Rental Dementia: Getting Good and Smart

My phone hadn’t stopped ringing all weekend. BBQs? Picnics? Invitations to the beach? No, I’m not that popular. A new round of anxious and thrifty buyers had tracked down my latest ads and were now feverishly calling, demanding answers.

“How big are they? Do they get light? What are the appliances like? When can I see them?” I had no idea because I had never actually seen the apartments, but of course that wasn’t going to stop me from advertising them.

I had heard about the sponsor units on Friday, and immediately posted them online: $395,000 one bedrooms in the East Village should never be overly scrutinized, and who needs a floor plan at that price? I slapped up an old picture, concocted a generic description and added my phone number. They were my company’s “exclusives” and my only concern was getting in before the droves caught wind. This would be a lay-up of a deal—if I could get my clients in first.

By the time I arrived Monday morning, two of our agents were already leaving the building. About 10 more had shown up while I was inside. The apartments were beautiful and larger than I had expected, so I immediately called three of the more serious buyers from the past weekend: “Code Red! Code Red! Get here immediately.”

Hoping for a day’s head start, I settled for a few hours. With three back-to-back appointments lined up for Tuesday, I was feeling extremely confident. My goal was simple: Sell both units on the spot, and take the rest of the summer off. I lack ambition. It’s a problem.

The first offer came in around 2 p.m. She had been the last of my three appointments, and I had to hand it to her: She loved the apartment, saw a deal and didn’t wait around long enough to lose it. It was a full-price offer with a hefty sum down, “a lock” in other words.

I was back at the building for one last show when the next offer came in. With another one to write, I cut to the chase, “That’s a bathroom, uh…kitchen, don’t look in the closet, and that’s it. Let’s go.” And I opened the door. This was it; the reason I continued in this thankless and neurotic business: I was busy, engaged, motivated. The years spent toiling in the real estate sewer of the rental market were finally paying off. The spaces were great, and the clients were grateful. The paychecks would double for half of the work. For those brief hours, I didn’t mind being a real estate agent—in fact I almost liked it.

By the time I got back to the office, my first offer had already been accepted. That was the good news. The bad news was that getting a mortgage was going to be almost impossible since the building wasn’t even close to 50 percent owner occupied, so most banks wouldn’t touch it.

And that wasn’t the only bad news. Though some might say my incredible penchant for all things real estate related was what brought those two deals home so soon, others were willing to argue it was more plausibly a case of them being wildly underpriced. My managers decided to sit on the second offer. We’d wait it out another day, lest we look foolishly incompetent for giving away the store and half of the building at the same time.

That 10 more people were about to see it made no difference to them, the company would get paid regardless of which agent brought the offer. Saving face was what mattered. Another offer did of course come in. We lost the second unit the following day after going to “best and final.”

Still happy to have one under my belt, I went to work on the contracts and started looking into mortgage alternatives, when another unit hit the market. My goal was once again alive and attainable. Two of these bad boys were going to be mine. The unit was currently occupied with tenants who refused to grant access, but that was only a minor inconvenience. While a new batch of buyers lined up to get in, I convinced one of my original clients to make an offer sight unseen. Smart move—if we could avoid a bidding war.

I’m getting good at this real estate game, so good in fact, that the entire deal fell apart, all of them—because it was illegal to sell any of the units since the sponsor hadn’t filed with the attorney general in over 10 years—I took the news in stride. Maybe I’ll take that vacation after all. I can’t take much more of this.