This heated election season is really bringing the house down.
Local real estate brokers tell The Post that this divided campaign cycle is bad for business. Home buyers are so turned off by seeing political signs of the candidates they despise in their new areas — with some even trying to get out of a contract altogether when they discover a neighbor’s lawn sign promoting an opponent. Meanwhile, some industry professionals are even sworn to political purity tests before sellers give them the blessing to rep their listing.
“This election is very loud and heated, more than I’ve ever seen,” said Long Island-based broker Tammy Babadzhanov. “It’s bigger signs, bigger flags — it’s a lot.”
Buyers who don’t want to move into neighborhoods where they see political signs — those for candidates with whom they disagree — is an increasing problem, she said of politically charged stretches of Long Island, such as Levittown, Sea Cliff and Roslyn.
“I was just showing a house and the buyers saw Harris signs. They said, ‘Nope — there are Democrats — I don’t want to be here,’” the Douglas Elliman broker recalled when a neighbor’s sign was spotted. “We’ll look somewhere else,” they fumed.
Still, it’s not like the agent can tell politically loud neighbors to put a sock in it just because she’s trying to sell their next door neighbor’s house. “It’s free speech, it’s their property,” Babadzhanov said. “They can do what they want on their property.”
“I can’t tell them, ‘Your neighbor is trying to sell their house — please take down your signs.”
During a recent drive through Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn to show townhouses to a buyer, Harris signs abounded. It was then Babadzhanov realized that buyers are making decisions based on quick drive-bys and ruling out certain districts altogether.
“’This is not the neighborhood for me — I’m moving elsewhere,’” Babadzhanov recalled the buyer thundering.
But sometimes agents just can’t win.
“Some buyers can think all Trump supporters are extremists and get turned off — and then some buyers see Harris-Walz signs and write off the area as too woke,” she said. “A lot of these people have different outlooks on life — they believe in different things — they think the lifestyles are too different.”
And some agents are put in the hot seat themselves.
Two weeks ago, Ellen Caprino, a licensed real estate broker on Long Island, returned from an appointment with a potential seller. The octogenarian who was selling her longtime home grilled Caprino: “’OK, I like you, but I have a question to ask you,’” she recalled her saying. “’I want to know who you’re voting for.’”
A shocked Caprino thought, “What do I have to lose?” Knowing the listing was at stake, she took a gamble and said, “I’ll tell you who I’m not voting for — I’m not voting for her,” and proceeded to reveal her candidate of choice.
Caprino was hired. “Over 20 years in the business, this has never happened,” she said of the surprise grilling.
“I didn’t have the listing yet. But once I told her I’m not voting for her, she said I’m hired,” added Caprino. “I guess she wants to be comfortable with who she’s hiring during these times.”
Meanwhile, some agents have to talk their buyers off the ledge in the face of political panic.
Milana Sadykova, a real estate salesperson with Sotheby’s, told The Post that she was taking a buyer to a Fresh Meadows, Queens house that he had already signed the contract to buy — when his would-be neighbor’s new Kamala Harris signs suddenly sprung up.
“He’s a big Trump guy — he freaked out,” said Sadykova, adding that the buyer wanted to get out of the pending sale. “He said, ‘I don’t want to live next to a Harris person.’”
Sadykova knew she had to smooth it over — and fast — if she was to salvage the deal. “I told the buyer, ‘Nothing in life lasts forever — this neighbor isn’t going to be living here the rest of his life. One day he’s going to sell.’”
The strategy worked.
“I calmed him down,” she said of her triumphant de-escalation.
Babadzhanov aptly summed it up: “This election cannot end soon enough — we need to get back to business as usual.”