Any GOOD experiences with Corcoran?

"but if we are looking to sell quick and get our asking would they (and Minsky specifically) be a bad choice"

Here's the thing: if you want to sell QUICKLY, do not use Corcoran or Minsky. All of Minsky's current listings have been on the market FOREVER. Check it out for yourself. I would suggest BHS. They price to sell, which ends up creating bidding wars, good for the seller. I'd even recommend a broker by the initials of JG (check the Brooklyn office names--it's a woman). We've dealt with her as buyers and would use her to sell if we ever do.

Posted by: guest at November 2, 2007 7:13 PM

Why not just do a FSBO? You'd be surprised how easy it is. Just put together some good pics, host a few open houses and let the offers pour in. You'll save yourself the 6%. If you've got a "good" property, and price it to move, it will fly off the shelf. No need for a broker. All you have to do is accept an offer, and then hand it off to your lawyer to do the rest. Brokers are becoming more and more disposable. Save yourself the money and try FSBO.

Posted by: guest at November 2, 2007 7:24 PM

hey Fisbo A *hole. what do you do for a living and where do you live. please tell me so i can destroy your life and prevent you from making a living

Posted by: guest at November 2, 2007 7:37 PM

Get a real job 7:37. One that requires brains and actual hard work, instead of stupid bios, headshots, and bullshitting skill. WORK for that ripoff 6%.

Posted by: guest at November 2, 2007 7:46 PM

I don't really think this is the best way to decide on a broker. Anyone can post on this board--the broker in question, his enemies, his competitors, etc. I suggest meeting him for yourself, interviewing him, and then meeting a few other brokers as well. It should be a standard interview process. See what numbers they all quote you, and see who you like best. Then decide who gets the listing.

Posted by: guest at November 2, 2007 8:05 PM

Original poster here - thanks for the three helpful posts! 8:05 I agree and we are in the midst of doing that, but on and off I hear all this negativity and it is NOT synching up with what I am experiencing and seeing so I am trying to figure out where it is coming from. I was thinking maybe only the disgruntled people were writing and there might be others who had positive experiences more inline with mine. We have had nothing but positive interactions with Corcoran (and Minsky) but I still can't make sense of the bad blood so I thought I'd see if others out there had good experiences. I know they must exist or Corcoran and Minsky wouldn't continue to get all the high end properties and fabulous press!

Posted by: guest at November 2, 2007 8:27 PM

I strongly recommend the Brown Harris Stevens broker who has the $8.75 listing in Cobble Hill (see HOTD 10/24). Meet with her and then decide... BHS has a better reputation than Corcoran.

Posted by: guest at November 2, 2007 8:41 PM

I had a great experience as a buyer with a Corcoran broker. The Corcoran broker knew how to use the computer and find all appropriate listings, and had a good sense of what I was and was not looking for. Also Corcoran seemed to offer more cooperation on information and support to its brokers than other firms.
Some other brokers I tried, 2 from BHS, were less proffesional,didn't get what I wanted, didn't know what was available, and were more out to push me into something that they thought was good or fast for them.
It's pretty individual, but in my experience you have a better chance with Corcoran.

Posted by: guest at November 2, 2007 9:14 PM

I have had very negative experiences with Corcoran both as a seller and then a buyer. The seller experience was selling my Brooklyn Heights coop 8 years ago when I was relocating (had to get the relocation agency to intervene to get even minimum amounts of attention) and as a buyer of a brownstone 3 years ago, I checked their site obsessively for listings and had a broker from the Fort Greene office who was, well....flaky. Very. Then I met the famous Jerry Minsky who was, well....wierd and not very nice. Buying my brownstone was an exercise in frustration and finally I got something through Fillmore (I actually got to know 31 brokers, including small mom and pop local shops). Now that I have a house, and managed to renovate most of it and am calmer about life, I have to say that these are my overall impressions of Brooklyn Corcoran:

-- Excellent website. They leave others in the dust in this regard. This reaches many buyers. Their website is so good that you don't need a broker to know all the listings on the computer as one poster puts it.

