Real Estate Agencies Hold ‘All-Nighters’ To Find Renters

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

While the 23-year-old computer programmer Michael Irani spends his workdays designing algorithms, he recently discovered that he just wasn’t very good at parsing the mind-numbingly complex real estate market for big-city digs.

The recent college grad scoured Craigslist. He dug through the classifieds. He phoned broker after broker. One agent told him he should wait a month to find a place.

Like many first time New Yorkers, Mr. Irani spent more than two months playing apartment-hunt roulette. Without a place to call his own, he became a vagabond, boarding at the homes (and often, on the couches) of family, childhood friends, and college roommates in the metropolitan area.

He finally found an apartment in Gramercy about six blocks from his new Union Square employer — but only after his aunt, a real estate agent, stepped in to aid her frazzled nephew.

To help connect time-pressed professionals like Michael Irani with places to live — and help themselves to the inevitable financial booty from more sales — a growing number of upscale rental agencies and real estate brokers are offering services beyond the traditional show, tell, and rent.

One agency, for instance, has begun borrowing a page from the experiences of many recent college grads: all-nighters.

Mosaic Properties, which primarily servers Manhattan but covers Brooklyn and New Jersey, held its first 24/7-bender a few weeks ago after realizing that many of its “younger, urban type” clients were seeking real-estate services late into the evening.

An owner of Mosaic owner, Martin Nussbaum, said, “We get a lot of phone calls between 10 and 12.”

Just like during regular business hours, Mr. Nussbaum’s brokers on duty help callers troll the company rental database and arrange appointments late into the night.

Another firm, the Developers Group, is offering a substitute to the friend with wheels, offering “complimentary open house shuttle” rides for potential rental appointments.

Others are targeting clients well before anyone’s actually looking for a place to live.

Citi Habitats, the rental and sale agency, publishes a newsletter called EliteRentals to ingratiate itself to potential clients, and the Bracha Group, a top-selling branch of Prudential Douglas Elliman, has started hosting “real estate information seminars” to tutor potential clients about the neighborhood, market trends, and future plans for the community.

“Basically the way we structure it, it’s open to all,” Elliman’s Lawrence Lee said of the free sessions, which include summits with high-end restaurant chefs and mortgage brokers. They hope future sessions will include boldface names like appraiser Jonathan Miller, the cofounder of Miller Samuel.

Bracha Group held one of its seminars in November, and Mr. Lee said the firm expects to host more beginning after the New Year.

“It’s going to be on us,” Mr. Lee said, adding, “the main idea is to attract as many people … as possible.”


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