Archives
February 2007
Feb. 28, 2007 - open houses under $1,000/ft
The most recent quarterly market report from Miller Samuel says that the average price-per-foot for Manhattan lofts sold in the last quarter was $1,090/ft – essentially unchanged from the prior quarter. With so many lofts offered at premium prices above $1,500/ft, there have to some lofts that are “below average” on price.
Four such lofts with Sunday open houses this week are not only below the average price per foot, they are under $1,000/ft.
1,800 sq ft for $1.1mm
Open House Sunday 2 – 4
Looks at courtyard but it is said to be “pin drop quiet”. My guess is that the price is a function of the lack of light and views, the need for a second bathroom (can be added; the stacks are there), and the probable need for updating the kitchen and baths (no pix, no bragging).
This building tends not to command high prices, especially if renovations are in order, but $611/ft is low, even by those standards. #15C, “sun-flooded” and with river views as it is, took seven months and three price drops to get into contract off an ask of $1.045mm and 1,600 sq ft.
1,320 sq ft for $1.28mm
Open House Sunday 12 - 1:30
But hurry; there is an accepted offer, after being on the market one month (pretty quick for a loft that could only be shown on Sundays).
1,400 sq ft for $1.25mm
Open House Sunday 11:30 – 1
With windows only on one end, it is a One Bed Wonder – though you could add additional no-window-“bedrooms” if you cared to break up the space
They are not bragging about any renovation, there are no photos of the kitchen or bath – the implication is that this baby needs some updating / renovation
1,700 sq ft for $1.3mm
Open House Sunday 1:30 – 3
This is a brand-new listing for Peter Browne at Stribling, but Olshan was trying to sell it back in 2005 and again from July 2006 until this week. This is an example of values in the West 30s.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Feb. 28, 2007 - smaller but still One Bed Wonder-full at 644 Broadway + 30 W 13
In an Upper East Side condo, 1,600 or 1,400 sq ft would be a 3 bedroom. In the Village or NoHo, that’s a One Bed Wonder loft.
There is a funny-shaped office (with no window) that leads to the washer-dryer, but there really is nowhere in this beautiful loft to add a second bedroom.
A “serious seller” lives here, but will sell for about a thousand bucks a foot -- $1.65mm.
Open House Sunday 12 – 2.
644 Broadway #4E is a funny-shaped loft with a master bedroom with only one window and no place to add a second (without a shoe horn). But it is 1,400 sq ft and has a home office (no window there), a nearly square corner living room and room for a second bathroom.
At 1,400 sq ft and an asking price of $1.795mm, this one carries a heftier price tag, presumably because it has been “tastefully renovated”.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Feb. 27, 2007 - really big One Bed Wonders with really big prices at 716 Broadway + 32 Laight
One type of One Bed Wonder (what is a One Bed Wonder?) among Manhattan loft styles is dictated by the footprint and window placement. With no windows along a “long” side, the Long-and-Narrow lofts might only have one legal bedroom (in some cases – with windows on only one “narrow” side -- no legal bedrooms). Here is one of each.
At 25 ft wide but 2,600 sq ft overall, 716 Broadway 2d floor takes the classic loft layout Long-and-Narrow to extreme lengths. With windows only at the narrow ends, this is one loooong One Bed Wonder.
Interesting that the PruDE listing system allows an override for the normal field for (number of) “Bedrooms: “, as the listing reveals “rooms: 6” and “Bathrooms: 2.5”, but says nothing about number of bedrooms. At the moment there is only the one, a 25 ft wide master, though that width (and 2 windows and a door to the terrace) certainly should permit a second real BR being added.
But until then, this is a pretty darn big One Bed Wonder, asking $2.65mm.
The Long-and-Narrow 32 Laight St 4th floor goes 716 Broadway one better as a One Bed Wonder: the master bedroom here has no windows, because the four windows are only on the front of the loft, on the east wall, away at the end of the 59 ft living room. Sounds as though there is a pretty cool “private dressing closet” behind the master bedroom, but there’s still only one bedroom – and a dark one at that.
With 2,454 sq ft, this is another big one. (Check out the LR-facing-windows picture for a sense of what an empty Long-and-Narrow loft can look like.) Asking $2.35mm.
