Real estate agents get to see some of the most surprising things in our travels. This seems obvious, considering we find ourselves in our clients’ most private places. But I still marvel at some things I’ve witnessed throughout my career.
I’m not talking about the obvious things you might expect to see, like rare paintings and artwork on the walls that are worth more than the home itself or hidden safe rooms that nobody would ever know existed. I’ve often been confronted by weird furniture or accessories like a swing hanging from the ceiling or a curved silver slide from the upstairs to the downstairs of a duplex. On more than one occasion, I asked a seller to remove “questionable” photographs from walls before showing the home to a prospective buyer. Most things can be fixed before a showing takes place, and we do this because the accouterments should add to the viewing experience, not detract from it.
It’s the things we can’t anticipate or fix before a showing that surprise us.
When I started as a rental agent (almost 30 years ago), getting access to the apartment was half the battle. Most of the inventory we could show was owned by a handful of large landlords, and their superintendent handled access to the inventory and the front door. The super of the buildings held the keys to our success. Without a listing system, computer database, or any official central listing hub, the listings for these coveted rentals changed daily, and the best source of information was usually the admin in the office handling the leases or the superintendent who knew someone was moving out before the listing even hit the admin’s desk.
A part of my success as a rental agent was due to the relationships I had built with the supers and admins. I had all of their beeper’s numbers and knew where they lived. There’s a great Seinfeld episode called “The Apartment” that every New Yorker of that period can relate to as a right of passage to getting this type of lease.
These were all my clients.
My first exposure to the challenges and surprises of the job came in my first month.
One of my first clients was a transplant from Texas. A young woman who had just won a job at a large consulting firm who needed an affordable place to live. One of the buildings I had access to was a beautiful prewar walk up on Waverly Place in the West Village—a highly coveted street in a building where apartments rarely became available. The super assured me a one bedroom would be available at the end of the month, and it was recently vacated. He gave me the keys to show it to my client and sent us upstairs.
It was only when we opened the door to the bedroom in the apartment that my client and I became aware that the apartment was not, in fact, vacant. We were met by the current tenant, who was butt naked and in the throes of passion with two of his closest friends.
After politely excusing ourselves, we left the apartment, returned the keys to the super, and ran to the management office to fill out an application and sign a lease. My client didn’t care about seeing the view from the bedroom window.
Over the years, I’ve shown apartments that have had owners and or tenants in the middle of a séance, a group of “bros” smoking a bong, a high-stakes poker game with celebrities, and a shower full of naked people.
But, nothing comes close to the call I recently received from one of my agents when she walked into the kitchen of the $30k per month rental we were about to re-list. The previous tenant had painted the walls with satanic images in red paint and left a dead pig in the kitchen. Yes. A dead pig.
Side Bar:
Every lead actor has a supporting cast. Often, the side man is overshadowed by the genius of the leader. Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen are an obvious example that comes to mind. John Coltrane’s genius was profound. All his bands consisted of some of the most prolific musicians in the history of Jazz. Eric Dolphy didn’t get the recognition he deserved, but he was one of the most forward-thinking and innovative musicians ever to play the saxophone, flute, and clarinet. His solo album “Out There” is an excellent place to start to understand his contribution.
Let’s do this.
Shaun