On Aug. 17, plenty of real estate professionals will see a familiar face appear on their Netflix accounts.
Peter Lorimer, the founder and CEO of PLG Estates in Los Angeles and a popular video blogging agent, is the co-host of
Peter Lorimer. Credit: Peter Lorimer
Stay Here, a new Netflix series where struggling Airbnb hosts get some much-needed marketing and design help from Lorimer and former Trading Spaces designer Genevieve Gorder.
For Lorimer, his opportunity has been three years in the making, starting with a chance encounter at the Inman Connect San Francisco real estate conference in 2015. There, Lorimer met Jeff Peters, a Canadian real estate agent who specialized in making eye-catching videos.
Peters literally pushed Lorimer into the video sphere by taking out his phone, going on Facebook Live and making Lorimer join in.
“I was like, ‘Wow, it’s that simple?’” Lorimer said. “And I never went back.”
Since 2015, Lorimer has published 405 YouTube videos, 248 Facebook videos and a countless number on his Instagram page with a whopping 2,775 posts.
“I decided to run at video very hard because there was no one I could find that was really doing it on a consistent basis and was consistently making interesting content that was in the real estate industry,” he added.
Lorimer’s consistency paid off, as he constantly began receiving calls from casting agents. He often turned their pitches down because he didn’t want to be the center of a drama-filled real estate show. So, when Netflix beckoned, Lorimer told them they had the wrong guy.
“Normally they want very nice fitting, tight Italian suits, they want you to scream at people, and I said, ‘If you want someone who will scream at their wife, and the water [pipe] is going to burst, and there’s just going to be all this drama, then I’m not the guy for you,’” he said.
But, the people at Netflix insisted that Lorimer audition, and they did a screen test via Skype shortly thereafter.
“I didn’t think I was going to get it, so I was my normal, balls-to-the-walls self, and they loved that,” he said.
Then, right as Inman Connect San Francisco 2017 was kicking off, Lorimer was asked to do a chemistry test with Gorder at a swanky estate in the Hollywood Hills. He left the conference a day early and did the test, right in front of the other contenders.
“I was thinking, there’s no way I’m getting this — I’m too old, I’m too fat, and I have this funny British accent, and they’re not going to pick me,” he said with a chuckle. “Lo and behold, they called me and said I got it, and you could’ve knocked me over with a feather.”
From there, he and Gorder embarked on an eight-city journey, going to some of the most unique Airbnb listings, which included a boathouse in Seattle, a Victorian-style red brick fire station that was the first African-American fire station in Washington, D.C., and a 268-year-old coach house in upstate New York.
Despite their uniqueness and great potential, each of these listings had abysmal ratings, and the owners were on the verge of giving up.
“The most consistent problem I found was that these owners of these properties saw them not as a business,” he said. “I showed them how to take the space and treat it like a business, and I made each one of the owners the [general manager] of a very small hotel, and I taught them how to think like that.”
Lorimer helped the owners come up with a business and marketing plan, and Gorder redecorated the listings. Once the cosmetic work was done, Lorimer’s personal photographer, who once worked for Architectural Digest, took professional photos and videos that would be shared on Airbnb and the owner’s social media pages.
“I’m happy to say all of them are now a roaring success,” he said.
Now, Lorimer is patiently waiting for the rest of the world to see his first show.
“Being a creative, I understand the creative process, but I still had no idea how it would look until I saw it,” he said, “When I saw all eight episodes, I could not be more proud. Hopefully, the planets will align, and it will do well.”