NY Mag: I Really Didn’t Need to See That
Back to NewsBY S.Jhoanna Robledo
Illustration by Mark Nerys
When showings go horribly wrong.
Nearly every apartment-shopper has had it happen. You’re walking through a new place. You like what you see. And then … something goes awry. Terribly, uncomfortably awry.
Broker Samantha Kleier Forbes tells this story: She was taking clients through a very chic Upper East Side co-op when she brushed against a desk, jostling the computer’s mouse and awakening the screen from its sleep mode, revealing a hard-core fetish-porn site. “I think we’re done here,” the buyers said quietly—and bolted.
The deal-killers are not always quite so dramatic, of course. Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Darren Sukenik saw open houses at a downtown loft sputter when lookers encountered a wall full of Republican memorabilia (including pictures of the owner with George Bushes senior and junior). “I finally had to tell him to take the stuff down,” he says. Klara Madlin lost what looked like a promising deal when the owners of a Hell’s Kitchen one-bedroom forgot about a showing and greeted her in their pajamas, yawning, at 11 a.m. The buyers “couldn’t get out fast enough,” she says…
