I love insiders. Maybe it's because I'm a New Yorker, but I always want to find the "insider connection" who will get me the "best deal."

So I was very excited to interview Carolyn Warren, a former mortgage loan officer who wrote a book explaining the ins and outs of her industry. Warren explains: "I had been working in the industry about 10 years; I think the turning point was when I had lunch with a mortgage broker and he told me he had just closed a loan and made $40,000."  more...

I have gone out, I think, every night this week.

This does not come naturally to me, all this mingling. I did it pretty well when I was 20, and it was the way to meet boys; now that I live with a boy and understand that they bring their laundry with them, I don't find the prospect nearly so exciting.

But I go out because it is one of the ways to meet clients. My biggest failing as a Realtor, I think, is that I am not one of those work-the-room people. My mother is -- back in her prime she was a Clintonesque politician who had to meet and charm absolutely everybody.  more...

I hang out on the Web a lot, in chat rooms and on social networking sites, telling people about who I am and what I do. Among other things, I answer questions. Sometimes, to establish real estate expertise, you have to give a little advice.  more...

At the height of the real estate boom, Curbed.com, Lockhart Steele's snarky community real estate site, ran a contest for one word to describe the borough of Brooklyn.

The word that won was "sun-drenched." The answer was seen as a wry comment on real estate agents and our unending hype. During the boom, no home was "small"; it was "cozy." No home was "large"; it was "massive."  more...

The thing about writers is that we tend to be cranky. The shift from looking inside -- to digging down to find all those wonderful thoughts and metaphors -- to dealing with the outside -- that ever-ringing phone -- is just too harsh, and it happens too often.

So it's always surprising when a writer has a reputation for being nice and good-humored, and it's even more surprising when that writer is approximately three times as productive as any of his competition.  more...

Thank you for the rate cut, Mr. Greenspan … I mean, Mr. Bernanke!

The Fed's move earlier this week to ease credit could not have come at a sweeter time. Borrowers, especially jumbo borrowers, were starting to have a terrible time getting money.

Now we have a bit of momentary quiet, although what's going to happen over the next 12 months is anybody's guess.  more...

I admit, I am fairly new at this game, but it seems to me that we're all getting a little bit too computer-dependent.

In Ye Olden Days, my sponsoring broker tells me, when a listing came in you put it on an index card. When a client walked in who needed to be housed and you didn't have an appropriate listing, you called the other brokers in the neighborhood and jawed with them until you found the thing that was just right.

Apparently, they got used to talking on the phone with you, and didn't try to bite your head off.  more...

SCENE: A big conference table at which everybody is mad.

This is a long-sought-after closing, and it has been a bear. First, let me give you some background: buying and selling a Manhattan apartment isn't like buying and selling a house. In addition to the buyer, the seller and the lender, there's another party -- the other people who live in the apartment building, who collectively form a corporation to represent their interests.  more...

A client I met in the spring is close to buying, and we did our walkthrough today. I don't know if lots of you have encountered the "smaller/bigger" phenomenon (or even if it has a real name) but that's what I call a client's reaction to seeing a place for the second time ("it looks so much smaller than I remember it") and then for the third time ("it looks so much bigger than I remember it.")  more...

August doldrums here. I have a closing scheduled for next week and every little thing that has to be done I am doing with the utmost, nearly slavish, care, because I have so much time on my hands. Scheduling the walk-through? Why, I did that today, with my pings to both my dear client and the listing broker getting answered instantly. Guess that's a nice reminder that no one else is too busy either.

When I left my corporate job two years ago, my best friend, an established freelancer, said, "Call me when you clean the bathroom."  more...

Are we having fun yet??

It is the beginning of my second year in Manhattan real estate, and I am just starting to hit my stride. My clients are referring other clients; I wrote a book, which is reminding my friends to refer their friends; and I do a lot of writing about real estate here and elsewhere, which in its own quiet way is bringing me brainy Wall Streeters who like the way I think.

And then the credit markets have the indecency to go crrrunch.  more...

Let me start by saying that, while I am a respectable married woman, I LOVE Jim Cramer.

Those of you who don't know who Jim Cramer is aren't among the 1 million YouTube viewers who have watched him freak out -- there's really no better term -- over the past week.  more...

What an intense week. A friend referred a friend who was moving into town, and I was excited because I really like "relos." I have so far moved people from Iowa City, Cincinnati and Boca Raton -- I enjoy showing off my city and I feel like that sense of pride really comes through.

So the relo -- let's call her Catherine -- steps off the train at 10 a.m. and goes home at 7 p.m. the next day with a place to live.  more...

Where I work, most deals involve two agents.

I suspect this is true in most places with an MLS or something approximating it. The salesmanship skills it takes to be a great lister -- the incredible extroversion and charm -- don't always square with the detail-oriented focus needed to actually move an apartment. Make sure the ad copy is right? Ride herd on the photographer? Surely someone with less charisma can do that; the great lister has another appointment to make.

But we still spend most of our time selling to the public.  more...

I swear it was my shrink who told me I needed to shop.

Like many New Yorkers, I have been in therapy for years. I can see long-term that it's made me a happier, more confident person, and I enjoy having the support during short-term crises -- such as switching careers mid-life.

But if you're picturing that I walk in to see Dr. Melfi once a week and we talk about condos, it's not that.  more...