I Couldn't Have Staged It Better!

I got a listing that was really hot. A 2BR in Harlem for a little over $1400 a month. People must either really be desperate or finally picking up on what I realized over five years ago when I moved to Harlem. The neighborhood is getting better and better. It is not the North Pole. Much of Harlem is walking distance from Central Park and transit-friendly. Some of the most beautiful blocks in all of New York City are in Harlem. If you’re on the West Side just north of Central Park, getting over to Columbia U isn’t so difficult.

Now all of this doesn’t mean that the homies on the block have disappeared. Far from it. The neighborhood chefs often barbeque in the summer. You’d never see this sort of block party on the Upper East Side, but damn does that food smell good. The neighborhood DJs still blast their music, mostly in the warmer months. Street theater is just an argument away. Boy do I love pulling up for the evening show right outside my window. The start time of the show is never set, mind you. The performers let you know when they’re ready, usually by shouting and hooting and cursing at each other. Fun times.

What for me is “local color” is downright weird and scary to some of these yuppie college students and/or recent grads who are looking at apartments up here. Fair enough. I never lie when they ask me about the neighborhood. I tell them the truth—take a cab home late at night, and don’t go for 3 a.m. strolls. Check the hood out after dark, and see if you feel comfortable. If not, then look elsewhere. End of story. If mommy and daddy are paying, which they often are, they can look on the Upper West or East sides. It’s not the end of the world if you end up with a smaller apartment in Baby StrollerVille. Well, at least not the end of the world for them, though it would be for me.

Yet some of these brave pioneers persevere, and so it goes. However, I was quite unprepared for the number of my broker colleagues (I hate the thought that these low-lives are my colleagues, so I cringe whenever I type that) who were salivating at this listing. Hmmmm, they must be picking up on what a good deal it is. Anyways, the pestering started. Compounded by the fact that the apartment was under renovation and I wasn’t about to walk in onto sticky floors and ruin the contractors’ refinishing work, not to mention my shoes. So I told them there would be a delay. They beg me to get back to them the second I have access and then keep calling to check in to boot.

Now I’m starting to feel nervous. This is my exclusive listing, and an exclusive building of my company’s. This is how we make our money. The very thought of having a pushy broker in MY building (not that I live there, but you get the point) makes me queasy. Who’s to say they won’t try to butter up the super with some cash, get all cozy, and try to poach my rental listings? In fact, knowing brokers, that's exactly the sort of thing that would happen. Fuck that!

I decide that I’m going to make it hard for any broker who wants to apply for this place. Full fee. No negotiating. No “co-broking”—meaning that we split the fee. They must meet every landlord requirement to the letter. And I’m going to get an attorney friend to draft an air-tight no compete agreement for them to sign. No agreement, no deal. Hopefully by this point they’ll have found something else elsewhere and leave me alone.

This one broker is even pushier than the rest. Keeps dropping my boss’ name like it’s the keys to the kingdom. Claims he’s a friend of the boss. Okay, so you’ve done a few deals together and now my boss is your friend? Sure, keep telling yourself that.

Finally I get the keys. I schedule an evening open house, which was the only time I could do it that day. (Very hectic week—worse than usual). Of course this “friend” of my boss’ pushes me for an earlier time. I say no. He calls me before the open house, when I’m still waiting on the keys from the super. I don’t pick up. This guy is getting no special treatment, I don’t care if he is BFF with the Almighty him/her/it-self. Finally the open house time officially arrives. I get the keys literally five minutes before show time. He’s the first one in. He seems to want to take the place. Oh great. I start going through the breakdown of procedures: deposit, credit check, etc. That’s when he thinks he’s gonna wheel and deal wth me:

Him: “Maybe the landlord would do a lower rent?”

Me: “No absolutely not. Usually the apartment has to have been on the market for at least a week before he’ll consider dropping prices. And it’s only been shown for the first time today—right now, in fact. This is a rent-stabilized two bedroom. As you can see, it has just been gut renovated. I really don’t see the landlord dropping the price at all, to be honest. Someone will gladly take it at full price.”

Him: “I would like to move in around the first of next month.”

Me: “Sorry, can’t do that. We aren’t even through the first week of THIS month, and the owner wants it rented by mid-month if not immediately.”

Him, apparently not liking my answers and thinking he could do better by going over my head, “Maybe your boss would know better.”

I haven’t really been looking at him at this point. Sometimes I can't even look at these real estate agents, and this is one of those times. Instead, I’ve been organizing papers and greeting people as they stream in through the door. Now I turn around and fix him with my gaze. The look in my eyes can’t be kind. My tone has gone from casual and slightly miffed to stern.