--- My experience is that they seem to incubate a nasty breed of broker, arrogant and not very focused on customer service.

--- Routinely they overprice properties. Especially Minsky. His properties DO languish for long periods of time. They are the masters of creating stale properties.
By overpricing, they screw sellers.

By the way, there is no way Corcoran can "jack up prices" and inflate brownstone prices. They are incapable of doing that. They would LIKE to do that, but they can't so they settle for pricing at levels high enough to make properties languish on the market for long periods of time.

I really can't stand Corcoran.

Posted by: guest at November 2, 2007 9:43 PM

minsky dishes bullshit par extrordinaire. he has airs on top of airs on top of airs. and he's lazy. he'll have a 2mil listing with maybe 2 pix. he was showing me a house once and i took pix and he said, "Can you send me those so I can post? Been meaning to take inside pix." sure, i'll help you market a property i may want to bid on, definitely. and the owners must really have handpicked him for that particular marketing strategy.

Posted by: guest at November 3, 2007 7:47 AM

I don't agree that Corcoran breeds arrogant brokers, some might be ( I have heard terrible things about Minsky for sure) but many work hard and corcoran gives them the tools to support a professional environment. BHS might be great...don't know. I do know I had a terrible experience with a smaller outfit, Brooklyn Properties.

We bought our CH coop through Corcoran broker Denise Catadello 7 years ago and thought she was genuine and really tried to find what we were looking for. She was easy to work with and very nice. We kept in touch with her for years and we genuinely like seeing her when we bump into her on occasion.

We sold that coop last year through Brooklyn Properties and had the worst experience imaginable. We thought going with a smaller outfit that seemed less corporate would provide a more personalized experience. We were wrong. Many of the people we dealt with in the FG office were extremely unprofessional and could care less about guiding us through the selling process--especially when things got dicey with our buyers over some decisions our coop board made. They had no sense of continuity with us as clients and it really seemed like they have a broken system of internal communication.

We just bought a house with a Corcoran broker, Carolyn Romberg who co brokered it with a small guy, Rob Chappell ( who was easy to work with and seemed on the level about everything). Carolyn is great. Down to earth, worked so amazingly hard to find us a property that would work with our budget. She really loves what she does and knows neighborhoods very well ( she lives in CH). I think she would be great to sell with too and she really gets that buying and selling real estate is stressful and scary but hopefully exciting for people and does not take her clients for granted or think they are stupid.

Posted by: guest at November 3, 2007 8:39 AM

8:39 you liked Denise so much why did you not use her to sell!!!!

loving the BS between corcoran and BHS. whats UP with that?

anyway Brokers are people and as such, everyone is unique, stop the broadbrushing of an industry please.

Posted by: guest at November 3, 2007 10:35 AM

Original poster here, thank you to those with helpful comments. I had really hoped to keep this postive but I must have been crazy. And in retrospect it was a bad question for this forum. Apologies to Corcoran and Minsky specifically. As I said in my post my dealings have all been very positive. Moving on.

Posted by: guest at November 3, 2007 10:55 AM

At the end of the day, it's all about the individual you're working with. We had a wonderful Corcoran broker sell our co-op this year, and help us buy our brownstone. She gave great advice, was very thoughtful about negotiating, and definitely priced our co-op to sell (we had 4 offers above asking within a week). Her service level was extremely high, extending to overseeing the whole board approval process. But I can't comment on any other brokers -- all I can say is that we had a great experience with ours. Corcoran does have the best website, and the most visibility with Manhattanites who are looking to Brooklyn. We thought that was worth the commission and it worked for us.

