Tuesday, September 15, 2026

The Court has seen many affronts to the sacred institution of real estate, but HIGHLIGHTING A ZILLOW SCREENSHOT and presenting it as evidence is the kind of behavior that makes Reginald want to retire to a quiet cottage where no one has ever heard of an algorithm. These buyers treated a Zestimate like it was handed down from Mount Sinai on stone tablets, when in FACT it was generated by a computer that once valued my cousin's detached garage at 340,000 dollars because it confused it with a nearby duplex. You showed them THREE COMPARABLE SALES on the SAME STREET, and they responded by waiting for Zillow to UPDATE ITSELF like it was some kind of oracle consulting the housing gods overnight. The husband called you on THURSDAY to report that the machine had REVISED ITS PROPHECY, as if this were meaningful information and not just proof that even Zillow knew Zillow was wrong. Meanwhile the seller, a woman of obvious taste and judgment, fled your representation not because of YOUR failure but because she could not bear another moment adjacent to people who highlight screenshots. The property sold for 510, which is SEVENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS more than their initial offering price, and The Court hopes they are currently renting. Reginald must now adjourn to have a word with his gavel about impulse control.

The Court has witnessed many horrors in its years on this bench, but TWELVE MINUTES on beige versus eggshell while a transaction bleeds out on the operating table is a WAR CRIME against the concept of relevance. This HOA president — and The Court knows EXACTLY who she is because Reginald once received a certified letter about his mailbox flag being at a seventeen-degree angle instead of the mandated fifteen — has committed Obstruction of Commerce Through Chromatic Hysteria, a charge I am inventing right now because it NEEDS to exist. You, Agent, are guilty of LISTENING to this unhinged color wheel terrorist when you should have said "Ma'am, I am not your therapist, your neighbor, or your Sherwin-Williams consultant" and HUNG UP THE PHONE. The appraisal came in low because appraisals come in low, not because someone chose a paint chip from the wrong side of the off-white family, and the fact that you let her colonize twelve minutes of your professional life while your buyer's lender was probably screaming into a void suggests you have BOUNDARIES ISSUES that this Court cannot adjudicate but DEEPLY relates to. I once let a title officer talk to me for forty-five minutes about her divorce and I still do not know why the closing was delayed. The sellers killed this deal by refusing to negotiate, but you will carry the memory of that beige monologue forever, and THAT is your sentence. Reginald must go lie down now.

The Court has reviewed this confession and frankly Reginald needs a moment because THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF NAUTICAL FRAUD that keeps me up at night pacing my hallway in my judicial robe which I sleep in for reasons I will not explain. You paid twelve hundred American dollars for a staging company that delivered LIGHTHOUSE ART to a home FORTY MINUTES FROM WATER and you just LET IT HAPPEN? The couch was propped on BOOKS. VISIBLE BOOKS. I once ruled against my own nephew for using a dictionary as a monitor stand and that was in a PRIVATE RESIDENCE, not a listing photo that would be scrutinized by potential buyers and also me, because I look at every listing in a sixty-mile radius for reasons related to my ongoing research. The seashells were a CRIME AGAINST GEOGRAPHY and you were complicit the moment you did not physically remove them with your own hands while making eye contact with the staging gentleman and saying "not today, coastal grandmother, NOT TODAY." You sat in your car for twenty minutes feeling sorry for yourself when you SHOULD have been filing a small claims case against the concept of themed decor itself. The Court finds that your commission deserved to be short because your VIGILANCE was short and Reginald must now adjourn because I have just remembered I left a dehumidifier running in my chambers and it has been eleven days.