HGTV’s “Selling New York” follows along with CORE agents as they navigate the country’s most competitive—and compelling—real estate market. Here’s our behind-the-scenes look at Episode 311, which first aired on August 25, 2011. For more SNY epilogues, click here.
In this week’s episode, “Seeing is Believing,” SNY alum Maggie Kent partners with fellow CORE agent John Harrison to help a young client, Vanessa, navigate the intimidating Manhattan real estate market as she searches for her first apartment. After losing a competitive bidding war on what Vanessa thought would be her dream apartment, Maggie and John had to tackle the challenge of picking up the pieces and starting the apartment search all over again.
Continue reading for some exclusive behind-the-scenes information about what happened after the cameras stopped rolling and what didn’t make it into last night’s episode of “Selling New York!”
1) Initially, John began showing Vanessa apartments in the $700,000 range, but could quickly tell that she wanted more out of an apartment. Maggie called the apartment hunt not a process of elimination, but rather “a process of addition,” stating that the more apartments Vanessa saw, the more items she added to her wish list. CORE’s experts ended up showing Vanessa around 60 apartments in total. John said that the more options a client sees, the better able he is to meet their needs.
2) Vanessa was originally introduced to John by Maggie, who had absolute confidence that John would be able to deliver his usual expertise and “motivate” Vanessa as she searched for her first New York City apartment. John, too, was confident that he could live up to Maggie’s expectations, stating that Maggie is known for her “graciousness.” Ultimately, Maggie said that she “couldn’t have done a better job” herself. John and Maggie continue to work together today and are constantly collaborating on new projects.
3) Even without a confirmed closing, Vanessa started ordering furniture and planning how she was going to decorate her “new” apartment. Maggie said this is only natural, as buying your first apartment in New York City is extremely exciting. John agreed with the this notion, but added that when Vanessa didn’t end up getting the apartment she assumed she was going to get, that trying to find an apartment to fit her already-ordered furniture and decor added an interesting challenge to her new search.
4) When the aggressive bidding war took place, John creatively used Skype to video chat with his client, even long after business hours, in order to formulate her best and final offer. Skype turned out to be a great tool for the fast-paced negotiation process, and even though they lost the bidding war, John said that it was a great opportunity for his client to learn about the real estate process – especially that a deal isn’t a deal until it goes into closing.
5) John says this level of teamwork is unique to working at a boutique brokerage such as CORE and that CORE “inspires” its team of agents to reach a level of excellence unparalleled anywhere else in the real estate world.