Posted by: guest at November 3, 2007 12:10 PM

It's always about the individual agent over the overall agency. There can be a not great agent at a great agency, and vice versa. Look at each individual agent's selling ability and the kinds of listings they get, and how long the properties linger on the market. And look at their bio, what kinds of education and careers they've had. We used Sarah Chamberlin at BHS and were really impressed and pleased. She went into real estate having previously worked in ad sales and that makes a big difference. Lots of brokers never did sales in a corporate environment before, and because of that their sales skills can be very primitive. Truly good sales skills require so much more sophistication than that. You know the difference - we've all seen those really pushy housewife/parttime realtor types that bray loudly and never stop talking and make you nearly run out of the house.

Posted by: guest at November 3, 2007 12:35 PM

My experience is as a buyer, but I found Rodolfo Lucchese (Rudy) at Corcoran's Fort Greene office, extremely helpful and a pleasure to work with. Though I have not worked with him to sell, I think his level of service would translate. He's a good guy with access to Corcoran's many resources.

Posted by: guest at November 3, 2007 1:36 PM

i am glad you have real job a*hole. is it as a hedge fund thief?
if you think taking people around, researching data and getting a deal done is not work, why don't you try it? baak baaak baak

Posted by: guest at November 3, 2007 4:58 PM

Broker here. FSBO is fine with me. I do a good business and applaud anybody out there for trying to get things done on their own. It's a tough business. Buyers' motivations are very hard to understand. And there are a lot of potential pitfalls along the way throughout the entire process. And that's if you are lucky enough to get an offer you like enough to want to accept.

But if you step up to the plate and actually do the work on your own I know you will appreciate the hard work that we do as professionals. Nothing wrong with that. I think it is lame though when people who haven't handled any difficult deals (and I'd say 99% of them all real estate transactions are very difficult) get on their high horse and say what an easy job it is. If only it were easy. Those simple deals are so few and far between. More often than not a FSBO is a train wreck waiting to happen. But beginners can get lucky.

And to the OP, if you think there even maybe something fishy with a broker you meet think long and hard about signing with them. After all the buyers are going to be meeting this person and getting information from them about your home. And so is a large community of agents (if the agency is part of REBNY and makes co-broking simple) who will have to rely on the listing agent for access and information. So trust your instincts.

Posted by: guest at November 4, 2007 9:06 PM

In a nutshell, next time, I'm going FSBO!
My experience with one Corcoran office - Fort Greene - was pure misery. Between their unannounced vacations & utter failure to follow-through on the most basic paperwork and total lack of attention to critical detail [such as differentiating between qualified and unqualified buyers & failing to provide proper information to an appraiser!], I'd say Corcoran easily cost me $20,000 in carrying costs, extra legal fees & lower-bids - and that's IN-ADDITION to the 6% commission.
I had to go through 3 separate offers before finally closing. Corcoran dragged the process on for over 7 months - despite the fact that I received my ultimate offer during the very first open house!
After all this drama, I dropped the Ft Greene bozos & re-signed with the Park Slope office - a far better, though hardly perfect -alternative.
In the end, yes, I made a good profit on the sale, but that was 100% due to market conditions and not marketing by my broker[s].
When you consider that I provided the photos, did the staging & was dragged-into every single mishap caused by the brokers [either through incompetence or by making misleading promises in my listing], I feel that I essentially threw away thousands-and-thousands of dollars without saving myself a single ounce of stress.
In the end, the advice is simple: find a good real estate lawyer, pay attention to market conditions, take clean photos & build a simple website - and do it yourself.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 8:23 AM

5:08. would it be funny to you when a living is in question? we do a lot of work and do not always get paid, and put up with the public both good and bad.
i love when people always say we get big paychecks for essentially doing nothing. lets see you do open house after open house only to have the seller decide not to sell and see what you think. think again before you think you know everything.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 10:55 AM

I have gone FSBO, used another broker, and used Corcoran, each on different properties and for different reasons. Corco did fine for me, quickly brought in a qualified buyer at a very good price. I used Minksy, and yes he is a relentless self-promoter, and when I tired of it, I told him so.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 10:56 AM

you're pretty pathetic, 10:55.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 12:16 PM

