On the Tour Bus With realtor.com

“This is Mercer Street,” says Mike into the microphone, “named after Ron Mercer of the Boston Celtics.” This, of course, is not true. Mike is not your average tour guide, and this is not your average tour. This is the realtor.com® Open House Bus Tour. On a sunny Sunday in June, I’m sitting with a group of New Yorkers…

by Jeff Scherer

07/07/2015 6 minute 0

Sponsored By Realtor New York

realtor.com® is the official site of the National Association of REALTORS® and is operated by Move, Inc, a subsidiary of News Corp.

Created By BlankSlate

“This is Mercer Street,” says Mike into the microphone, “named after Ron Mercer of the Boston Celtics.”

This, of course, is not true. Mike is not your average tour guide, and this is not your average tour. This is the realtor.com® Open House Bus Tour.

On a sunny Sunday in June, I’m sitting with a group of New Yorkers atop a double-decker tour bus (a first for this long-time Brooklynite), enjoying a coffee and croissant as Mike the tour guide, actually a comedian, entertains us with a running commentary on the “landmarks” we pass. (“This is a good place to take your mom when she’s in town.”)

As nice as it is to bask in the sunshine and watch the buildings go by, the main attraction is yet to come: private tours of some of Manhattan’s best open houses, courtesy of Nest Seekers International. This is the first of series of tours run by realtor.com, a fun kickoff event to celebrate its increased presence in New York, thanks to new agreements with several of the city’s most prominent brokerages.

Mike the tour guide in action

As the official website of the National Association of REALTORS®, realtor.com® empowers consumers to make smart home buying, selling and renting decisions by leveraging its direct, real-time connections with more than 800 multiple listing services on their computers, tablets and smartphones. Their goal is make the home-buying experience better for New Yorkers by providing access to more listings with better search functionality.

Now featuring listings from Bond New York, Brown Harris Stevens, Compass, Halstead Property, and NestSeekers as well as leading brokerage listing syndicator RealPlus, the realtor.com® web and mobile platforms give New York home seekers unprecedented access to the city’s most exciting properties.

There are over 1 million NYC properties for sale on the realtor.com® app, and we’re scheduled to see three of them. Our first stop is Chelsea, to look at a $2.5 million property on 29th Street. It’s a full-floor unit in a former manufacturing building, with private elevator access, three bedrooms, and two baths. Asit Parikh of Nest Seekers gives the group a short speech welcoming us to the property, and then we’re free to explore.

A tablet was on hand to showcase the realtor.com® app

After checking out the first apartment — and after I’ve run to the store to grab some much-needed sunscreen — we head downtown. It feels like a luxury to watch all the city’s historic architecture go by from our vantage point above street level. We have to be careful not to stand up, though. Those traffic lights, street signs, and low-hanging tree branches are so close you can touch them!

Our next stop, an $11.5 million condo in the heart of SoHo, is stunning. I can’t tell you the famous person who lives there, or any of the famous people who live in the building, but this loft in a former chocolate factory on Lafayette Street is a star in its own right. The huge main room is chock full of art, and there are four bedrooms, three bathrooms, chef’s kitchen, and a media room. The master bedroom includes a free-standing bathtub that is a work of art on its own.

I tell Jessica Campbell from Nest Seekers to give me a couple weeks while I see who can lend me $11 million.

We pile into the bus once more and head further downtown, to the financial district. Our third stop is a $1.09 million, one-bedroom apartment on Fulton Street, a few blocks away from the World Trade Center.

It’s a clean, modern apartment, almost Scandinavian with its white kitchen and light wooden floors. Its modest size is tailor-made for a young person in the financial industry, but it’s the location and amenities that make it shine. The building’s upscale fitness center includes an indoor lap pool, Jacuzzi, and steam bath. Stavros Sanidas of Nest Seekers takes us up to the roof deck, which is nicer than that of most Manhattan hotels.

After a few moments of imagining weekends spent sunning on the deck, we head back downstairs to the bus, to return back to Bryant Park for the end of the tour. This is the first of two tours for the day, and the afternoon guests have even more listings to check out.