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.