Back 2003, when my gf and I, we're interracial couple, were looking to buy an apartment in Park Slope, we went into 7th Ave Corcoran. A white male broker stopped us at the reception desk and asked us few questions. We told him that we were interested in 1B prime Park Slope but he told us there were no inventory in our price range, 200-250K. There was no "come-in" sit-down and "get to know the customer" time. Instead, he told us there was an unit on PPW @ 16th street that meets our budget criteria and gave us the apt #, saying the owner's at home now and just ring the bell. No, he didnt take us to the place himself but gave us a rough directional sketch to the place. The whole thing must've lasted less than 5 minutes. We didnt know it then, but we were victims of their REDLINING AND RACIAL PROFILING. Corcoran is SICK.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 12:56 PM

Bottom line do not go exclusive with any broker. Use all of them and don't pay more than 5%. Also sell it yourself while everyone else trying to get you your price. One poster had it right. Price it to sell and you will be done with it. Im almost done with my condo conversion of my 3 family brownstone and thats what Im going to do. Use em all.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 3:29 PM

Hopefully Corcoran can get your listing featured on tis website! That will help you sell.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 3:42 PM

We've had two poor experiences with Corcoran... one involving non-disclosure of a J51 expiration, another involving an issue of an advertised parking spot included with a unit. Evasive responses to direct questions seemed to be the norm.

We have bought and sold two coop units in the Heights with BHS,
and have found them to be very professional and helpful.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 3:49 PM

the arrogance of some r.e. brokers!
6 % is highway robbery.
go FSBO

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 4:04 PM

Have had a mixed experience with Corcoran. On one hand of all the brokers I met, theirs seemed the most knowledgeable about the properties (some of the agencies didn't even know the most basic facts about those properties and seemed downright surly when you asked). On the other hand, once the offer was accepted that broker was only out for himself. It left me wondering (once again) what realtors do, and if they're really worth the 6%. Esp. when a place sells quickly.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 4:15 PM

I would put it on co-exclusive with 2 of the good local brokers at 4%. It will be a dogfight for them and you'll be in control of the bidding process.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 4:33 PM

If you do give a broker an exclusive, don't pay more than 4%

6% is an absurd amount.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 5:22 PM

I had an excellent experience with Open Options Real Estate in Park Slope/Kensington.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 5:38 PM

12:56 I had a similar experience with Corcoran. My budget was 1.5 mil for a PS Brownstone in 2000. We were sent to homes in Fort Greene/Clinton Hill in the fringe areas and told we could "get something cheaper and fix it up" with our budget. Only I reported it. Sure enough Corcoran was found guilty of bias by HUD and NYS oversight agencies. Anyway, selling FSBO isn't easy but neither is forking over 6% in commission.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 6:49 PM

Slick said:

"You never see contractors react negatively when someone recommends a DIY project."

Actually you totally do, here! Have you even read Forum before? The contractors here SLAM anybody looking to save even one dime on renovations, either by DIY or by being one's own contractor. They're very nasty, totally rip people apart. What's ridiculous is it's so transparent they're contractors, but they never admit it when busted for it.

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 8:15 PM

For those who complain they weren't shown in some area because of their race, get a clue. The brokers don't work for you as the buyer. In NY they are paid by the seller. Spending time with buyers who want something that can't be had for their budget is a waste of their time. You couldn't get a 1B in PS in 2003 for 250k. Moreover, as a buyer you can look at all Corcoran's listings online. Why didn't you?

Posted by: guest at November 5, 2007 9:37 PM

Before you hire any broker call them about one of their listings and pretend you are a potential buyer, see the response you get because it will be the same for your house. I had to look up the owner and contact them directly on one property when I was house shopping as the broker could never give me the asking price! Needless to say they were not happy, however they were also unaware of the situation. After you list have freinds call to make sure your broker is responding. You also can and should negotiate your commission.

