{"id":3908,"date":"2010-03-11T21:52:21","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T02:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.renthop.com\/news\/?p=506"},"modified":"2023-07-24T14:22:28","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T18:22:28","slug":"apartment-brokers-and-head-hunters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/apartment-brokers-and-head-hunters\/","title":{"rendered":"Apartment Brokers and Head Hunters"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Manhattan<\/a> apartment broker is a middle man.\u00a0 However, despite all the sleazy stereotypes, many grounded in truth, the best middlemen add tremendous value. Sadly, mediocre brokers add little or no value, and a handful of bad brokers reach “negative value add” territory (even if their services were completely free, you’d be better off without them). Apartment brokers and head hunters are comparable for the kind of services they provide, and their negative reputations.<\/p>\n

\"Monkey<\/p>\n

Why is there so much variance in quality?\u00a0 It’s a bit puzzling to most people, because most New Yorkers<\/a> think brokers<\/a> are simply a very high-level API and front-end into a database of listings.\u00a0 It’s true, brokers would be overpaid if they earned thousands of dollars per afternoon as a human MySQL Query Browser + key card.<\/p>\n

Head Hunters<\/h2>\n

To help illustrate the value add, we’ll look at another market filled with inefficiency and middlemen: the job hunt.<\/p>\n

As stressful as the quest for a dream apartment can be, finding the dream job is even more taxing.\u00a0 New Yorker’s stay at their jobs longer than they do their apartments, making the cost of a bad decision particularly painful (the only more elusive pairing is the perfect spouse). \u00a0 Employers are like renters, scanning hundreds of brief descriptions (resume screening), inquiring dozens for more details (phone interviews), and then granting a small handful a personal audience (on-site interviews).\u00a0 When the right match finally arrives, there is the uncomfortable negotiation phase.<\/p>\n

What would the perfect headhunter do to add value? \u00a0They would:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Be competent and proficient in the relevant job domains offered<\/li>\n
  2. Politely reject resumes from candidates who simply don’t have the proper background<\/li>\n
  3. Mock interview each job hunter first to ensure the resume isn’t full of lies \/ exaggerations; prep him for brainteasers, programming questions, case studies, and those awful “estimate # of ATMs \/ OTBs \/ copy machines \/ doormen \/ apartment brokers in NYC” questions<\/li>\n
  4. Perform due\u00a0diligence\u00a0on employers to make sure the job matches the description<\/li>\n
  5. Have solid relationships with many companies, being the first to know of new openings.<\/li>\n
  6. Be detailed and thorough enough to highlight each candidate’s uniquely redeeming qualities.<\/li>\n
  7. Be the exclusive representative for a broad network of exceptional current and future job hunters<\/li>\n
  8. Mediate a pareto efficient compensation package for each employee \/ employer pair<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Back to Reality<\/h2>\n

    Sadly, a headhunter this great doesn’t exist (if she does, give her my resume). \u00a0However, any apartment broker worth his salt does all of these things. \u00a0They build relationships with landlords, doormen, and supers. \u00a0They visit apartments and reject bad ones without even bothering to photograph or advertise them. \u00a0Brokers carefully write descriptions that highlight unique features. \u00a0They have enough broad knowledge to know a fair clearing price in rent negotiations. \u00a0They qualify renters<\/a>.\u00a0 Finally, they save everyone time, and they do this knowing that most clients waste their time.<\/p>\n

    Why the Bad Reputation?<\/h2>\n

    Despite everything a great broker does, apartment brokers and headhunters universally have awful reputations. The bad apples are too lazy to do their jobs properly, so they cut corners. \u00a0They don’t preview the apartments, they post fake photos<\/a> instead that they found online, stole from another broker, or have absolutely nothing to do with the real unit. \u00a0The descriptions are ultra generic, or worse still, the apartment doesn’t exist and it is a pure bait-and-switch (and it’ll be obvious because when you visit the apartment with that broker, it’ll be his first time seeing it as well). \u00a0Ironically, because these are the same brokers who magically have the lowest priced apartment on Craigslist<\/a>, you are more likely to come across one of these rotten apples if you yourself are too lazy to look for a good broker!<\/p>\n

    At RentHop, our in-house source of NYC Apartments<\/a>, our philosophy is to force the broker’s to prove they are good by judging the quality of their postings.\u00a0 We have recently completely overhauled our backend algorithms to specifically flush out low quality brokers and listings. \u00a0For the purists, I’m well aware that the “Broker Turing Test” is very hard to solve, but we’ve found some amazingly great heuristics over the years… Stay tuned in the coming weeks!<\/p>\n

    Editor’s Note: We updated this article to enhance readability.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A Manhattan apartment broker is a middle man.\u00a0 However, despite all the sleazy stereotypes, many grounded in truth, the best middlemen add tremendous value. Sadly, mediocre brokers add little or no value, and a handful of bad brokers reach “negative value add” territory (even if their services were completely free, you’d be better off without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"yes","_lmt_disable":"no","footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-brokers-and-landlords"},"yoast_head":"\nApartment Brokers and Head Hunters - Real Estate Topics, Tips, and Guides<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Are real estate apartment brokers and head hunters the same? 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