Open House Sunday 1 – 3.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Feb. 24, 2007 - what is a 1 bed wonder?
large lofts suitable for one person or a couple
I remember talking to people last year (and the year before that) about a spectacularly beautiful 2,000 sq ft loft, with very high-end finishes and a truly “Zen-like” renovation. Aside from remembering how nerve-wracking it was to tour at an open house with their kids (“don’t touch anything!”), they easily remembered how beautiful and serene it was.
Then I asked if they noticed how few of the “walls” went all the way to the 12 ft ceiling. “Uhhh … no.”
This loft – which has been on and off the market for 2+ years – is a quintessential 1 Bed Wonder. Part of its (considerable) charm is that it feels so open, that it flows so well. Part of that charm is because the “walls” did not completely enclose the master bedroom, the guest room, and the library, all of which shared these walls with the open living area.
The original owners had great taste – and a house in the country for entertaining grandchildren overnight. It was simply not a space in which you would want someone else sleeping in a different bed. The present owners put it on the market as they were about to have a child. I have no idea how they live in that space with a child.
The “problem” with that specific space is that if you were to renovate it to make it suitable for a family, you would probably ruin its charm. It may live and die (and sell, or not sell) as a wonderful space in which everyone but the owners go somewhere else to sleep every night.
Other 1 Bed Wonders are more forgiving of renovation possibilities. Add some walls, expand a half bath into a full bath – or even more substantial renovations – would not necessarily reduce the beauty of the space.
There are lots of such spaces out there. I will collect a few here from time to time.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Feb. 23, 2007 - another renovation open house tour / take an architect to brunch
90 Prince
Open House 12 – 1:30
“Bring your architect” to 90 Prince St #7A (1,400 sq ft asking $1.795mm) then take the architect to brunch. Or go on to the other steps on this week's Renovation Tour.
You will need the architect if you want to live here like a grown-up – the floor plan does not have a kitchen on it. (Although it does have a rather impressive imposing bizarre master bath.)
116 W 29 St
Open House Sunday 12 – 2
The description of 116 W 29 St 8th fl does not say anything about renovation (indeed, it presents a “magnificent” loft), but I think most loft buyers at this price would pretty much gut the place and start over.
The bones include 29 windows (technically, it may have 4 exposures, but it has 2 long ones and a 3d that is pretty good, as I recall), plumbing stacks on both “side” walls, and more of a rectangular but not long-and-narrow foot print. You could do a lot with it, but not without adding considerably to the purchase price (asking $2.7mm.)
7 Bond St
Units 4A and 4B are waiting to be combined at 7 Bond St. They are said to provide 2,600 sq ft of “sunblasted” space with original details and 13 ft ceilings. Asking $3.1mm in a condo with monthlies of $2,230. The owner is also offering them separately, so it will be interesting to see if he is willing to discount the combination or holds out for full price for the two units separately.
722 Broadway
Open House 1 – 2:30
Reading between the lines here, this one needs a lot of work for most buyers in this price range. The 4th fl of 722 Broadway is a “real full-floor artist’s loft with studio”, with only a “modest” kitchen. 2,200 sq ft with 12 ft ceilings, exposed brick, four exposures (how long will the north windows last?) and original details, offered for $1.7mm.
open house is from 2 – 4
The 10th fl at 15 W 17 St is still available. This is the one raw floor in the 11 story building, and can be sold as is (really raw), or finished out as they are doing the other floor-through units in the building, or combined as a duplex with the penthouse. At this height there are windows along the east wall, though it is the classic (and limited) long-and-narrow footprint. Asking $2.665mm for what is said to be 2,221 sq ft (asking prices holding firm since September).
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Feb. 21, 2007 - more bad / agent’s misbehavin’
and we wonder why the public holds us in such … esteem
Real estate agents get a lot of bad press. I sometimes think that one reason that is true in Manhattan is that so many people have their first experience with a real estate agent when they rent an apartment, and rental agents are (in the view of some) more prone to advertise apartments that don’t exist, more likely to imply they have the renter’s best interests in mind (though they represent the landlord), and are more often the source of complaints to the Department of State.
