Sunday, June 14th, 1:30pm

My Hamptons referral customer wants to go out with me next weekend and see some of the houses I picked out for her. I'm SO excited. There is one house in particular in Wainscott, that I think will be PERFECT. The Owner is a designer and my customer is also a designer. It's a perfect match. I can't wait to see if she takes it! The house I am showing was recommeded to me to show by the Owner of the agency I work for in the Hamptons, Andrew Saunders. I'm thrilled to be working with him. He is innovative, dynamic, someone really to look up to and a true gentleman. I working towards finding a balance between running my own company Adina Equities in the city and working in the Hamptons Real Estate market with Saunders. It's been tough to find the time to spend tim in BOTH offices. But I feel really really good about it and Andrew is very supportive. I will be making a formal annoucement soon about my ability to do both Rentals and Sales in the Hamptons now. I really would like to focus on Bridgehampton through Amagansett, Sag Harbor is do-able as well. But generally speaking I am capable of working from South Hampton through Montauk. Living in East Hampton now really has helped me ain a lot of knowledge. I will also be visiting more open houses just to keep learning the market out here. The truth is, when I was an agent first starting in Manhattan, I had a good gut instinct about which properties to show. Intuition, instincts, luck, call it what you want-I had a knack for it. I have a feeling the same thing will happen for me working in the Hamptons market. I have a good Real Estate instinct, what can I say. And I think it's something you either have or you don't. I'm so excited to be developing this aspect to my careeer. My plan is to work with renters and buyers, and to be a bit less listing focused than I've been in the New York City market. So if you're looking for something in the Hamptons and you don't mind a rookie with a lot of ambition (and a lot of support from Saunders himself), check out my company website www.saundersassociates.com and you can rean me through there or www.adinaequities.com :-) Have you ever heard of beginners luck? Sometimes the new kid on the block stumbles into the best opportunites. I've noticed that with my own staff. The sun just peeked out of the clouds in East Hampton. I'm off to get some..To be continued.

Saturday, June 13th,  3:32PM

Lazy day in East Hampton. I have a referral looking for a rental out here for the month of July. I ound some good option in the database and sent her some good options. If she wants to see any of them, then I will be taking out my first customer out here. That would be exciting. But since nothing is booked so far and I haven't heard back from her yet, yoga at 4:30 is on my agenda for today. I did just get a call from one of my property managers in Manhattan and we have two new no fee rental exclusives to pick up keys for. That's good. I emailed my agents who are hopefully hard at work today unlike their boss! Ha. June has been super busy so far in the NYC rental market. It's typically one of our busiest months and this year is no different. It's quite a relief. We have rented apartments this month on first showings (hats off to my agent Iruka who just did this on one of our Murray Hill listings) and we've gotten calls from other agents to show our exclusives claimingto have customers who need to rent an aprtment today, or have just lost out on other apartments they applied for a missed to someone else. These are great signs of a healthy rentals market. Last night I was watching TV and came across this random show called the Oprah Effect. They were showing small businesses that took off in extraordinary ways because Oprah endorsed them as one of her favorite things. I don't know if she ever endorsed a Real Estate company before. I know she likes woman owned businesses and businesses that were started at home. So now of course I have this fantasy that someone I can get Adina Equities endorsed by Oprah. We are unique. All our business comes from referrals and exclusives. I started my business when I was only 27. I'm thinking between my dog in my marketing and my pink website, our charitable work etc, maybe there would be some aspect of my company that she would really like. I have to look into this! When there's a will, there's a way. I'm off to yoga! Maybe during meditation I will think of a good idea for approaching Oprah...Om... To be continued.

