Lesson 2:  Listings Marathon

Once I gave LaLa our location and price range, she told me she would put together a list of properties for our consideration.  Two days later an Excel spreadsheet arrived by email with comprehensive information about 127 different properties.  Included were data for the street address, floor & apartment number, building name, cross street, construction era, detailed amenities, doorman, elevators, pet policy, number of rooms, beds, baths, area name (e.g. Yorkville, Carnegie Hill), square footage, asking price, real estate taxes, maintenance and common charges, price per square foot, adjusted price per square foot, and a URL for any online listing information.  This document was an invaluable foundation for our search.  Scouring the Internet I did find a few other properties, and LaLa gladly added these to our list.  Ultimately I winnowed this down to our top 10.  However, to truly understand the market LaLa scheduled about 30 apartments to visit.

That was 30 apartments to visit in one weekend! LaLa designed a scorecard for all our scheduled visits by which to enumerate our impressions.  Parameters included location, size, light, view, exposures, and condition.  We also took photographs to capture salient features and guide our comparisons.  LaLa was able to work around open-houses, coordinate with various agents, and even gain entrance when neither was available.  She accompanied us for many of these visits.  Otherwise, we were shepherded by her capable and gallant aide-de-camp, Jean.  If I found another place worth a visit, Jean would retreat to the relative quiet in the recess of a store window and call ahead.  We’d power walk, pingponging up and down the UES.  If necessary we jumped in and out of taxis, yet always managed to keep on schedule. Along the way LaLa and Jean gave us their honest opinions.  

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