Posted by: guest at November 6, 2007 12:29 AM

I had a great Corcoran broker, Anne Cynar, for my purchase of a Park Slope condo. She works out of a manhattan location, but is very knowledgable about the market, very hard-working, responsive, and always willing to track down the answer to my questions--fast!

Posted by: guest at November 6, 2007 1:01 AM

It is surprising how misinformed so many of you are. Corcoran is responsible for making this neighborhood not BHS. The fact that so many people use terms like the devil, or I hate them, etc., etc. is more likely jealously and envy than anything else. In fact many of you arm chair warriours don't get out much to really know what you are saying. Your work ethics show that, before your blogging day and night, there were individuals who made the neighborhood. THey worked hard to get to where they are. THey didn't sit at home they have real jobs. The lack of any scope of realty here on this site shows the losers that you are. That is why it easy to put this together because it depends on complete lack of real intelligence which appears to be here. Congratulations maybe Mr. Brownstoner can organize other productive methods for people to continue to misinform one another.

Posted by: guest at November 6, 2007 2:09 AM

Exsqueeze me. How long has Corc. been in Park Slope? How long has BHS been in Park Slope? 2:09? Dumbass.

Posted by: guest at November 6, 2007 7:15 AM

We used Corcoran to sell our coop a few years ago and although they got us a buyer rather quickly, as soon as the deal was signed, they acted as though they represented the buyer exclusively! They were so afraid the difficult buyer would walk from the deal - they hammered us with request after request on behalf of the buyer even though they should have been protecting us from them. I'd have to be desperate to use them again.

Posted by: guest at November 6, 2007 11:13 AM

Try Kevin Carberry - he is fantastic. He does not advertise his services and his business is entirely through word of mouth. He gets only the best listings in the Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and has some of the most qualified buyers around. We found a beautiful house through him and we are forever grateful.

Posted by: guest at November 6, 2007 11:17 AM

I think Corcoran has lost all CREDIBILITY with Minorities buyers/sellers in PS/BH. It's commonly understood in the Minority communities that they're "White only" brokers thus to be avoided. Sad that such institution and practice exist in a Boro. where over 50% are BLACK/HISPANIC/MIDEASTERN.

Posted by: guest at November 6, 2007 1:04 PM

i used corcoran once and i'll never make that mistake again. the same for the developers group. both highly unprofessional and both of my units languished on the market until i switched to another broker in manhattan who will suffice it to say remain nameless.

i was very disappointed w/the rudeness after i signed my exclusive w/the developers group and felt they were simply interested in making a buck off me rather than taking the time to educate me etc.
whereas corcoran simply botched some offers and i felt i had to move on eventually.

very disappointed and would caution anybody before using either.

good luck!!!

Posted by: guest at November 6, 2007 1:39 PM

Corcoran is the best. They keep all the other brokers in place. Wounded souls here don't get it.

Posted by: guest at November 6, 2007 9:36 PM

Request for proposals. We want the what to do his own thread.

Posted by: guest at November 6, 2007 9:38 PM

As far as Corcoran goes they are pretty good. I will say what ever you do with them avoid Beverly Rouse. She is a hotheaded person who will only screw the deal up for you. Dont be fooled by that British acent she will muck up any deal. We had a horrible experience with her.

Posted by: guest at November 29, 2007 8:15 PM

The truth is it does not matter at all what 'company' you go with-It is the individual agent. All the company does is (sometimes) provide some marketing support, and assist circulating the listing thruout the entire real estate community, anyway. It is who you want to be your point person. Who you feel has your best interests at heart and who will advise in a considerate way, who has a solid knowledge and basically who you feel you can trust. (Ironic, I know). If the property is presented well, and honestly, and not with an exploited sense of itself, it will sell, and sell quickly.

Posted by: guest at December 16, 2007 12:28 AM