More than agents who handle sales, I mean. But it ain’t necessarily so. And REBNY ain’t necessarily able to be ethics cop.
the case of the missing listing
I recently had a client I had been working with for a while send me a link to a NYTimes.com listing. We worked together long enough for me to be confident I knew what they wanted as far as price, size, light, finishes, amenities – at least 8.5 of 9 yards. So when they sent me the link I wondered if I had missed something. (It bothers me if someone I am working with finds something of interest I have not sent them.)
I was confident enough to reply that I would find out about the listing, but that I believed it was either bogus or a new development not found in our inter-firm data base.
When I reached the agent on his cell phone, he explained that it was a listing that ‘had just gone into contract’ at a building I knew had its own in-house sales staff. In other words, it was – at best – an ‘open listing’ that he could have brought buyers to, if only it was not in contract.
Lots of firms permit agents to advertise open listings in order to attract buyers who might be persuaded to buy something else. Not my way to do business, but nothing too wrong with that if done right. An expensive way to attract buyers, but that is the firms’ decision.
But this one bugged me because it appeared to me (and perhaps to my clients) that I may have missed something that they could have bought that suited them.
So I checked the past listing data for that building.
can you spell bait-and-switch?
Turns out the ad was for (a) a 29th floor unit with terrace in a 40-story building (not a “penthouse”) (b) in a former office building (not a “warehouse”), (c) the asking price was $300k more than the ad said (although it actually did close at close to the ad’s price, and the common charges were very close).
If this sounds like quibbling about a February 2007 web ad, consider that the unit closed on August 8, 2006. Oops – forgot to pull the ad.
In other words, they advertised an apartment for sale that had been unavailable for half a year because somebody else bought it.
Just in case I mis-understood the guy on the phone – and somehow found an eerily parallel listing that had closed – I sent him an email asking if I had the facts straight. That was 2 weeks ago, so I don’t think I made any mistake.
And the ad is no longer on NYTimes.com.
One small step for mankind….
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Feb. 16, 2007 - Sunday renovation tour / open houses that need work at 515 Broadway + 61 E 11
the telltale “bring architect” / “build your dream” / “blank canvass”
How many loft buyers really want to build in their own places these days? Not as many as there used to be, that’s for sure. But here are two opportunities to check out at open houses.
Reading between the lines here, this “true classic” SoHo loft is probably in (or close to) original condition from the 1979 conversion. Reading the lack of interior pictures suggests the same. It has two plumbing stacks (1.5 baths now), which is pretty good for the “classic” long-and-narrow floor plan.
Asking $2.1mm for 2,600 sq ft.
Some very cool details here (antique brick barrel vaulted ceilings), but you are invited to bring your architect to this 2,200 sq ft loft, asking $2.2mm. I am very curious as to how this space has been used up to now, as it has no kitchen. But the floor plan does seem to support plumbing lines in multiple locations. Another long-and-narrow, but there are a few small windows on the long sides.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Feb. 14, 2007 - pricing strategies / the holiday sale at 525 E 11 St
my theory: if you drop, drop meaningfully
President’s Day sale is a new one on me
Unit 7B at 525 E 11 St has been for sale since April 2006. It is said to be a 2 BR + 2 bath 1,200 sq ft unit with high-end kitchen and baths, a terrace, and services including a doorman and gym.
They started at $1.395mm in April, dropped to $1.35mm in June, and to the current $1.299mm in September. That is aggressive pricing for Avenue B, IMO. And two drops of $50k each in ten months does not seem to me to acknowledge the market feedback that ‘the price is too high’.
The Citi-Habitats website has an interesting note to the open house set for Sunday (12:30 – 2): “presidents day special! bring us $1,199,000...deal”. So the “asking price” of $1.299mm is not only “negotiable” (as you sometimes see and often hear an agent say about a listing price), but they are clear about what they will take.
what happens next?
Since this is not an ‘official’ price change, it won’t show up in the listing history shared between firms. (So someone who discovers this listing next week won’t see $1.199mm as an asking price.) If they don’t sell in the President’s Day Weekend Sale, will they drop the official asking price?
It would be weird if they didn’t. Buyers who miss this little data point and come to the listing later will be disadvantaged at not knowing something important about the seller’s motivation. Which does not seem to be in seller’s interest either (keeping such things secret, I mean).
