Every one of us—from the capital allocator reviewing quarterly projections to the architect sketching a minimalist lobby—is in the same boat. We all have a craft. We all have a specialization. But that’s not the primary thing we do every night.

Every night, we go home.

We are, first and foremost, people who rent, buy, and live in spaces. We’ve all spent a miserable Saturday scrolling through vague listings, trying to figure out if “cozy” means “small” or “a fire hazard.” We’ve all been trapped in a “lead nurture” sequence that felt less like nurturing and more like a stalker who got a bulk email license.

And yet, the moment we step into the office, a strange, collective amnesia takes hold. It’s like a corporate form of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, except instead of turning into a monster, you turn into a marketing automaton.

The professional version of you suddenly believes that tactics you personally hate are somehow smart strategy.

The $10,000 Lie and the $5 Spam

Think about it.

When you were searching for your own last apartment or office, what did you hate?

You hated the listing that showed a perfect, airbrushed rendering of two impossibly beautiful people laughing at a kale salad on a balcony that was, in reality, too small for one cat. You knew, instantly, that this was a $10,000 Lie. That money could have been spent on—I don’t know—a better light fixture.

You hated the fact that the property description used five paragraphs to describe the “synergistic, vertically integrated lifestyle ecosystem,” but failed to mention the crucial, single piece of information: Does the trash room smell like last Tuesday?

And worst of all, you hated the spam. You clicked a form that said “Get Pricing Info,” and within 45 seconds, you got five automated texts, three emails, and a carrier pigeon demanding to know if you were “ready to commit to a vision of unparalleled luxury.” This is the $5 Spam. And as an industry, we pay millions for it.

The shocking thing is that the same developers and property managers who roll their eyes at this rubbish when they’re shopping are the ones paying six figures to generate it when they’re selling.

It’s the great paradox of modern real estate marketing: We forget what it felt like to be confused, to be annoyed, and—most importantly—to be human.

The Trap of Professional Jargon

Why does this amnesia happen? It’s not malice. It’s the insidious effect of professionalization.

When you start talking about “optimizing the conversion funnel” or “leveraging push notifications for high-intent MQLs,” you stop talking about people. You stop talking about a 30-year-old software engineer trying to decide if they can afford the extra $200 for a dog run.

The tools hijack the strategy. We invest in the latest $50,000 CRM platform, and suddenly, the goal isn’t “help people find a great place to live.” The goal becomes “fill all 17 required fields in the CRM to avoid triggering a compliance alert.”

We replace honest communication with automated efficiency.

• You hated vague pricing? We’ll use dynamic pricing algorithms that make the tenant feel like they’re bidding on a vintage Pokémon card.
• You wanted clear photos? We’ll use wide-angle lenses to make a broom closet look like a ballroom, then call it “creative photography.”
• You wanted to feel respected? We’ll hit you with the automated, high-pressure, three-touch-points-in-six-minutes follow-up sequence.

It’s like building a beautifully engineered, zero-emissions electric vehicle, and then forcing the driver to use the navigation system from 1998. The product is brilliant. The experience is a self-inflicted wound.

The Competitive Edge: A Better Memory

The future of real estate isn’t found in a better chatbot or a more aggressive ad spend. It’s found in a deeper level of self-awareness—a better memory.

Your biggest competitive advantage right now is the ability to remember what it’s like to have a headache.

Ask your team to stop thinking like a “lead” and start thinking like Laura, who needs to move by the 15th and is exhausted.

If you want a blueprint for better marketing, try this:

1. Stop Running the $10,000 Lie. Kill the generic rendering budget. Today, the technology exists to weaponize truth at scale. Thanks to Volumetric Information Multiplayer (VIM) technology—the kind Suitesflow—you can generate unit-specific virtual tours and accurate layouts for every one of your 300 units. You can do this whether the unit is pre-construction, occupied, or due to be available in six months. The technology doesn’t need to step inside; your inventory is now your immersive, accurate marketing asset.
2. Abolish the $5 Spam (By Enabling Self-Qualification). Stop treating every click like a mandate for immediate, desperate stalking. Instead, try pushing your sales by providing people, at the palm of their hand, all the detailed information they need to understand if your units are a fit. When prospects can self-qualify—ruling themselves out if they hate the finishes or can’t afford the price—you save your sales team hundreds of hours chasing people who were never a fit. You waste your time and they waste theirs. Efficiency by honesty.
3. Sell the Dream, but Start with Reality. Yes, sell the elevated lifestyle. But that elevated experience begins with respect. Treat your future tenants as the paramount element of your vision. Share truthful, easy-to-access information and relieve the sales pressure. We swap the tired, high-friction sales cycle for the high-conviction power of reality, truth, and easy access to information. The return on investment for an honest, human memory is infinite.

In the Paul Graham universe of startups, the winners are often the ones who built something they desperately wanted themselves.

In real estate, the winners of the next decade will be the ones who manage their portfolios and market their projects the way they genuinely wished others had managed and marketed to them.

It’s not about being nice; it’s about being efficient. Confusion, frustration, and spam are not sales strategies—they are friction. And friction is where deals die. Wipe out the friction by simply remembering how the other side of the screen feels. The return on investment for an honest, human memory is infinite.