When I first started in the real estate business (in 1973!), I remember hearing that puffing was not illegal, even if you couldn't prove the puff to be true. And for the last thirty years, I've wondered why puffing was legal. So I smiled when I read an article recently about puffing. "Bombast lives on as advertising's safest haven. Why? Because the law assumes that nobody with any sense would ever mistake a puff for the truth." (Wall Street Journal, Jan 24, 2003) Doesn't this sound backwards?

The article, An Ad Professor Huffs Against Puffs, But It's a Quixotic Enterprise, documents Ivan Preston's quest to eliminate "pure baloney" claims like "We are the World's Greatest (fill in the blank)." But the problem turns out to be more cultural than legal. Apparently we really like to buy products and services from people who claim to be the best and the biggest. That's why, according to one expert, "A truth-in-puffery law would 'insult the intelligence of the American people.'" We already know a puff when we see one!

Spread the Word... So when I say that readers of the PikeNet Dispatch are the best professionals in the real estate business, am I puffing? No way. It's gotta be true. You're the greatest. If you'd like to join Tim Henry and National Facilities Group as a future sponsor of the PikeNet Dispatch, send e-mail or call 415-485-6700.

--Peter Pike