This is a curious thing.

Last December, the Boston Herald ran a story titled, “Dentist Says Open (Wallets) Wide. Buyers Vie for Home”. I mentioned it in my blog, because the whole story sounded like a set-up. The story was about a dentist in Weston who was selling his “mansion”.

Even as the once-hot residential real estate market cools precipitously, Dr. John D. Meola, dentist for the Boston Celtics, the New England Patriots’ cheerleaders and beauty contest winners, among others, is closing in on a deal to sell his 19,000 square-foot Weston home for nearly $11 million, brokers working on the deal report.

… A trio of buyers, including two wealthy overseas families looking for a Boston area estate, are vying for the Weston property …

I found it odd that there would be a story in the newspaper about a property that had not one, but THREE buyers interested, and a property that was (for all intents and purposes, according to the story) already under agreement.

Meola says he almost sold his Weston estate for $18 million back in 2001.

The cynic in me figured it was way more likely that the property was NOT under agreement, but the seller’s agent fed the story to the Herald in order to drum up interest.

Well, it didn’t work.

From a story in Friday’s Herald:

Sell a mansion and win a new BMW. That was the pitch yesterday at an open house for brokers at an $8.9 million Weston mansion that has been sitting on the market.

The mansion, owned by a prominent dentist who works on the teeth of the Celtics, had earlier been listed at over $10 million.

Both stories were written by Scott Van Voorhis.

Did the seller’s agent simply get lucky by getting his client’s property in the paper, two times?

Source: Things are starting to look up in tower-rental market (second item) – By Scott Van Voorhis, The Boston Herald

Earlier Herald story (.pdf): Dentist says open (wallets) wide! Buyers vie for home – By Scott Van Voorhis, The Boston Herald