Open Letter to Overwhelming Majority of New York City Realtors

Dear Overwhelming Majority of New York City Realtors,

Hi. My name is Steve. You might remember me from the dozens of applications I've filled out in your offices guaranteeing that you own my soul. I can understand why you want it so badly – you've never had one of your own.

I have spent the last two months looking for a new apartment. You've posted ads for two-bedrooms that were really studios. You've gone on and on about the view in apartments that turned out to be on the second floor. You've described your listings as "just steps from the subway!" without mentioning that there would be several thousand steps. In essence, you have wasted my time. My one consolation is that I am not gullible enough to rent one of your overpriced under-painted outer-limits crap hole excuses for an apartment. So you have wasted your time, too.

How about you just tell people what an apartment costs before making them take an hour out of their day to see it? I have had enough of your move-in fees and move-out fees and application fees and background fees and you-might-be-considering-a-pet fees and third-Tuesday-afternoon-of-the-month fees. You make Ticketmaster look like a charity. By the way, I'm charging you a $35 fee for reading this. Aww, are you upset? Sorry, there's a $50 fee for not appreciating irony.

One of your ads showed a 900-square foot floor plan for a 500-square foot hovel. One of your ads promised that Samuel L. Jackson will meet me at the open house. One of your ads even described an apartment in Queens as a place that will get people laid. Aside from the obvious lechery of this idea, you clearly don't understand what it's like to live in Queens.

You are a liar. You post ads for apartments that never existed, just so that you can get a customer down to your office and show them around the actual garbage that you represent. Stop telling me that Harlem is part of midtown now. Stop telling me that the 6th floor is the 5th floor because the 1st floor doesn't count. And stop telling me you're a decent human being just trying to do your job. I'd sooner believe that Snakes on a Plane was a documentary.

If you were a snake, that would be an upgrade. You are so slimy, used car salesmen, catholic priests, and insurance adjusters look at you in disbelief. I would not be surprised to find out that Karl Rove's first job out of college was as a New York City Realtor.

Every now and then, I meet one of your colleagues that is honest and good – and inevitably quitting the business. But after you introduce yourself and force me to shake your hand, there's not enough Purel in the world to make me feel clean again.

And the most amazing thing of all is that you're utterly useless. New York apartments don't need help being rented. They're one of the few commodities in the world where demand drastically dwarfs supply – and yet you have inexplicably found a way to make a commission off of them by making demanders doubt the supply, doubt themselves, and doubt whether there is still goodness in the world. The only logical explanation is that you are hired by the rest of the cities in America, in an effort to get people to abandon New York completely.

I did have one small victory. After one of your ranks lied to my fiancé about the application process only to lie to her again about which apartment he'd be showing her, I called him asking to see a 6 million dollar apartment for sale.

When I showed up, he recommended I look at the $2 million dollar apartment next door instead since it "suited me better." In front of the head of the condo board, I laughed and told him he ought to show me both, since I could always buy them and knock down a wall.

I was actively looking to waste his time – and I spent a wonderful afternoon asking pretentious questions about school districts and directions to the nearest Whole Foods. I finally left, and told the board's head I wasn't interested after all. Disappointed, she asked me why.

"Frankly," I said. "I didn't care for the Realtor."

Thanks for reading. I hope you die.

Love,
Me