“‘Modern Family’ Insights: Surviving Real Estate Competition

We last celebrated America’s funniest Realtor, Phil Dunphy, last fall when alter-ego Ty Burrell won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy focusing on real estate competition.

And that comedy would obviously be ABC’s “Modern Family.”

We’ve got absolutely no stake in ABC or parent company Disney, but we’re huge fans of the ongoing real estate agent storyline and thought you would enjoy the most recent episode, “Send Out the Clowns.”

In the episode, real estate agent Phil is about to score the biggest real estate listing of his career, when rival agent Mitzi Roth (guest star Ellen Barkin) swoops in on his territory — intent on stealing the client for herself. It’s a brazen but sleazy move — the kind that Mitzi is known for – the dirty side of real estate competition.

To punctuate her unrepentant sleaziness, Mitzi sneers at Phil on their way into the house: “Go back to condos, Dunphy!”

When the clients are looking the other way, Mitzi deliberately falls backward into the hedges and blames Phil for pushing her. “Oh my God, he shoved me!  I thought you had your anger problem under control!”

The tactic works and Phil loses the listing.

Discouraged, he goes home and tells his kids that the true path to success in life is lying and cheating.

His youngest son, Luke, encourages his dad to “play dirty” and “take her down.” He lends Phil his spy pen, which Phil tries to use to capture a confession at Mitzi’s office.

Mitzi senses she is being set up, gives Phil a patronizing hug, and steals the spy pen as well!

But Luke hasn’t given up defending his dad’s honor. He bumps into Mitzi at the supermarket and asks her point blank why she is so mean and explains how his father is worried about paying for his older sister’s college.

Playing the sympathy card seemingly penetrates the real estate agent’s steely exterior and when she sees Phil a few moments later, she compliments him: “You have a very nice kid there.”

“He’s mine!” Phil defensively replies.

Want to find out if Phil can get his real estate listing back?  And if anything happens to Mitzi for her dirty real estate competition business tactics? ABC has posted the full episode online for free with fewer commercials than the broadcast version.

But we’d also love to hear from you.

We know that the Mojo system is specially tailored for the needs of real estate agents, helping your prospect with the Triple Line Power Dialer and giving you the first response opportunity on hot leads with Mojo Live Lead Alert.

We also know that highly successful Realtors like Colorado’s Seth Jenson, Oregon’s Andrew Beach, and Florida’s Mitch Ribak swear by Mojo for increasing productivity.

But what’s life like out there away from the phones for you?  Surely, rival real estate agents aren’t swiping each other’s kids as Phil darkly joked about in the supermarket, but are there unscrupulous characters amongst your real estate competition?

Tell us your stories!  What’s the most bizarre thing that’s happened in your sales territory?