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.