Doughnuts Are To Homer As Fee Is To Broker

While you stand there wondering whether to pull the trigger on a rental, the broker may or may not be thinking something along the lines of the following:

We had narrowed her search down to two buildings around the corner from each other. The units were almost identical; one was a little larger, but the building lacked any kind of character, and the approval process was long and ridiculous. It was also a sketchy co-broke where my fee would get chopped in half. The other unit was nice, it was an easier deal, and I would keep the entire fee. She wanted my opinion on which apartment she should take.

In the rental market, the difference between right and wrong is often a hazy shade of grey. There I was with the nicest client I have ever had, being asked what I thought was the better apartment when my paycheck doubled if she chose the second one. Shouldn’t I at least nudge her in that direction? You want to do the right thing, but on the other hand it’s one less deal I have to make that month . . . if she goes the right way.

Will the agent do the right thing? In this case, of course. Whether he gets a date out of it is another issue.

I Don’t Think It’s April 1st Today . . .

There is open speculation that the City may be selling its iconic Municipal Building:

Speculation is heating up that the Municipal Building, the soaring limestone landmark that overlooks City Hall, could be among the government real estate assets to be sold off and converted to residential buildings as municipal employees prepare to move into a new, privately managed office building planned for ground zero.

The Municipal Building at One Centre St., the home of the Department of City Planning at 22 Reade St., and another large office building overlooking Foley Square at 2 Lafayette St. are among the assets whose sale is under consideration, according to a source familiar with the process.

In September, Mayor Bloomberg penned an agreement with developer Larry Silverstein to take 600,000 square feet in Tower 4 at the former World Trade Center site as early as 2013. Mr. Bloomberg said at the time that the city could sell off some real estate assets, which could be developed or converted into residential buildings. Mr. Silverstein has the right to cancel the deal between now and September 2008 if he finds a tenant that would pay more than the city’s offer of $56.50 a square foot a year in rent.

I Guess 1980s Excess Is Coming Back After All

Donald infiltration: complete. Form of: Soho condo-hotel. Just rolls off the tongue, that:

The city will approve construction permits for a condo hotel skyscraper that megadeveloper Donald Trump wants to build in western SoHo, the Daily News has learned.

Community groups who oppose his plans for the 45-story Trump SoHo Hotel Condominium got the word late Wednesday from elected officials, said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

Trump said yesterday that he hadn’t got the official okay from the Department of Buildings, which issues the construction permits. But he was upbeat anyway.

“It will be like all my other buildings,” he told The News. “Once they get built, everybody loves them.”

Trump is already doing excavation and site prep — for which he does have city permits — at his property at 246 Spring St., which had been a parking lot.

He’s planning a luxurious glass tower with 411 units designed by high-profile architect David Rockwell. Most floors will have superb views because it will be the tallest building between 23rd St. and lower Manhattan. There will also be a rooftop pool with cabanas.

A Ticking Time Bomb Scenario That Even Alan Dershowitz Can’t Abide

The couple who survives in a 265-square-foot apartment* one-ups themselves by having a baby:

When Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan told friends late last winter that she was pregnant, they offered the obligatory congratulations. Then they asked when she was moving.

It was assumed that she and her husband, Maxwell, would have to go somewhere else. For four years the couple shared a 265-square-foot, one-bedroom rental on Bedford Street in the West Village, an apartment so preposterously miniature it could fit neatly inside the foyer of many apartments uptown. They made it work for the two of them in part by jettisoning clothes, a television and a home office. “It never felt too small,” said Ms. Gillingham-Ryan, 31, a food writer. “It helps to keep your life well edited.”

No amount of editing, it seemed, would create enough room for a baby. But after looking at more than a dozen apartments, and weighing the benefits of more square footage against the burden of debt, they decided to stay on Bedford Street, where they pay $780 a month for rent. And they would renovate to accomplish the seemingly impossible: accommodate a baby.

. . .

“The only problem with all this is kids,” Mr. Gillingham-Ryan said one day last month while Ursula napped in the bedroom. “She’s a ticking time bomb. She’s going to need room. We know we can’t stay here for long.”

*I guess the apartment gained 15 square feet since we last read about it.

And With An Oddly Toothy Grin The Broker Smiled, “Dangerous? Why Would You Say That?”

Your first thought upon being mugged in that “up-and-coming” neighborhood you just moved to? “Damn brokers”:

I’m sitting in a windowless room in a back annex of Precinct 77 holding a frozen bag of peas to the base of my skull. There’s no ice at Precinct 77. Florescent bulbs cast flickering light on the cinderblock walls and scuffed linoleum while I look over a police officer’s shoulder at six faces on a dim computer screen — all unhappy black men. Having just been beaten and robbed outside of my apartment, I’m scanning mugshots for the five or six attackers. It’s an exercise in futility; by the time I realized I was being mugged, all I could see was the sidewalk. The officers who picked me up said that people’s belongings rarely turn up, whether they catch the thieves or not. In fact, they’re surprised I’d even stayed to look at mugshots; most people in my situation just accept their fate and move on.

. . .

[Crown Heights] has undergone a . . . miraculous change, as Brooklyn real estate agents never fail to mention. Crime is down and renters are getting a steal. Far from the powder keg of years past, it’s officially up-and-coming and a stone’s throw from Prospect Park. A 2004 New York Times article dubbed Crown Heights a “hidden jewel,” and the accepted wisdom is that you should grab real estate in the borough while you still can.

This is the sentiment echoed by Ruby Allen, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent who has worked in the area for years. When I ask her if she considers it dangerous, she was shocked at the suggestion.

“Dangerous? Why would you say that?” she asks. “I don’t think so.”

But I’m not alone in my presupposition of danger. Crown Heights and its irritable neighbor to the north, Bedford-Stuyvesant — frequently — top the shortlist of areas to avoid at night. But Ms. Allen’s view remains unfalteringly rosy.

“I’ve spent a lifetime in those areas, and they’re OK,” she says. “You’re going to have problems here and there, but it’s not uncommon to what’s going on in other areas.”

Which is to say that this week’s issue is perhaps not the best place for Brian Carter to be singing the virtues of the biz:

Before becoming a real estate agent, I had never worked in sales before (unless you count up-selling vodka). The extent of my training consisted of learning a few buildings, taking some pictures, posting ads and then answering the phone. A week after completing my licensing exam, I was explaining to an Indian couple why that particular unit was such a smart move. They didn’t take the apartment, but I left there feeling pretty lit up.

I calculated what my fee would have been had they taken the apartment and then immediately began devising ways in which I could have forced them into it. I’m joking of course, but I was motivated. “Holy shit,” I thought, “the playbook is like twice the size of the rule book.”

. . .

From scheduling to attire to how exactly you gain entrance to a vacant apartment, the truth is there are very few rules. Even the ways in which you manage to convince an otherwise rational human being that a 550-square-foot one bedroom apartment is worth every penny of $3500 is really not a matter of concern. If they sign the lease, the checks all clear and no lawsuits are filed, you did your job successfully.

So yeah, I admit it, I sort of like being a rental agent. Like politics, you are going to have to get your hands a little dirty if you are going to get anywhere in this business. And in this equally flawed and overbearing country of ours, the moment I stop liking it, I can always try some other way of making a living. I could even trade my balls in for a corporate job and a dental plan, but that’s another great thing about real estate: You don’t need great teeth.

(BC, we kid because we love!)