Maybe the “sale” price will work….
update Feb 20: here we are, 8 days after Abraham Lincoln's birthday, 1 day after President's Day (observed), and 2 days before George Washington's birthday, and the Citi-Habitats web listing (link is above, and here) provides no hint that there was a holiday sale: price is $1.299mm (sssshhhhh)
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Feb. 13, 2007 - condo boards behaving badly / quick to sue, for whom?
Can’t let this weird story pass, since it fits the recent them of “… acting badly” (neighbors on Jan 30, real estate agents on Feb 8, coop boards on Feb 9). Plus, it is kind of weird. THX to Curbed.com for pointing out the NY Sun’s ‘scoop’ yesterday.
Condo boards don’t get much bad press
You don’t hear many people complaining about what condo boards do, as opposed to what coop boards do. Condo boards just run the building (along with a professional management company, of course) and rarely (has it ever happened??) even seriously considers whether to exercise its right of first refusal to block a prospective condo purchaser.
Indeed, in condominiums with many non—resident unit owners it can be hard to get the unit owners excited enough about anything to even have a contested election for the board of managers.
But sometimes the condo board can get tripped up in the day-to-day management stuff, spending money badly or to placate individual unit owners.
the mysterious case of the smell in the bakery
The NY Sun ran a story yesterday about a lawsuit by an uptown condominium, The Waterford at 300 E 93 St, over nasty smells from the commercial tenant that pervaded the lobby, stairways and went up to the 46th floor.
That seems pretty reasonable, so far as it goes. But the Sun ran with a few other details, calling into question why the condo board spent more than $5 to bring a lawsuit and raising the question of whether they responded to one particularly incensed unit owner at the expense of all the unit owners. The Sun said:
1. the board’s “campaign is being spearheaded by a couple who live on the third floor”
2. the smell of baking bread “suddenly began smelling almost two weeks ago” [note: that is “almost two weeks ago” and they are suing already].
3. the “restaurant” (a Subway sandwich shop) has already installed a ventilation system in response to the complaint from the condo, which “was finished being installed Saturday” [note that the lawsuit was filed on Friday, the days before the installation was complete].
4. the ventilation worked pretty well, if a condo lobby attendant can be believed: “A weekend desk attendant at the Waterford, Ruben Toro, said the smell had wafted into the lobby since the Subway restaurant opened, but that the odor disappeared when Mr. Shin installed the ventilation”
the mysterious case of the quick-on-the-trigger condo board
To recap: it looks as though the Subway moved in and started baking bread. The odors from the bread-baking got into the condo to the extent the manager could detect it from the 46th floor and it “bothered” at least (only?) one set of residents, in a third floor apartment. When the condo board complained, the Subway owner had additional ventilation installed. The ventilation system worked. Oh, and the condominium board spent unit owner money to sue the Subway shop.
All within two weeks.
Unless there is more here than two newspapers have yet been able to discover, this looks like a waste of money. (Whether it is a “colossal” waste or “just” a waste depends on what their lawyer charges, I suppose.)
Is this a case of a condo board jumping the gun to protect all unit owners and residents, or is this a case of one third-floor resident getting the board to jump on command.
Weird press note: the NY Post ran a similar article today (no credit to yesterday’s ‘scoop’ in the Sun), without some of the pertinent details the Sun had. But the Post offered two parts of the claim by the condo that the Sun did not have:
It [the condo board’s suit] called the slow response to the problem "unreasonable" because "the nuisance condition can be resolved by defendants not cooking, baking or heating food" in the restaurant.
The Post’s quote from the lawsuit suggests it may have been filed based on the complaints by only one unit owner of smells in their unit:
odors have also made their way "into at least one of [the] residential units of the condominium, causing unit owners to be inundated with strong and nauseating food odors."
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Feb. 9, 2007 - coop boards behaving badly / can you imagine?
how absolute power can corrupt
Maybe it is the cold weather that has me thinking about nasty people doing nasty things….
worse than alligators / I will count the ways
It seems that everyone in Manhattan has heard horror stories about buyers being screwed by coop boards. The stories have as much ubiquity as the alligators-in-the-plumbing stories, but more truth. We recently had one such horror story in our office, which got me to thinking about ways that coop boards can abuse their nearly absolute power.
