by falling into the pool — fully clothed.
The pool fall actually receives the heaviest traffic.
“I go to comedy clubs all the time,” Thomas said. “I guess it shows.”
Thomas says the real estate process in general is so boring that he wanted to make it a little lighter.
“The clips have created tremendous traffic for my Web site,” he said. “As a result, the BallenIsles home got more showings than any other $3 million home in that development.”
Maybe, but not everyone thinks it’s funny. Especially the Illinois-based owner of the BallenIsles home, businessman Harvey Rosenfeld.
“I didn’t know he was doing this until someone called me,” Rosenfeld said. “First, he needs to take the video of my house down because he no longer has the listing (which Thomas did Wednesday afternoon). Second, what’s the message here: that my home is unsafe and has electrical problems?
“And I’d hate for a kid to watch his fall in the pool and do the same thing. It’s dangerous.”
Replied Thomas: “It’s not because I’m watching someone jump from a roof onto a trampoline on America’s Funniest Home Videos that I’m going to do the same thing.”




