If you happened to be in Glen Cove over the weekend, you might have seen a human banana – maybe even three of them – hanging around the streets hawking the auction of a $1.4 million Lattingtown home.
The costumes were an attention-getting tactic from a group of real estate investors, who approach sellers with an option to buy their homes. The investors then market the property and try to make a profit by getting buyers who might pay for above the option price.
A pair of Long Island landscaper brothers in the investment group, Matthew and Daniel Schreiber, peeled the idea off investors from Florida, where the housing market has slipped much more than New York’s.
"We went the extra level . . . in this kind of market to bring in more clientele," said Daniel Schreiber. "It wasn’t necessary in the past."
One costume used in Florida was the banana, and the brothers said there’s no deep explanation for why the group of investors settled on a fruit. "It could have been SpongeBob Squarepants," Matthew Schreiber said.
The Schreibers expect out-of-the-box marketing to bear fruit in their other real estate efforts.
They say they think the bananas attracted more bidders for the auction on the Lattingtown house, held Sunday.
When asked about the number of bidders, Daniel Schreiber was reticent. "A bunch," he said.
Newsday photo / Michael Ach