Tuesdsay, June 9th, 10:23pm Is it normal that I'd rather have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner than have a meal out with a boring guy? PP & J because this was the only thing I could find in my fridge that wasn't spolied. I actually found spoiled butter. OMG. Am I a messy bachelor trapped in the body of a single woman? I was so disgusted with myself. Who has spoiled butter? Apparently I do :-( Gross. I don't even want to know how long that takes to happen. This all happened because I came home from a long day at the office, decided instead of the gym (which yeah, I talked myself out of successfully this morning) I'd go down to the corner bar next to my apt, Bobby Van's and have a glass of wine. So long story short, whenever I leave the house I feel bad for Luna (my dog) so I trick her with a treat and sneak out the door. Half way down in the elevator I realized I forgot my wallet upstairs, but luckily I found $17 in my purse. I figured it's enough for my "unwind" glass of wine and rather than disturbing Luna I will just contunue to the bar. Long story short, I know the bartender so I tell him to give me a glass of wine that will stay within my $17 budget because I forgot my wallet upstairs. The next thing I know, the whole bar knows I have no money and wants to pay for my drinks and dinner including the bartender. (so now you Ladies have a recession tip!) I didn't do this on purpose. Long story short, some man was like glued to my side. I was texting, as usual and he made some bad joke about me and my blackberry. Not a good idea!! He invited me for dinner but conversation was boring, and he insulted my blackeberry, so I went home and ending up with Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich. Is it normal? I don't know.  Anyway, other than that, today was a good day. I have an opportunity to pitch for a huge new exclusive account. Really big. They already told me that they do not want to hire a big company and I know I was highly reccomended to them. So now, it's up to me. I am meeting first with one member of their group to go over their buildings and what their needs are. Then in about two weeks I will be making a prsentation to a bunch of partners flying in from the midwest. Good stuff. This meeting has been in the works for about a year now. This group is buying 100 Million dollars worth of NYC Real Estate in the next 2 year time span and I would be the rental broker for all the residential units. I don't want to jinx it. But I have a good feeling. We'll see. What they need from me, is exactly what I specialize in. They need someone that works for Landlords, understands the rental market, and I do. No question. I'm looking forward to our meeting. I know $100 million dollars sounds like a dream, but this is for real, I know because I have been in touch with this group all year. They have been setting themselves up and searching for properties, educating themselves about the market. It's actually quite an honor to be considered to be a part of their team. I hope they don't read my blog and think I'm a ding a ling! Ha. The personal touch goes a long way. Thus the blog. Well, I will end tonight blog with a funny story. I went tonight to show an apt I have for sale which is a very good deal BTW at 55 East End Avenue. (see my website a JR4 for only $469K) So not one but two agents came from a "big firm" I will leave them nameless, I guess they work as a team, they brought their customers to see my listing. Long story short, I think the couple thought it was a little too small for them, so one of the other brokers tried to make some small talk on the way out. So he asks me, "Your name is Adina right? Is the firm named after you?" I think he was expecting a whole long funny story about how my boss named the firm after me? I have no idea, so I said, "Yes, it's named after me, I'm the Owner, it's my firm." His partner, hits him, as if to say "you idiot". Maybe you had to be there...To be continued.

My new assistant started today. This is exciting. Especially for those of you who can't reach me on the phone, soon her number will be on my voicemail so you can all have someone to talk to. Exciting! I know. This was no ordinary Monday. A building contracter that I know that as far as I have noticed works around the clock as it is, decided to take up cooking, yes cooking as a hobby and brought in a whole tasting for me and my staff today-homemade empanadas-he even made the bread and two types of cakes. It was truly delicious and I'm a picky eater. So I asked me where he did all this and he told me he did it in of of the vacant apartments we have. I don't know how the Owner would feel about that honestly but I found it to be pretty humorous. Coming from someone like me whose cooking abilities doesn't go much farther than eggs and pasta, I was truly impressed. My agents were super busy today which was good. I only saw two of them in the office and when they were there they were typing leases. Always a good sign. We have a large luxury one bedrom available at 53 Irving Place-it's not even officially on the market yet-and today we had clients walk in and decide to make an offer and apply for it. The very first people to see it! It reminded me of the good old days of rentals. Who knows! Maybe things are turning around. Or maybe they were just meant to be for that apartment, which sometimes happens too. Apartment destiny I call it. Anyway, my new assistant left promptly at 6. I thought it was funny the way she popped right out of chair at 6 and said good night, see you tomorrow. I tried not to take it personally. No, "do you need anything else Ms. Azarian" Ha. Fantasies. I know. Well, we will see how having help goes. I am used to doing most things myself-but it does take me FOREVER and I know I have to learn to let go. Oh, and I got my first Hamptons referral today. Yay! They are looking for a house to rent for the month of July. $18,000 budget. More signs of life! This is good. We actually got a total of 4 referral clients today, which is very good. Now I am home and successfully talked myself out of going to the gym. (It wasn't hard to do) but I will go in the morning. Tomorrow is another day. To be contined..