brown harris, elliman...or corcoran...?

use a local agent. they will give you more attention than the bafoons who work at the large places.

In my experience as a buyer for nearly 3 years and seeing 200 apts, of the three I found;
1)Corcoran brokers to be the most ill informed and sometimes just plain dumb with no market clue. It was like they got their marching orders from the last NY Times fluff piece on the RE market.
2) Brown Harris Stevens brokers a small field to judge, maybe saw 10 apts that had BHS. That tells you something too, even in such a technological easy age to find apts, maybe you'll have less exposure. It's not like they are a specialty for a neighborhood either.
3) Elliman brokers same reach as Corcoran, less moronic, I generally feel pretty neutral about them.
So of the 3 if I had to choose, it would prob be Elliman.

I would go with someone from a smaller agency who is young and hungry. You get more attention and drive for the same price. I recently had a great experience with Aimee from Elegran.

http://www.elegran.com/agents/aimee-gordon

why are those your three choices? There's a long list and quite a few are better than those three.

I vote for ali r., who posts on these boards regularly and is a total class act.

I agree with matsonjones ... Alison (frontporch) is at DG Neary, which (due to being a mid-sized brokerage) has more consistently professional dealings than the big McBrokers.

http://www.dgneary.com/brokerwebsite3/code/agent_detail.asp?brokerid=25594 She's also fun to taunt, and she can be held responsible for all transgressions by all real estate agents everywhere. Downtown specialty, but UWS is her personal stomping ground, so there's that.

what is better, dog poo, cat poo or pig poo?
Even if you pick the poo from a smaller animal, a local animal, or the poo from your best friend Kelly or Jim, it's still all poo

It really depends on the individual - regardless of the company affiliation. I had great success recently with Halstead. But I know really sharp brokers from a few of the firms mentioned & yes, there are many other firms besides those few mentioned. In the location you are interested in, whose name comes up with listings the most?

Agree with afinelyne, pick the individual, not the firm.

>In the location you are interested in, whose name comes up with listings the most?

Disagree with afinelyne, don't choose the person with the most listings. Or the least.

Hands down - Shelly Bleier of Douglas Elliman, who represented me for the recent successful sale of my apartment.

She's extremely professional, knows her stuff & does it with gusto & enthusiasm - you can tell from the get-go she genuinely enjoys what she does; plodding along half dead is NOT one of her characteristics.

She also has a great sense of humor, undoubtedly very much needed in this demanding business. I would call upon her for service in a heartbeat of the need arose.

Correction: ..."IF" the need arose.

bb10024: Assuming this is a 10024 property, you have your choice of many excellent brokers at all three firms who know the territory and the buyer pool. From what I've seen, the firms don't have any discernible impact on a seller's final result. As others have said, pick the broker, not the firm.

AH, MJ: thanks for the kind words. I currently have my hands full--plug alert!--with a park block brownstone duplex I just listed, so I won't pitch for bb10024's business.

However, I would say in general there's a place in this market for smaller firms; maybe given the location it might be interesting to talk to Wohlfarth & Associates?

Certainly, if OP has a choice of big-firm agents that he/she likes, it might just make sense at this point to get a couple of references from each of them, and talk to those past clients.

I agree with everybody else above that if you find an agent that you like, the firm's affiliation is fairly secondary.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

poo realty?

Is there a broker that deals specially with guys with cats?

now with the online technology most firms, small and big, can produce the same if not similar marketing efforts and gain equal exposure. Its all about the individual agent. Go with the agent who knows their market, and someone you would hire to negotiate on your behalf.

you could ask your cat's litter box for better advice

Catguy, do you talk to your cat's litter box?

Angeloz got it right. The Internet has leveled the playing field. Streeteasy has been a big reason for this. The big brokerage houses have missed the boat. When someone wants to purchase, they go to Streeteasy and enter their parameters, price, area, etc.; listings show up according to these parameters, and small brokerage houses are just as visible as the big ones. Now the brokerage companies have changed their web sites to imitate Streeteasy, but it's too late.

I'm an independent broker with over 25 years of experience , am also a mortgage broker and would be happy to list your apt. My commission is also less than the big brokerage cos.

Ellen Silverman
esfundingco @ aol.com

I disagree, a bigger firm has a lot more water cooler talk for who has a buyer that needs a 2/2 in say west village and who's needs one.
It's not a big advantage but it is one.

Believe it or not, as comfortable as I and all of you are searching places like SE on our own, there are some who are not and want someone doting on them.

I worked in a big firm once upon a time, and never had a lot of cooperation from my fellow workers. And have been to the offices recently of two brokerage houses, and it seems pretty cutthroat to me.

It's not just Streeteasy that's leveling the field, it's other websites also. Foreign buyers search Streeteasy.

And it's for certain a person from a small firm can dot just as much and just as good as a person from a large firm.

