Real estate listing’s optimistic language tested against physical reality
Reporting brought to you by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
Prospective Tenants Discover Cozy Is Broker Code For Architecturally Impossible
NEW YORK, NY — A Manhattan apartment listed as “cozy and charming” has been found, upon inspection, to be a former closet with delusions of grandeur, measuring approximately the size of a parking space and renting for a sum that prospective tenants describe as “deeply unfunny.”
“The listing said cozy,” reported apartment-hunter Jessica Tran, 27, standing in a doorway that constituted roughly forty percent of the unit’s floor space. “It said charming, intimate, efficient. What it did not say is that this is a closet. An actual closet. There is a bed, sort of, and if you stand on the bed you can touch all four walls. The kitchen is a hot plate balanced on the radiator. The bathroom is, I think, also the kitchen. And it costs more per month than my parents paid for their house. The broker called it a hidden gem. It is a closet. A very expensive closet.”
The Language Of Listings
According to the Institute for Real Estate Linguistics, the listing represented standard practice. “New York real estate listings operate in a specialized dialect,” explained Dr. Sandra Mehta. “Cozy means tiny. Charming means old and possibly broken. Efficient means there is no room for anything. Intimate means you can touch all the walls at once. Up-and-coming means dangerous. A real estate listing is a work of optimistic fiction, translating physical inadequacy into aspirational language. This particular unit, described as cozy and charming, is in fact a converted closet, and the listing’s language, while technically not false, performs heroic feats of euphemism to obscure that fundamental reality.”
The broker defended the listing as entirely accurate within the conventions of the field. “It is cozy,” insisted broker Tony Delvecchio. “Cozy means small and comfortable. The unit is small. Whether it is comfortable depends on the tenant. And it is charming. It has character. The slope of the floor, the single window facing a brick wall, the radiator that doubles as a kitchen, these are charming features. This is Manhattan. Space is a luxury. For the price, you are getting a foothold in the greatest city in the world. The fact that the foothold is a former closet is simply the reality of the market. I described it accurately, in the language of the trade.”
The Market Reality
Experts noted that the closet-apartment reflected the broader economics of New York housing. “When a closet can be rented as an apartment for thousands of dollars a month,” said Dr. Mehta, “it tells you everything about the housing market. Demand so vastly exceeds supply that spaces formerly used to store coats are now marketed as homes. The cozy charming apartment is not an aberration. It is the logical endpoint of a market in which any enclosed space with a door can command a premium. Tenants compete for closets. Brokers describe closets as gems. And the rent for a closet exceeds the mortgage on a house elsewhere. This is the New York housing market, functioning exactly as designed.”
Other apartment-hunters shared similar experiences with optimistically described units. “I saw one listed as a junior one-bedroom,” said hunter David Okafor, 29. “It was a studio with a curtain. The curtain was the junior bedroom. Another was described as having great light. It faced an air shaft. The light was a rumor. The listings are all like this, beautiful descriptions of terrible spaces, written in a language designed to make a closet sound like a sanctuary. You learn to translate. Cozy, closet. Charming, falling apart. Great light, no light. By the time you have seen ten apartments, you are fluent in broker, and disillusioned with humanity.”
The Tenants Adapt
Despite the unit’s limitations, the closet-apartment reportedly received multiple applications within hours of listing. “People applied,” said Delvecchio, with satisfaction. “Several people. For the closet. Because in this market, even a closet is competitive. The applicants understood. They are not looking for space. They are looking for an address, a foothold, a place to sleep that is technically in Manhattan. The closet provides that. It is small, yes. It is a former closet, yes. But it is theirs, if they can win the bidding war, which several applicants are now engaged in, competing fiercely for the privilege of paying a fortune to live in a closet.”
Experts noted that the competition for the closet revealed the desperation of the market. “Multiple people competing for a closet,” said Dr. Mehta. “Offering to pay thousands of dollars a month, possibly bidding above the asking price, for a space that was, until recently, used to store cleaning supplies. This is not a healthy market. This is a market in which the basic human need for shelter has collided with extreme scarcity to produce a situation where people fight over closets. The cozy charming apartment will rent quickly, to a tenant grateful for the chance, who will live in a closet, in Manhattan, and consider themselves fortunate, because in this market, a closet is a victory.”
The Cozy Gem
The closet-apartment was rented within the day, to a tenant who described herself as thrilled to have secured it. “I got it,” said the winning applicant, who had bid above asking for the converted closet. “I cannot believe my luck. A place in Manhattan, all my own. Yes, it is small. Yes, it was a closet. Yes, I can touch all four walls from the bed. But it is mine, in the greatest city in the world, and in this market, that is everything.” She moved into her cozy, charming, intimate, efficient former closet with genuine joy, a tenant triumphant in a market so brutal that a closet had become a dream realized, paying a fortune for a space that had recently held brooms, and counting herself among the fortunate few who had won the fierce competition for the privilege of living in a closet in Manhattan. For genuine background, see the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and for further detail, the United States Census Bureau covers the real subject.
More nonsense at The Onion.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/