There are three ways that coop boards are most likely to abuse their power to approve or reject applications to purchase. (1) Arbitrary application of financial and special standards. (2) Your garden-variety (illegal) discrimination, against people of a different race, religion, sexual identification, etc. (3) When conflicted by self-interest.
‘tough’ boards get a reputation
The first abuse is one that is probably the easiest to anticipate for agents and sellers, as these buildings develop a reputation. These buildings include the very tony addresses with financial requirements include post-closing liquidity of two or three times the purchase price (i.e., to qualify to buy an apartment for $1.5mm the purchasers should have $3-4.5mm in cash and securities after the purchase) and buildings that have boards that never agree within themselves what their standards are, so each application is a bit of a crap shoot.
the grandfather problem for tony buildings – not lofts
In those tony buildings, it often appears that if your grandfather did not go to boarding school with my grandfather, my application will not be approved, no matter what. This problem is not a problem in any loft building I am aware of!
shooting craps to buy a loft
Some lofts do seem to have a crap shoot approach, however, sometimes because of generational conflict on the board: long-time shareholders can have a more laissez faire attitude (“if the bank lends them the money, that’s good enough for me”) while more recent purchasers on the board are more sensitive to the risks that high prices and exotic mortgages can bring.
This problem is not so much an abuse-of-power issue as it is a moving target issue, where sellers, buyers and agents may have trouble predicting what the board’s standards for admissions are.
gardening discrimination
Your basic illegal discrimination is the dirty little secret of the Manhattan coop market. It is also impossible to get good data on because coops don’t report reasons and because lawsuits are hard to prove and expensive to bring. (Few people want the continuing distraction of fighting to get into a building that [they believe] discriminated against them, or to possibly be known as a litigious applicant (which can tend to reduce admissions chances in any coop).
But it happens. Enough agents and real estate lawyers have seen enough “unusual” rejection decisions by boards to know that some boards sometimes make decisions for illegal reasons. We had one in my office last year that was an all-but-certain case involving a gay couple with impeccable financials. The financials were deemed “impeccable” by the listing agent who had done a lot of business in the building. The couple had histories of stable and remunerative employment, significant assets, and had been together a long time. They were turned down without an interview, and without the normal back-and-forth of questions from the managing agent after the application is submitted.
Other people have had experience with applications that hinted at the purchaser’s race (because of college or organization memberships) that were turned down, despite seemingly fitting into the pattern of previously acceptable qualifications.
This problem is very difficult to anticipate or do anything about. There is just not enough history that becomes well-known to give agents or sellers reason to anticipate the problem.
To engage in gross generalization for a moment, this behavior is more stereotypical of “uptown” coops, rather than downtown loft buildings, which ion may ways have a live-and-let-live attitude. But you never know….
conflicted boards that want you to sell to me, not them
Then there are boards that have rejected applicants to purchase a certain apartment then later approve an application by a board member to buy that same apartment.
We just had what looks like one of these in my office. A cash purchaser was turned down on the paperwork, without any back-and-forth about financial qualifications, for an apartment that a board member had tired to buy at a lower price some months earlier. No smoking gun here, but the reasonable suspicion is that the board rejected a qualified buyer so that one of its won could buy instead.
As with all things within the Cloak of Coop Invisibility it is hard to get more than anecdotes and urban legend “information” about these occurrences. Agents (especially) and shareholders who end up selling and moving into another coop tend not to have a reason to make too big a stink.
One example that escaped from the Cloak of Coop Invisibility was discussed in the New York Times about two years ago. A Board Turndown, and Then a Buyer With Board Ties In this instance, the seller was sufficiently pissed off about what happened and – having moved to assisted living with family outside Manhattan – unafraid to be quoted.
The facts in that instance were typically suspicious of this kind of scenario. A board member had expressed interest in buying that apartment at (what the owner thought was ) a below market price; a purchaser with historically-acceptable qualifications was turned down without much back-and-forth; an individual related to the board member then purchased.
what can be done?
For a purchaser, the agent should inquire if there has been any interest in purchasing from a board member and perhaps even get a contract representation that there have been no such inquiries. If there have been, it gets very dicey, as the buyer (and the seller) should be loathe to upset the board before approval.
But they can consider a polite conversation with that board member to underline that “of course” the new application will be considered on its merits, and maybe a call from the seller’s counsel to the managing agent. The seller can also talk informally to as many people on the board as he or she has good relations with.
