My broker pandemic

I got to the city along with my family in the middle of the pandemic. While everybody was telling me I was crazy and would put two childrem under great risk, my husband and I were pursuing to take most of this opportunity, since he has received a great job opportunity to move from São Paulo/Brazil to NYC.

Fortunately when I arrived the number of Covid-19 cases were dropping significantly.

Before our flight I started to search for an apartment in every single available site. None of the options would acomodate my family and budget.

So I decided for a short term lease to have time to search for a place I could call home.

I started contacting a few brokers and very soon I was hit harder by the unique reality of NYC real state market. Properties vanishes as soon as they are listed (the best ones even during the pandemia), prices are ridiculously high and most apartments are extremely ugly.

The first broker I made contact with told me to select the properties I liked and send it to her, so that way, she would not be “confused”.  I didn’t understand what she meant for “confused”, but it was crystal clear that I would be the one searching for units in the so many rental sites. 

For some divine combination of facts, I end up finding a home across the river in Weehawken, New Jersey. The property was listed for more than 2 months (understandable due to the covid-19) and immediately as I text the broker he managed to show me the house.

During the visit, I have explained I didn’t have any records in the country, neither a social security number.  The broker said he had rented many units like this and that would not be a problem.

We have started to talk by e-mail and whatsapp and he asked me to send an aplicattion, for which I have paid US$ 25, even if I could not fill almost everything on it. 

I have sent recomendation letters, work contract with salary amount, and everything asked. I forwarded him even my tax report!!!! In his words, a paystub would settle the deal. Paystub sent, no word back.

A few days later, I receive a whatsapp message saying he could not understand anything I sent him because it was written in Portuguese. Sorry, ms. Broker, I didn’t know numbers were different in English and Portuguese!

So, I began to realize that something was going on and asked him what would be necessary to sign the agreement. The answer was he only wanted to check, again, if my income was enough to settle the deal.

More few days in silence. And then I messaged him to ask how things were going on.

Then the big surprise. He states he could not understand anything I have sent him and demands me to pay a year rent in advance.

Excuse me? Did you think of mention that sometime before, like ten days ago when we started this negotiation? 

Did you, mr Broker, has ever considered that a family with no US history would need a little bit more consideration? 

For any chance, did you think of advice us to extend our short term rent instead of promise we would settle a deal ‘next week’?

Did you ever think of saying ‘No’ instead of make me waste my time?

I am grown up, Mr Broker! I can take a ‘no’ as an answer. What I can not take is someone making promises and then saying that could not understand ‘numbers in portuguese’.

As far as I can understand you don’t get a deal until it is signed, for me, in these starting days in NY, I was hit harder by the broker pandemic than by coronavirus.