take on the suburban realtor

There is a big difference when apartment-hunting in NYC as opposed to house-hunting in the burbs…

In NYC apartments listings typically have 4 to 8 pictures and are often of much higher quality than those taken in the suburbs where quantity seems to trump quality.   You'll get six angles of every living room, three pictures of a random bathroom and a bunch of shots of very formal living rooms which feel as warm and inviting as a morgue.

The other difference is that all NYC properties have a floor-plan while hardly any of the suburban properties do..  I'm not sure if it's a philosophical difference is but one mentality wants to show you the best angles and a map and let your imagination do the rest while the other gives you shots of every closet but gives you no insight to where they are located within the house…

This is where the suburban realtors could really take a lesson from the NYC ones.. they spend no money on photography whereas most NYC listings look like they've been done by a professional photographer using the best light, best lens and best furniture.    When we sold our apartment, our realtor almost literally had us move every piece of furniture out into the building's back stairwell during the photo-shoot and kept them there during every open-house.

In the city you hide your crap but in the burbs they almost embrace the clutter, showing the buyers how much crap they can fit in the space.   In the city realtors speak about the neighborhood while in the burbs they only talk about the size of your lawn.  In the city you are never pleasantly surprised when you walk in, in the suburbs you very often are…   In the city you look for hidden space, in the suburbs you look for charm.. In the city you look for a hidden gem, in the burbs you look for a good school..   In the city your realtor seems like a shark who would stab you in the eye if it got them an extra $4 square foot, in the suburbs they buy you a latte.   in the suburbs they  tell you how far you are from the train, in the city they tell you how close you are...  in the city you have to be approved by a board, in the suburbs you don't have to worry about it because they won't even show you a property if you are not white.