JENNY CAME PREPARED

When I arrived, Jenny had prepared an extensive list of every single conceivable apartment that I could expect to see with a move-in date of a month from my visit. The list was about 12-15 apartments long, which was a pleasant surprise: I didn’t want to be shoe-horned into getting an apartment based on seeing only a few. We tore through the streets of Manhattan in an exhaustive search. Along the way, we stopped for pastries and coffee, so it didn’t seem like a serious business meeting. Jenny also paid for several cabs by the time I realized that she was doing it out of her own wallet. From the time I arrived at her office at 11 am and the time we were done, it was nearly seven hours of cabbing, walking, looking, chatting, laughing. By that time, I was confident that I could make an informed decision on which apartment I wanted to apply for. I arrived the next morning with my decision, bringing cookies for Jenny for being such a fantastic agent. She made me tea, and we set to work. Despite the fact that she could have benefited from selling me the most expensive apartment under my budget, Jenny encouraged me to seriously consider cheaper options, even stopping in alarm when we learned that the apartment I wanted tacked on a $150/mo. pet fee, and making sure that that didn’t change my choice, even though we had just spent an hour applying for the apartment. Later that day, my choice was approved, and we high-fived over email.