We can still remember a Saturday afternoon in the spring of 2004 when we sat sipping beers in the outdoor bar that used to exist on Bedford Avenue and North 1st Street (what was that place called? Answer: Yabby) while trading Blackberried bids with our broker over a house on the corner of Willoughby and Waverly in Clinton Hill. We didn't end up striking a deal on that place, but that experience came back to us while reading the Times article on the subject this weekend. Not surprisingly, the practice is commonplace and has its pros and its cons: On the one hand, according to one Harvard Business School prof, communicating by email helps people be more direct about their demands; on the other, it's very difficult to convey nuance by email. Therefore, "[email] can tend to go wrong if there’s any kind of conflict or misunderstanding,” says Wharton'sG. Richard Shell. That's why many brokers don't like the email trend. “I’m old school — I still like to hear the other broker’s voice to get a gauge of where the deal is," says Steve Goldschmidt of Warburg Realty. "There’s no substitute for the sound of a voice.”
The E-Mail Handshake [NY Times]
