…to be a broker for half a century
Alice Mason, 74, founded Alice F. Mason Ltd. in 1960
As told to Lauren Elkies
I’ve been in real estate since 1954, but I started off the books in ’53.
The first apartment I got in New York in 1952 was at 159 East 53rd Street, a studio. Gladys Siegel Mills [founder of Gotham Realty, who died in 2000] got me that studio. She said, why didn’t I come and work with her.
I was never interested in real estate; I was just interested in New York. But when she offered me the job and she said that she mainly handled movie stars, I thought that would be interesting. I got Marilyn Monroe her rental apartment at 2 Sutton Place in 1956.
None of the buildings were co-op except for about 150 buildings back then. And those 150 buildings were very difficult buildings. The rest were all rentals. So we did rentals. Most of those rental buildings eventually became co-ops by the 1980s.
Now there are so many rich people in New York. I think today almost anyone can get into a building, but they just have to be presented properly.
Today there are so many brokers and so much competition. There wasn’t a lot of competition when I first went into it. In those years, maybe there were 100 brokers altogether in the business, or 200, whereas now there are thousands.
I don’t involve myself in thinking there are so many brokers, so many this, so many that. I’ve never thought of the business that way. My life has never just been about real estate. That was just a part of my life.
I’m a different generation. You always accept that there are people younger than you, no matter what it is.
I don’t miss anything from the days when I first started, I really don’t. I still think the business is terrific. I love it.
…to be a broker for more than three-and-a-half decades
Phyliss Koch, 73, founded Phyliss Koch Real Estate in 1970
As told to Lauren Elkies
I founded my own business. I never worked for anybody. I just sort of slipped into it on the West Side. I had been getting rentals just for my friends on the side. I was a legal secretary for attorneys in the late ’60s and saw other attorneys coming into the firm to do closings.
I said, “I could do that.” So, I started myself with three listings. I sold immediately. I never did rentals. Now we’ll do rentals as a courtesy.
It was a different time then. It was nicer. There wasn’t the terrible competition that there is now. There were many less brokers, and you knew them all. Now you’re talking about hundreds and hundreds more brokers, but you’re also talking about hundreds and hundreds more apartments.
I don’t know anybody out there. I’ll meet people that don’t even know I’m alive anymore.
Everybody and their brother goes into it because they think they’re going to make money. I really didn’t start to do it for the money. It was very nice that I made that money. I’m not jealous of anybody who’s doing very well because I have a very nice life.
I’m afraid they’re overbuilding. I know New York is the place everyone wants to live, but you have to have the money to live here and that’s very difficult. Things were less expensive when I started, so people could do it on their own because they could take a mortgage. Today they’ll give a mortgage to a mass murderer, but they can’t afford it.
All the companies have changed. I couldn’t care less because I’ve had 37 years of it, and my life is not real estate.