Richard McDonough got by with a little help from his friend to secure his first deal as an agent in December.
The new Douglas Elliman agent, who left behind a nearly two-decade career at Bloomberg LP to try his hand in real estate, scored his first major coup in his third full month on the job, finding a classic six on Sutton Place for a friend who flip-flopped for months between the Upper East and Upper West sides.
Commission on the $935,000 sale was vindication for the 42-year-old father of two, who changed careers only after convincing his wife they could forgo his paycheck until he made his first deal.
“My wife is happy now that I’m a contributing member of the household,” he joked.
The Real Deal is continuing to tell the story of McDonough and another new agent, Leslie O’Shea of Stribling & Associates, as they get their start in real estate in this third monthly installment.
The series, which tracks agents until they get their first signed contract, last month bid farewell to Margaret Maile, a new Corcoran agent who completed a flurry of deals in her second month on the job.
McDonough’s first signed contract for a sale took place in early December, when the Sutton Place apartment his buyer had unsuccessfully bid on before became available again after two other deals for the apartment fell through.
After McDonough’s single male friend lost out on in the first bidding war, the two started looking on the Upper West Side, where the friend successfully bid on another apartment before deciding he didn’t want it.
“It turned out he had to have a home office, and this one didn’t have an office,” said McDonough. “So we started looking again, this time once again on the East Side.”
At that time, they found out the two previous buyers for the Sutton Place apartment had been nixed by the financial constraints the board put on the applications, and closed the deal.
McDonough said working with a friend on his first deal was taxing at times, if ultimately successful.
“A lot of people say they don’t like to work with a friend in this type of situation,” he said. ‘It was a little straining. You have to make sure you keep it business.”
Prior to his first sale, McDonough cut his teeth on three rental deals he completed. His first deal was for a one-bedroom at West 72nd Street between Central Park West and Columbus that required three open houses and 15 showings to prospective buyers.
Another rental deal involved looking for a place for a couple with a baby and a 110-pound dog. After a long search, McDonough found a place on Riverside Drive in the 100s that didn’t have a problem with such an enormous animal.
“As we went farther north, we found it less restrictive,” he said. “One of the agents said maybe they could sneak the dog in the door of another building. But it’s the size of a small horse.”
McDonough, who at the outset had set the goal of getting one or two exclusives in his first six months, was also waiting to hear back on a listing for an apartment on West End Ave. and 97th Street, which would be his first exclusive. But with several deals under his belt, he said he was happy with his career so far.
“I think I’m doing pretty well,” he said. “Being an agent totally fits my vision of what i’d like to be doing.”
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Leslie O’Shea, who started at Stribling in mid-September, was leading around a pack of a dozen buyers in December and honing in on her first deal.
O’Shea also formed a partnership with a more senior agent at the company after a pair of prospective $2 million deals landed on her lap while doing desk duty.
O’Shea’s buyers ranged from the head of well-known art museum in Los Angeles, whom she knows, to referrals she had gotten from other agents at the company.
The new agent was working most closely with a doctor and his wife from Connecticut who were looking for a pied-a-terre in the city, and have been staying in a hotel in Manhattan nearly every weekend to look for a place. The lack of listings was making finding an apartment difficult, O’Shea said. The couple knew what they wanted – a two-bedroom in a prewar condo on high floor, with a corner bedroom, low maintenance and in mint condition.
“There are a lot of specific things they are looking for,” said O’Shea. “Normally it would be fine, but with inventory so low, its more difficult.”
O’Shea did, in fact, locate an apartment on East 84th Street with a terrace that faces the Metropolitan Museum of Art that was going for under $1 million and almost met the couple’s criteria, however. “But they were put out by the fact that units could be owned by corporations,” she said. “I tried to explain it wasn’t a crash pad for J.P. Morgan.”
O’Shea also has struck up a partnership with Jeffrey Stockwell, a senior vice president at Stribling, to make a pitch on a big deal that came her way while doing desk duty. A women who works as a lawyer wanted to sell her $2 million loft in Tribeca and buy a $2 million place uptown. O’Shea is also working with Stockwell to pitch two other listings, including one in the Upper East Side building where she lives. Another exclusive that O’Shea was trying to get from a friend who was mulling over a job transfer to her native country, was nixed when the potential seller decided to stay put because she was offered an accelerated partnership deal.
Overall, O’Shea said she is benefiting from an expanding network of clients and the alliances she is forming in the industry.
“I’m definitely getting two or three times removed from my social contacts,” she said. “I’m finding customers come from places you wouldn’t expect.”