A Day in the Life of a Real Estate Remora

The headshots call for professional attire: solid, neutral colors. You are advised to avoid patterns, polkadots, and stripes. You know better than to wear anything eccentric. But when you look at the headshots of the other brokers — established brokers — you see that the best are of the guys wearing light blazers, and you? You do not have a light blazer in your closet. The light-blue suit your friend brought out from the city as a favor would work better for a wedding. You need a solution and you need it fast . . . but ding! Here comes another in an endless stream of emails.

There are around 1,500 licensed real estate agents on the South Fork. At the time of writing there are around 1,380 homes for sale on the market.

These are not good numbers. They do not bode well for someone just starting out.

When you first start, you are a very small fish in a small pond with lots of very big, very experienced fish who have the whole place scoped and staked out. How could you possibly manage to catch enough scraps when you’re competing with sharks? The learning curve for a new broker is daunting.

Your first steps are the 77-hour online course and then the exam, which is not easy. After you successfully pass the test, most brokerages will be glad to meet with you. They’ll ask about your background, your network, and how you can leverage those tools to contribute to their business. Signing on with one of these brokerages is one way to get going but it takes time. They say you shouldn’t expect to make any money in your first year or two as an agent.

There is another route, though, that allows for a more symbiotic dynamic with the big fish: an apprenticeship. New York City cops used to call it “finding a rabbi.” To learn the ropes and cut his teeth, the rookie cop needs to find a high-ranking superior officer who serves as a mentor, protector, and influential connection. When getting started in East End real estate, it is advantageous to find a rabbi — a big fish to take you under their fin.

You are in the best position if you grew up on the East End, understand the area, and already know at least several real estate agents. When choosing your rabbi, you need to discern between agents whose business is steady and those whose business has just started to boom. The latter will have too much on their plate; you will help with everything they don’t have the time for and become a remora (a suckerfish that gloms onto a shark and lives off it).

Your mentor teaches you to seize every opportunity, to gobble all the little bites he throws your way. In the beginning, these opportunities are likely to be short-term, lower-budget rentals. This is grassroots real estate. These rentals will not make you rich — they will barely pay the bills — but they will be nodes in a network, and a network, as you will come to realize, is an agent’s most valuable commodity. Renters become buyers. If they don’t, they have friends who become renters who become buyers.

Leslie is looking for a three- to four-bedroom in Sag Harbor with a pool from August 6 through 20. Ouch. Homeowners don’t want to break up the month and are motivated to avoid short-term rentals that leave them with gaps. Leslie’s budget is $30,000 to $40,000 for 14 days, a little under $3,000 per night. Rentals typically earn a 10-percent commission, but as a rookie that rate is cut to around 1.5 percent by the time it hits your bank account. A $40,000 rental amounts to maybe $600 in the bank.

Time is of the essence. Who knows if this lead is already working with other agents, of which there are so many? No lead goes unanswered and no lead sits waiting for more than a day. Your mantra is, “Yes, I can jump. How high?” You work on a computer — the volume of texts you send requires a keyboard, not just two thumbs. You need to send three different sets of options and you need to do it now.

There’s a three bedroom in Noyac. It’s a little small and a little dated but there’s a heated gunite pool, and the owners would consider a two-week rental in the middle of August. You send it, along with two others you’re also not so certain about. You screenshot their locations on Google Maps, converting the snaps to PDFs, and include them in your emails to Leslie. As soon as you shoot that off, a flood of messages starts to pop up on your screen:

“Ask them if they’ll install blackout shades.”

“Do they accept dogs? What if it’s a service dog?”

“Where’s that flood disclosure for 82 Cove?”

“We don’t love these options. Less woods. More sun. Please send more.”

By the time you have a chance to look up from the monitor, it’s 6 p.m., the stores are closed, and you still need a light-colored blazer.