Me: “No, boss would NOT know better. This is my exclusive account, and I’ve been working for this landlord for almost two years. So if anyone knows, it’s me.”

This fool is still trying to take a mile, even when I haven’t given an inch. He now wants to negotiate the fee.

Him: “This would be a co-broke, right?"

(Meaning we split the commission 50-50 with this idiot’s company.) Since he’s a broker and won’t be paying himself on this deal, then his company will get part of the commission, which still gives him a nice discount. And even though we’re taking a huge risk by letting a broker into our building, we still get only a partial fee. And apparently we’re supposed to negotiate a lower rent and later move date for him to boot. How appealing!

I tell him that I’d have to think about that, but full fee would be the more likely scenario. No splits.

He then mumbles something about how we might not be able to rent it right away, blah blah blah. In other words, he's trying to push me to take him and to accommodate his outrageous requests. This guy is way out of line.

Me: “That’s possible, it might not rent right away, but it’s also possible that some people could walk in right now and want the place immediately, for the price listed, for a full fee.”

He was still hovering around me five minutes later when that exact thing happened. Two roommates walked in, barely saw it, and breathlessly said, “We’ll take it!”

I couldn’t have staged it better.

Leases were signed just a couple of days ago. I haven’t heard from that broker since.

Duly Noted That a Picture is Worth. . .

1000 words. Minimum.

I know this blog is very text heavy right now. I will be working on figuring out how to get some pictures into NoVacancyNYC very soon. Like this week soon. (I hope).

Cat Calls

Apparently there is a stray cat who is calling a vacant commercial space I’m representing home. I know this because I have gotten three calls from a “concerned” neighbor about this feline. Now I love animals. Adore them. Ask me if I’d prefer to pet a kitten or a puppy versus holding a human baby, and the animals will win every time. But if this woman thinks I’m going to go chasing some feral cat around this dark, empty, and spooky space, she’s got another think coming. Yet that seems to be what she wants me to do, because she keeps leaving messages. I have called her back and told her that the building super has been alerted. That’s about all I can do short of grabbing a butterfly net and an open can of tuna and going on a mission myself. No thanks.

Evidently the cat is doing just fine…he had a pigeon as a meal just the other day, if the feathers behind inside the space are any indication. Plus he has full access to the basement and fire escapes, so even though the woman says “he looks skinny” and offers to rescue him and bring her to her home rescue—she imples that she runs a sort of halfway house for ferals—I’ll bet he’s doing just fine. In fact, he probably doesn’t want our help. He is living rent free in one of the most expensive cities in the world, can come and go as he pleases, and he has free range over a huge space—2000 square feet. HE gets to hunt wild game and doesn’t have to answer to any one. That has to be priceless. Why would he want to give up his freedom to live with this woman? Her apartment’s likely cramped, full of cats and fur, and probably smells of stale urine, cat litter, and that unique feline musk smell that can only be gotten out of a home by industrial strength chemicals normally used to clean places after long-decomposed bodies have been hauled away. Why indeed? Do me a favor, lady: If you really care so much about cats, let this one enjoy his freedom.

Vacation? What Vacation????

There's an article in the New York Times that mentions how many workers don't take vacations because it's frowned upon at their companies. So they let their vacation days roll over into the next year, or simply lose them. Talk about stupid. Giving up free days off is like paying someone to allow you to work. On the other hand, you could also argue that internships and college are just that: paying for the honor of working. At least there's an end in sight to college and internships. Paid employment? The way things are shaping up, it looks like I'll be working until the day I drop dead.

In real estate, true vacations are few and far between, at least in my world. The idea of paid days off makes me swoon. The last time I had a proper vacation was well over three years ago, and it's worth noting that that epic trip predates my real estate career. Which is why reading about people who forfeit paid time off made me want to slap all of them.

Bosses frowning upon vacation time? Welcome to real estate. In fact, I'll never forget a boss giving me hell in the beginning of my career. I'd been working two or three months non-stop. Seven days a week with no deals closed. Yet I continued on, exhausted, and broke, but gamely struggling to look happy about while simultaneously wanting to kill anyone who got too close to me on the train or called me too many times on the phone. The strain was starting to get to me, and I needed a break. A short one.

So I took one. A weekend off. How novel it all felt! I felt much better-- re-energized and refreshed and all that. Until Boss reprimanded me when I got back on Monday after a whopping two days off. Boss seemed to conveniently forget that most normal people get two days off every week. Just because Boss spent most of his or her twenties working doesn't mean such a schedule is healthy for me, or any other relatively normal person. Whatever. Boss didn't care. Apparently real estate agents are super-human.