Actually, something great for SE to consider, maybe even Noah at UD,a rating of the brokerage houses with matrices based on time on market, price drops, non sales, failed in contracts,etc.

SE certainly has the raw data.

A side effect might be less abuse of false "in contracts" and overeaching asking prices for fear of hurting a brokerage house's efficiency rating.

Save some money, try realdirect.com

I look at SE's find-a-broker thingie quite a bit, just to see who's doing what in my neighborhood, etc. It summarizes days on market, pricing skills, etc., but is based on the people rather than the firm. That's as it should be, as the big firms exist only to provide services to brokers.

I used to visit the big firms' sites all the time, but no reason to now. I look at their brochures and magazines that come with the newspaper, but just for the pictures.

Whoops my bad, never checked out the feature.

Haven't missed much, as it's good only for comparing the high-volume brokers. There're very few with more than a couple of sales per year. The broker who'd be most suitable for a particular building, or whose style would best mesh with yours, very likely wouldn't be in that all-star list.

For buy-side brokers it's even more useless, as most don't report their sales to SE.

I find that there is really little difference between the biggies.....it is the AGENT himself/herself at makes all the difference in the world.

I would email the agent your considering pretending to be from ABC Realty wanting to show one of their listing......see how fast they respond to you, see how accommodating they are to set up an appointment with an other agent and not with a direct client. No matter the size of the company, if an agent is not available to show your property, you do not want them as your broker.

WHy don't you hire greensdale to sell your apartment? He has no listings so he could devote a lot of time to it. Just be sure to make him shower.

It is true, I have no listings. I have never had any listings for that matter.

Pick an agent from one of the big firms any day of the week. They'll have more marketing resources, team resources, marketing budget at their disposal. And they'll have better add ons such as international marketing etc.

I would definitely avoid one of the mom and pops that regularly post on here, and hilariously enough, call those of us who don't work for free "wannabes"

Enjoy the scraps boys!

By the way, why do more of you not fight back? I realize we're actually busy doing deals vs the discount broker trolls on this forum, but I'm very disappointed by the amount of complacency.

Every post they make about rebating or working for free devalues our services, which we know are earned by hours of blood and sweat.

Is it time to share the truth about why we forget to answer their phone calls?

It's interesting that someone who claims to be a high end broker with a big firm is coming on here stating that they don't abide by REBNY rules.

@luxurybroker, I "fight back" the best way I know how -- by offering my clients boutique service that they then rave about to their friends. That's how all the agents I would recommend at BHS, Elliman, and Corcoran do it too.

ali r.

Luxury broker, You are violating your fiduciary responsibility to the seller by not answering calls of a broker who may have a buyer for your seller.

Keith Burkhardt/Doug or "300_mercer" - seller's brokers have a fiduciary duty to their sellers, to get them the best price and to save money.

As a matter of practice, I google everyone who inquires about one of my listings if I don't know them.

If I notice that you're doing this kickback scheme, I'm obviously going to tell my seller. At this point I'm happy to give my seller more of a discount so the economics are the same by getting a direct buyer, and the buyer will be better off by not having you in the middle.

If you knew anything about dual agency you'd understand that the buyer is better off with their own representation. And if you don't believe me you can read the attorney generals flyer that was sent out to rebny regarding this issue as well as posted on their site. Basically the Dual agency should be avoided at all costs.

One of the reasons I've been so successful with my business model is not only the complete transparency we provide to our clients, and straight forward dealing with sellers and their agents, it's a fact that I take the financial hit in a transaction.

So it doesn't cost a listing agent anything, or the seller when we're involved with a deal. At the same time the buyer receives their own representation with a broker that has 30 years experience in New York City.

To try to understand my business model you only have to look to the financial services companies, travel business, tax preparation and even Medical Services. Disruption is inevitable, so you can complain or you can innovate. Do you not shop for the best level of service along with best prices in other aspects of your life? Why wouldn't you do the same when purchasing a home?

Both sellers and buyers love our model and what we're doing for the industry. Creating competition and fueling free market juices.

Come out into the light. Real estate brokers are supposed to identify themselves when posting on public forums about business.

I typically don't address trolls and I can assure you this will be the last time.

Keith Burkhardt
#188th Broker by sales volume in US, Wall Street Journal/ real trends
www.theburkhardtgroup.com

https://www.dos.ny.gov/cnsl/dualagcy.html

I'm trying to figure out how this claim of LuxuryBroker's works?
So, some Broker he doesn't know calls him because they are working with a buyer who is interested in the property. LuxuryBroker Google's them and discovers they offer a buyer's rebate program. LuxuryBroker has a discussion with his seller and they agree that for any direct buyer the commission will be 4% (why they wouldn't have this discussion at the time the property was listed rather than wait until he got a call from a "discount broker" is beyond my comprehension, but whatever).
Then what? LuxuryBroker starts trying to contact whatever name the broker gave them whom expressed interest in the property? And convince them they should deal directly with them rather than be represented by their own agent?