Location Scouting

January 14, 2008

My friend Jason celebrated his 40th birthday on Saturday with a small party at a barbecue joint near his apartment in Windsor Terrace, where he lives with his girlfriend, Erika. Deborah and I drove over, parked a few blocks away, and looked at the apartments between our parking spot and the restaurant, wondering what the rents were like and if it might be worth considering moving there.

The next day, Sunday, we looked online to get a feel for what was out there — not just in Windsor Terrace, but all over the city. The real estate agency that I used to find my current apartment, which at the time had just one small office hidden away on an industrial street, has since become a Williamsburg powerhouse specializing in high-priced condos designed for modern living, and its listings kept popping up.

"Hey," I said to Deborah as I read about one of its offerings. "This place is having an open house today. Wanna go?"

Deborah thought I might be kidding — after all, half a million dollar condos are a bit beyond our means — but I was curious to see what modern living is, and told her, "I’m serious."

It was already three o'clock by then, and the open house ended at four, so we put on our coats in a hurry and took a short drive to one of seemingly hundreds of new construction luxury condo buildings erupting like time-lapse stalagmites all over the city.

Just inside the still-unfinished building's temporary entrance, near a blown-up photograph representing what the finished entrance is supposed to look like, we were greeted by a man in an ill-fitting suit, sweaty and twitchy with nervous energy. Deborah suspected he was hungover. He handed us a clipboard, asked us to fill out a short questionnaire and sign a construction site waiver, and then asked if we'd ever worked with his real estate agency before.

"Yes, actually," I said. "I found my current apartment with you guys."

"Oh, perfect. Who did you work with?"

"I have no idea. It was nearly five years ago."

He looked at me as if I had said it had been a hundred years ago, on Mars. And to be honest, it felt that way.

"I think the guy's name was Josh," I said, reaching into a muddy pool of vaguely sorted memories.

He asked which Josh, as there were two agents with that name.

"I couldn't tell you. Like I said, it was nearly five years ago."

He took a chance and had us wait for an agent who was somewhere in the building, showing another group of suckers the secrets of modern living. When Josh came downstairs, I recognized him immediately. "That's the guy," I whispered to Deborah.

We watched as he said goodbye and handed his business card to a few people, then, after a brief pow wow with the nervous guy, came over to greet us. "Hey," he said, with a big, friendly smile. "How are you? Great to see you again."

I knew there was no way in hell he remembered me, but I shook his hand and told him I was fine.

"Good memory," said Deborah, calling him on his bullshit.

"I had help," he admitted.

Nevertheless, if he didn't know me, he certainly knew the building I currently live in, and he was surprised I lasted this long in it. "How's Max?" he said.

Max is my building manager— sometimes known as Min because that's all he does to maintain the building. When my friend Denise met him, he refused to shake her hand because she is a woman. Denise never lets me forget it.

"Eh, you know. He's okay. He treats me okay."

"It's funny, that's what everyone says. He pulls all kinds of bullshit, but everyone I talk to says the same thing: 'Max and I are cool. We have an understanding.' But you know it's all bullshit."

"Put it this way, I can get him on the phone, which is a lot better than what my next-door neighbor can do."

Josh rounded us up with two other couples and began the tour. There wasn't much to see since most of the building was still under construction. We looked at a few posters of architectural renderings, and then stood around an architectural model as Josh pointed out the building's amenities -- including a maze of cordoned-off, private roof decks available for an additional twenty grand, and an underground parking garage where parking spots could be purchased for an extra 30,000 dollars. No one seemed fazed. A tall and lanky bald guy in designer-framed glasses, J Crew sport coat, and red cashmere scarf said to his wife, "Look at the little toilets. Do you think it's someone's job to make those little toilets?"

During the elevator ride to the model units, the tall, skinny, bald guy asked Josh what school district the building was in. His wife, about half his size, was embarrassed by the question and said, "He isn't even born yet, and you're already enrolling him in school?"

I discreetly glanced at the woman's belly. If she were pregnant, she wasn't showing. But it never hurts to plan ahead.

The first unit we were shown, a roughly 700 square foot two-bedroom, felt like a small, high-priced hotel room, and as Josh showed off the refrigerator, microwave, and dishwasher, I half expected him to point out the minibar. For some inexplicable reason, it had two bathrooms. The place was too small to comfortably hold everyone, and the third couple in our group decided to wait in the hallway. At least we thought they did. We never saw them again.

"These units have been going fast," said Josh. "There are only a few still available."

The next unit we saw was a little bigger, with a wall-sized window that opened to a small patio overlooking a park. It had a couple of closets and, like the first place, an unnecessary second bathroom. Looking at it empty, without any furniture, probably made it appear larger than it actually was, but in any case, it was livable — probably the only livable space in the entire building. $700,000 bucks.

"This entire fucking city is out of its mind," I muttered.

After that, there wasn't anything else to see; construction on the pool and exercise room was still ongoing, if it had even started yet. Josh could sense that the place wasn't right for us, and he mentioned a few other buildings that might be more suitable. There are a couple of other open houses, he said, but, checking his watch realized we were too late. "Give me a call," he said, handing me a business card, "I have a lot of things available." He rattled off a few addresses, mentioned square footage and prices, all of which I'm tempted to say went in one ear and out the other, but honestly, none of it even made it as far as the first ear.

Deborah and I nodded, shook his hand, thanked him for the tour, and told him we'd be in touch, then ducked from under the fog of insincerity, careful not to slip in the puddles of condensed hot air, out the door and into the clear light of day.