[ad_1]
- Mary Fitzgerald starred in ‘Selling Sunset’ for 5 seasons.
- She says the show made it difficult to host open houses and work at the Oppenheim Group office.
- Fitzgerald shares how the cast’s portrayal of the show affects their work.
This essay is based on an interview with Mary Fitzgerald, a high-profile Los Angeles realtor on Netflix’s hit reality show. “Selling the Sunset” Edited for length and clarity.
People may or may not be surprised to hear this, but – reality shows really aren’t my cup of tea.
It makes me sad to see drama and people fighting. Take our spin-off show “Selling OCN” for example – it’s more drama than I like to watch or cycle through on a daily basis. It’s definitely a different show than “Selling Sunset” because the cast is younger and it has a lot more drama.
As far as I know, it’s doing great – great, but I’d rather be watching food or travel shows, or romantic comedies.
That being said, attending the “Selling Sunset” was good for our business.
We got clients from the show, and I think I speak for all the ladies when I say that we sell at great prices. For me personally, I have price cuts right now: I will never sell any house under $2 million unless it’s for a friend.
We are very busy with filming right now, and selling a house at a low price takes a lot of time and effort, and you only get a fraction of the money.
There are definitely good and bad things about being in business while on a reality show.
While I get a lot of clients from the show, I also get a lot of fake clients because of the exposure. People write as potential clients because they want to contact us. We need to be more careful about vetting people so we don’t waste our time.
We also have to be more vigilant about our security in a way we haven’t been before – hosting open houses for sale is much harder to do now. We have to have security with us there because there are a lot of crazy people there.
Working in the Oppenheim Group office has also changed a lot since “selling into the sunset”. Especially when we are filming and there are a lot of people outside, we have to have armed security guards outside the door. It definitely makes it difficult to work there.
When we advertise, we don’t disclose where we will be, especially if we go alone.
I don’t feel comfortable being recognized when I’m out.
You probably can’t tell from the show, but I’m a really private person – so being on “Selling Sunset” definitely changed things for me. I’m good on camera because I’m comfortable with friends I’ve known for years.
Whether I’m presenting an award or just being comfortable on stage – these things don’t bother me. I guess that’s my work situation.
But if I go out to dinner with a couple of friends and people are staring or taking pictures and videos, I’m like, “Oh my God, stop.” It worries me a lot. I like to have some closure in my personal life, but it’s hard to do that right now.
This is what we signed up for, but there are still days when I feel like I don’t want to do it.
I’m on hormones right now because Romain and I are having fertility treatments – so basically I’ve been hormonal for the last few days. Just the other day I was crying like “I don’t want to do this anymore”. But I think we know not to take anything I say too seriously this month.
We’ve all had days where it was amazing to be on the show. We have lives that the show doesn’t cover. Filming takes a lot of time, and it’s a lot to try to balance family, kids, work — routines that don’t show up on a show.
We all have a good relationship with each other and that helps a lot with the changes and pressures that happen on the show. Whenever we’re feeling stressed or frustrated, we confide in our colleagues because we’re all going through the same thing, or at least we understand where the other person is coming from.
My persona on the show is not a problem for me in my real life business – but this may be different for the other cast members.
I’m sure at some point after the show aired, our credibility as realtors was damaged with the client. I think I am well defined and not in the middle of the drama. This is very true to who I am – so I don’t think the image from the show affects me as much as the other girls.
Production often says they want to pull back the covers on my personal life – but I’m happy with my image. I would say that the only misconception might be that I am less introverted than I actually am in real life.
But following drama is not a bad business. Girls who create a lot of drama get clients from the show – so I’d say it’s about whatever the client’s personality is and if they’re attracted to that person. You think that’s great, who knows? I think it’s good for all of us.
The first season of the show was terrible.
I was really worried about the first season of “Selling Sunset” because we had no way of knowing we were going to be defined by the product the way we were going into it.
Some of the new cast members may have an idea of what it looks like in retrospect – but for those of us who have been around since the beginning, we had no idea they could twist the storylines and our stuff to make us look terrible.
It was a big accident and we were all very, very scared. We struggled a lot with production at that point because, “Why do you want to do it like this?” After that first season, I think we loosened up a bit and became more natural because we understood what was going to happen.
We know that the product has a job to do
We have about 15 or 20 agents in the LA office. Production did a casting and met all of us, and they decided who they liked, which is how we get the agents that people see on the show. Some agents don’t want to be in the “selling sunset” – they don’t want to put their lives out there, which is understandable.
I think there’s a lot more trust between us and production than there used to be. We also understand that they have a job to do – so if we say something we don’t want them to hear, that’s too bad. They are going to use it.
We must be careful in this regard and know that they cannot always protect us. I’d say they do a good job of telling the story if we feel like something we said was wrong because they give us a chance to talk and clarify in an interview.
At the end of the day, our priority is to sell great homes.
I think I’m the second highest selling agent in the office after Jason. New additions from last season, Chelsea are doing well this year. Our agent Nicole has been with the company for a while but will be new to the show – and she’s killing it.
If we were doing this with a lot of guests, having the support system among the players would make it so much easier. Although it’s definitely a lot to get used to, it’s a lot of fun. I know how blessed we are to have the opportunity to do this and to have so many great clients and opportunities, so thank you very much.
If you work in Hollywood and want to share your story, email Ebony Boykin-Patterson at eboykinpatterson@insider.com.
[ad_2]
Source link