In other words, not much can be done by the seller or the buyer.
Shareholders always have the power (when it comes around once a year) to throw the bums out. But that assumes that shareholders (a) find out (b) care and (c) are willing to serve instead of the bums.
Having said all this – and as a ten year coop board president – I should reiterate that all of these types of abuses of power are exceptions to the general rule that boards act responsibly. The exceptions are always painful to those caught in them, and deserve to be pointed out – even though it is in almost no one’s interest to do so at the time.
bad apples + a bunch
It is stories of abuses like these that periodically fan the flames of a legislative solution in Albany. Whether coops should be forced to give reasons for purchase decision is a complicated issue, but if it happens it will be because some boards misbehave. Blame them.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Feb. 8, 2007 - two Ds down / only one of 55 Hudson’s fraternal triplets remains
7D and 8D in contract, whither 6D at 55 Hudson St?
The inter-firm data base was updated as of yesterday to show that the two BR + 2 bath #7D is in contract (asking price of $1.85mm). The 3 BR + 2 bath configuration in #8D has been showing as “in contract” since Christmas (asking price of $1.8mm).
Only the 1 BR + 1.5 bath #6D remains on the market (asking price of $1.835mm). Since all three Ds have been marketed by Stribling agents, I am guessing that the 6D owner is more than curious about the experiences (traffic and market feedback) about the other two units.
I don’t know where the contract price turned out on 7D and 8D, but it would not surprise me to see a price change on 6D, the 1 BR “survivor” of the trio.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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Feb. 8, 2007 - agents behaving badly / can an agent ‘own’ a buyer?
Curbed community takes on an open house question
There was an Asked Curbed feature last week can I return with my own broker? that raises some interesting questions about buying and selling Manhattan apartments – even apart from questions such as (1) why are there so many angry people posting on Curbed? and (2) why don’t more Curbed “Anons” use a more personal nom-de-blog?
The situation was that a buyer walked into an open house and had enough interest to return another time with an agent, but the seller’s agent got mad about another agent horning in.
Tacky, tacky, tacky.
There are two separate issues here. (1) Is the buyer entitled to be represented by an agent other than the seller’s agent? (Short answer is absolutely). (2) Does the seller’s agent have to share a commission if the buyer has an agent? (Longer answer, but for REBNY firms, yes.)
Actually, there is a third issue. (3) is the agent doing a good job for the seller by making it more difficult for an interested buyer to consider making a bid? (uh, yeah)
was that agent the buyer’s agent?
The agency issue is an easy one because it is a legal relationship based on consent. A Principal chooses an Agent based on the terms they agree upon, which don’t need to be in writing. If the Principal does not want the Agent acting any longer on his or her behalf, the relationship is over (mechanics may be varied in an agency contract, but that’s the general idea). So the open house visitor (the Principal) only has an agency relationship with the seller’s agent if the Principal wants one.
maybe it is about money
But the agent was probably more concerned about an eventual payday than about the niceties of agency disclosure and relations.
The REBNY rules that govern the relations among firms are supposed to encourage buyer representation (separate agents for a buyers and a seller in a deal) and co-brokering (an offer of compensation by the seller’s agent to any agent who brings the buyer; i.e., splitting the commission). In fact, most agents probably emphasize when they are pitching a listing to s potential seller that they will offer to co-broke with the 300+ REBNY firms, to make it seem as though the property will get more exposure.
Let’s just say that not all brokers are as willing to co-broke (rules and agreements notwithstanding) as they might be.
In the situation described, the buyer’s agent should talk to the seller’s agent to see if that agent *really* wants to prevent the buyer from returning with an agent. If the seller’s agent persists, a call from one manager to the other usually fixes any problem. (if not, that is what REBNY says it is for.)
what does the seller want?
The chances are very high that the agency agreement between the seller and the seller’s agent (the “exclusive listing agreement”) provides that the agent will co-broke. The chances are very high that the seller expects the agent t make it as easy as possible for someone (anyone qualified!) to buy the apartment. The chances are very high that an agent who pulls this kind of crap is putting the agent’s interests ahead of the seller’s interest.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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on matters of interest to Manhattan coop or condo loft apartment dwellers, buyers, sellers, and others, especially about New York City real estate
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