Building Expert at 345 West 88th Street

One of my best friends, and mentors, Scott Claster, owned Apt 5B for many years. Scott was actually third generation in the apt, which was originally rented by his grandmother, and eventually purchased by Scott and his mom. I spent quite a bit of time there, whether it was when Scott hosted an almost regularly scheduled twice a month card game, to watch a ball game or to just play board games. No... [more]

One of my best friends, and mentors, Scott Claster, owned Apt 5B for many years. Scott was actually third generation in the apt, which was originally rented by his grandmother, and eventually purchased by Scott and his mom. I spent quite a bit of time there, whether it was when Scott hosted an almost regularly scheduled twice a month card game, to watch a ball game or to just play board games. No person I know knew the building better than Scott. If he were alive today, undoubtedly he would be the Building Expert, and nobody would question it. The time I spent there allowed me to meet many of Scott's fine neighbors, as well as the fabulous staff of the building. When Scott passed away I was tasked with selling his great apartment. While I have not sold more apts in the building, I am confident that my relationships with the building staff and management do make me one of the Building Experts. Being an expert about a building does not necessarily have to be based on current sales in the building. It is about relationships that have been built over the years. You might be asking why is this being brought up, and discussed. The old StreetEasy that we all knew and love is now owned by Zillow. If you doubt this, just scroll to the bottom of any page on StreetEasy and you will see the Zillow Sites, Inc copyright. In the old days when StreetEasy listed the top five sales agents and top five rental agents in a building, it was truly based on closed transactions by those individual agents. Unfortunately, that all changed when Zillow bought StreetEasy. They immediately saw an opportunity to charge agents, like myself, for the building expert slot. So, StreetEasy created the Building Expert title as a revenue stream for them, to sell as advertising to the agents in this market. Since StreetEasy refuses to be transparent about this fact, I am simply stating the facts here, facts that may not be obvious to the consumer. On 25 June 2015, at an event called The Future of Real Estate, one agent asked Susan Daimler, the general manager of StreetEasy and Zillow NYC, “Does two sales in two years [make someone an] expert?”, and I followed that up by asking Ms. Daimler to (have StreetEasy) begin to display the words "paid advertisement" under each building expert as a way to be truly transparent to the consumer. She did not reply. Shouldn't the consumer know this fact? I think so. Here’s a link to a Real Deal article about that event: http://therealdeal.com/blog/2015/06/25/streeteasy-exec-takes-heat-for-building-expert-program/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=streeteasy-exec-takes-heat-for-building-expert-program. I am confident that you will find that I am truly a building expert for 345 W 88 St, through knowledge gained and people met when Scott Claster lived there. Scott even served on the board for a short period of time. I really miss Scott. He was an amazing friend. I look forward to helping you to sell or buy at this wonderful building, and to share a story or two about Scott and his family’s time living at 345 W 88 St. [less]