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The 2 most important words: Thank you!

Sometimes, the most rewarding deals aren’t the biggest! When I first started canvassing in 1984, I called Vincent Guinee who owned a small mixed-use building at 230 East 63rd Street.

Thanksgiving day dilemma: the 1964 Bowmore or the 1951 Macallan?? Not a bad option but can’t make up my mind!!

No calls = no deals. It’s that simple. There’s not a broker alive who consistently cold-called 100 owners a week and failed.

Lessons Learned: Knakal Knuggets - #50: Everything you do creates a personal brand. In the real estate brokerage business, regardless of what firm you work for, everything you do creates an impression of you by others, and that impression creates a brand. Yes, the firm has a brand and a reputation, but so do you! And yours will stick with you regardless of where you are working. Everything we do creates impressions and impacts the way people perceive us. The way we speak, the way we dress, the way we interact with people, what we eat, what we drink, the materials we send out to folks, and the people we work with, especially our partners—everything we do creates those impressions. So it is important to be conscious of how we are interacting with people, who we are associating with, and the way we carry ourselves. Some of the famous quotes on personal brand include: “If you are not branding yourself, you can be sure others do it for you.” “Your personal brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.” “Your personal brand is a promise to your clients...a promise of quality, consistency, competency, and reliability.” "The keys to branding success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity, and accountability.” John Jantsch is credited with saying, “Personal branding is the art of becoming knowable, likable, and trustable.” Lots to be learned from these quotes. But it is also important to be genuine and to present yourself honestly.  As Oscar Wilde has said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

80% of brokers fail. Why? Because they confuse being busy with being productive. If you didn’t pitch, call, or close today... you didn’t work.

Is this city the Greatest or what? I love this place!!!

Want to sell buildings for a living? Master the phones. The best brokers aren’t the smartest or most charming. They’re the most consistent. Cold calls = closings. No exceptions.

Celebrating Easter with the two loves of my life!! Happy Easter!

On the train platform this morning! After 39 years living in Manhattan, and walking to work for most of that time, I am now a suburbanite! I haven’t “commuted” since 1984 when I lived at my dad’s house in New Jersey after college. Very different having to look at a train schedule. But my wife is thrilled - as they say, “Happy wife……”

Rejection is a rite of passage in this business. If you’re not getting rejected daily, you’re not making enough calls.

Hard work is essential. You have to work 12-14 hours per day to get to the top of this business (6 days per week). Without the sacrifice, greatness is a challenge!

Thanksgiving day dilemma: the 1964 Bowmore or the 1951 Macallan?? Not a bad option but can’t make up my mind!!

The 2 most important words: Thank you!

On the train platform this morning! After 39 years living in Manhattan, and walking to work for most of that time, I am now a suburbanite! I haven’t “commuted” since 1984 when I lived at my dad’s house in New Jersey after college. Very different having to look at a train schedule. But my wife is thrilled - as they say, “Happy wife……”

Is this city the Greatest or what? I love this place!!!

Lessons Learned: Knakal Knuggets - #50: Everything you do creates a personal brand. In the real estate brokerage business, regardless of what firm you work for, everything you do creates an impression of you by others, and that impression creates a brand. Yes, the firm has a brand and a reputation, but so do you! And yours will stick with you regardless of where you are working. Everything we do creates impressions and impacts the way people perceive us. The way we speak, the way we dress, the way we interact with people, what we eat, what we drink, the materials we send out to folks, and the people we work with, especially our partners—everything we do creates those impressions. So it is important to be conscious of how we are interacting with people, who we are associating with, and the way we carry ourselves. Some of the famous quotes on personal brand include: “If you are not branding yourself, you can be sure others do it for you.” “Your personal brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.” “Your personal brand is a promise to your clients...a promise of quality, consistency, competency, and reliability.” "The keys to branding success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity, and accountability.” John Jantsch is credited with saying, “Personal branding is the art of becoming knowable, likable, and trustable.” Lots to be learned from these quotes. But it is also important to be genuine and to present yourself honestly.  As Oscar Wilde has said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

You can imagine my surprise to receive this letter after not having spoken to Michael Rosenberg in about 38 years. Michael happened to see the page-and-a-quarter profile on me in The New York Times in February of 2024, which actually got me fired by JLL, but reached people that I hadn't spoken to in decades. This is but one of many outreaches that I received from people who happened to see that profile and contacted me to say hello or refer me new pieces of business to me. How anyone could have seen that profile as anything but positive is completely beyond me. This letter from Michael was such a great memory of the property at 127 E 62nd Street that Paul and I sold for Michael Harrison back in 1987. If this doesn’t show market presence works, I don’t know what does. Thanks for sending the letter, Michael!

Sometimes, the most rewarding deals aren’t the biggest! When I first started canvassing in 1984, I called Vincent Guinee who owned a small mixed-use building at 230 East 63rd Street.

Top brokers don’t chase commission, they chase excellence. Do the job right, and the money takes care of itself.

Celebrating Easter with the two loves of my life!! Happy Easter!

Hard work is essential. You have to work 12-14 hours per day to get to the top of this business (6 days per week). Without the sacrifice, greatness is a challenge!

We’ve owned this for 60 years, now sell it! Back in the 1990s, we sold a couple of properties for a family that had been well entrenched on the eastside for decades. The family had a few great properties on the eastside and we were lucky enough to sell a blockfront development site on Third Avenue and an 80 unit apartment building on East 77th Street. These were huge sales for us back then and we were thrilled to have sold them. Over the following decades, the family remained relative passive without any buying or selling. We are keeping the family name confidential as they are very private. In 2019, a family member of the gentleman we were dealing with back in the 1990s called us to say that the family was interested in selling their asset at 920 Park Avenue. This building was a 21 story apartment building with approximately 156,000 square feet. The residential unit mix consisted of 55 free market apartments and 13 rent stabilized apartments with an average fair market unit size of approximately 1,900 square feet. These were very large units. The building sat at the northwest corner of 80th Street and Park Avenue, an unbelievably great location by any measure. The building had several challenges including the fact that it was built in 1962 using white-glazed brick, not a favorite of investors in New York City. The seller was very opaque about their objectives, universal rent control as a potential ingredient in the rent law changes was being discussed, the building had no amenities to speak of, the garage tenant had gone into bankruptcy; there was a relatively high vacancy within the building; and, because of the extremely large units, there was very low turnover. The June 2019 rent law changes meant that no condo conversion was possible, the paperwork on the building was decent but not great, and the tenants and staff were not to know that the building was being offered for sale. Further, there was a real estate broker living in the building, which meant keeping the availability confidential was going to be a challenge. The key to selling this asset was convincing the buyer community that the free market rents would average $125 to $135 per square foot—about 40% more than they were getting. We had a great comparable at 71st Street and Park Avenue that provided an excellent comp set for this property. Additionally, we conducted all tours through the service stairwell, from the garage space, such that we spent the minimum amount of time in the hallways to avoid having any of the residents or the staff get wind of the fact that the property was being sold. We were also able to convince buyers that a portion of the garage, which was now vacant, could be converted into much-needed amenity space for the property. All of these factors enabled us to get two buyers into a bidding war and ultimately drove the price up to $134,500,000, or nearly $2 million per unit. Find out what the seller had to say in the first comment...