Angst Over "Angst"

by Sara Karl
I could almost hear the cries from cubicles across the five boroughs as I read the NY Times article last Sunday. Despite the rippling responses from the real estate world I feel compelled to respond, having been on three sides of that fence myself.

First, I was one of the bad agents mentioned in that article. Not on purpose, mind you, but out of sheer ignorance. I came to New York City in the fall of 2004. Although my mother worked in real estate and I’d even owned a home myself, the real estate world in Seattle – or anywhere else in the country, for that matter - has little relevance to the way things work here. Unfortunately, no one told me that. When I got here it seemed EVERYONE was working in real estate. The market was booming and I’d always been passionate about the field, so I got a job as a rental agent.

The company that hired me (which does not exist anymore, and was definitely not REBNY) was a small company with a big office downtown, filled with desks and anxious actors-cum-agents. I had no training, no experience – and no license. I was told the company would pay for my license and that I could start work right away as a rental agent, because “rental agents don’t need to be licensed.” Where I come from, there is no such thing as hiring an agent to help you find a rental, so having no experience, or reason to doubt them, I believed them. After all why would they lie? The training they gave us took approximately 2 hours, and consisted of teaching us how to operate the computers. Then they set us free to “go make some money!”

I lasted exactly nine days. At the end of the second week, I had rented a total of zero apartments, been blown off by the nice but frustrated customers I was able to get, and made absolutely no money. Exhausted, broke and disillusioned, I spoke to a friend who was doing well as an agent for one of the big companies in Manhattan. When I told him my woes, he skipped over all the awful anecdotes and asked about the license. “No, you don’t need a license to rent apartments,” I told him confidently.

He wasted no time in setting me straight. “Of course you do! What you are doing is illegal!” It was all I needed to hear. Frustration and humiliation is one thing, but outright illegal and unethical activities? I didn’t bother to go back, just called to let them know I wouldn’t be working for them anymore.

Later, I was hired by this same friend to work as his assistant at Douglas Elliman. DE requires all licensed agents and their assistants to go through their comprehensive training process. This time I did it right; real estate school, license AND corporate training – all just to be an assistant! If only I’d started with them, I could have saved myself so much trouble! By the end of those two months, I knew so much more, but still, just the beginning of my education.

Working as an assistant, I experienced first-hand the cynicism and mistrust mentioned in the NYT article. I also experienced the other side – being blown off, lied to and misled by customers. Having spent many hours researching properties and showing apartments to a customer, I found myself taking it personally. Seeing how that mistrust can snowball and feed itself in this industry, I knew the only way to change those preconceived notions about agents was to be honest, hard-working and up-front with the people I worked with myself. Sometimes it felt like trying to change the world one grain of sand at a time, but what else can you do?

Lastly, my “third side of the fence” perspective is as a first-time buyer of real estate in New York. It’s one thing to learn about this stuff in a classroom, another to try to help people find a home for themselves, and yet another entirely to wade through the sea of listings and brokers myself. It’s like getting a masters degree in NYC real estate compared to what I was doing before.

It is unfortunate that there are people who lie, cheat and manipulate in this business. Those people are a bummer no matter what field they work in. It feels worse in real estate because it involves two very personal things – your finances and your home. The emotions involved are much bigger than, say, being given bad service at the diner. I think it’s great to call them out on it, and even better to have REBNY around to set standards and help us protect ourselves. What else can we do? Just be honest and keep trying to change the world, one grain of sand at a time.