My solution? I became passive aggressive, and rarely announce or "ask" any days off unless I will be gone for, say, a four-day weekend out of state or a weeklong jaunt.(Most of these trips involve family, therefore, in my mind, said trips are not true vacations). Still, I always feel guilty. And Boss always makes sure to text message me or call me at least once or twice. Whoever is covering for me inevitably will call a few times with questions. Clueless brokers will ignore my outgoing message and beg me to call them back, ". . .even though I know you're away and your message says you're not returning phone calls until you get back. But if you get a second. . . "

Sometimes I ignore these calls and text messages. I am NOT working when I am on fucking vacation, people! Whether I ignore or answer the calls, they always annoy me and I can feel my blood pressure rising. I try to believe in Karma and not do the same things to them when they're away, hoping they'll take notice. Maybe in another lifetime.

Some agents take long trips, especially in the winter. One guy agent I know makes a few deals, then takes the cash to some gambling outpost and presumably burns through it until he has to come back and make more deals. This sort of high-rolling hasn't been an option for me, because in the winter, it seems it's all I can do to keep the rent on my apartment current. (Adding insult, the boiler in my building seems timed to stop working on the coldest days of the year, but that's another entry.)

Flexibility is one of the aspects of this job that appealed to me in the first place. But what good is all the flexibility in the world if you're constantly made to feel bad for taking any time off, and can hardly afford to do so in the first place? That's the question I've been asking myself a lot lately.

Feast or Famine

Things have been slow lately. That's actually okay by me, as I seriously need a break. I've been utterly useless lately. Going to movies at 3 in the afternoon. Watching cooking shows all day. I have worked on my taxes and also paid some overdue rent, so it's not been a complete bust. But still. It seems it's either crazy busy or amazingly slow.

Sometimes slow can be more annoying and scary than being super busy. Like one of my co-workers says, "If the phone's not ringing, I get worried."

Yet when it's busy, the our phones do nothing but ring. Of course we bitch about that, too.

Everyday Annoyances

Things have been a little bit crazy lately. I don't want NoVacancyNYC to become one of those dead blogs > The New York Post wrote about the other day. That said, the truth is I probably won't be a realtor forever. In fact, I sincerely hope I won't be.

My friend has the right idea. She has a day job with full benefits and a steady salary, and she does real estate in her spare time for extra money. Me, I've always thought of side jobs as the sort of thing one does for fun. I wouldn't call the way this business has treated me "fun." Therefore, I don't see myself doing real estate on the side, unless I move out west and do the old "buy and hold" and/or "buy and flip" as an investor. A girl can dream.

Even this savvy friend has her bad real estate days. She described one for me today. She'd been in touch with a client for months. He was relocating from Florida. He wants to buy a place in the City eventually, which is part of the reason she has chosen to put up with him through this current fiasco. He decided to rent for now. She spend the better part of her weekend showing him apartments. He's ultra-picky. He only wants top floor apartments. He wanted a six-month lease (I'll write more another day about why most real estate people laugh at anyone in Manhattan who dares try to secure a short-term lease). He balked at the standard broker's fee. She lowered it.

He persisted in complaining about things, wanting to see the lease ahead of time, etc. I can understand wanting to see a lease ahead of time. The truth is that most leases are so incredibly boilerplate, seeing one ahead of time won't do you much good. Moreover, from a broker's point of view, and a landlord's point of view, every day that's wasted with someone reviewing a lease is a day the landlord is not getting rent and the broker is not getting paid. Some schmuck who doesn't give a rat's tail about the fine print and has all of his money ready can come along, like the apartment, sign the lease, and kill the deal for Client A (and Client A's broker). The landlord might feel bad for a few minutes or maybe half a day, but in the end, it's all about business and securing a stable rent for vacant apartments.

Luckily, that deal-killing scenario didn't happen to my friend. But it could have. Plus, when it comes time for her client to buy, there's a fifty-fifty chance he'll go through her. He might ditch her or only call her when he's been out with every other broker in town. Loyalty seems a thing of the past in this business. It's the exception now, rather than the rule. Another co-worker of hers is dealing with a sale in a new development. Her deal might die because the developers didn't follow proper protocol when securing permits from the city. Fun stuff, huh?

Yet it's all in a day's work for a realtor. Getting jerked around and having to be the bearer of news, both good and bad.