REBNY hosts second annual Rental Summit April 23nd at Mendik Center

The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) hosted its second annual Rental Summit on April 23rd in its Mendik Education Center. The event, designed to address issues rental brokers come across in their daily professional activities, attracted twice as many participants as the inaugural meeting last year. This year's topics included: "Marketing and Technology," taught by Gary Kiyan of Perfect RE Solutions; "Ethics and Rental Best Practices" by Douglas Wagner of Benjamin James Associates; "Time Management" by Gordon Golub of Citi-Habitats; "Co-op and Condo Rental Process" by Fritz Frigan of Halstead Property, LLC; "Branding" by Revin Kittles of Mark David & Co. and "Converting Rental Customer to Sales Customer" by Beatrice Ducrot of Stribling & Associates. "This event was designed to elevate the professional level of rental brokers," said Vanessa Kaufman, president of Andrew, Emmet & Co and co-chairperson of REBNY's Rental Committee. "Many people tend to focus on the sales side of the business as a major market indicator and forget about rentals, but the fact is rental brokers are extremely important - the majority of people in this city rent their apartments." "We hope to impart a deeper insight into best industry practices," said Kiyan. "When many of us first began in the business we just hit the streets to generate business but you can't always learn a deeper understanding of the business that way. We're trying to teach the more artistic side of rental brokering and share information because without the information, you just can't sell." "I came to the event last year and really liked it," said Cyla Klein, a broker with Citi-Habitats. "You never get bored, it's more interactive and you end up absorbing much more information with this format." "Rental apartments are a large part of the city's housing stock," said Steven Spinola, president of REBNY. "There are over two million rental units in the city, which is 67% of the city's housing pool. Rental brokers are very important people to both the real estate industry and to the city. With this event, REBNY and the Rental Committee tried to efficiently impart information and insight from a number of seasoned professionals in the rental business. I've heard a lot of positive participant feedback so it's absolutely an event we plan to have again."