A brokerage that behaves like a small publisher

Lintel began because two of us kept seeing the same thing: an apartment somebody had thought hard about, listed with photographs taken at eleven on a grey Tuesday and described in the same forty words as every other unit in the line.

A considered apartment is worth more to the right buyer than to the average one, and the right buyer is reached by explaining the building rather than counting its rooms. So we write a listing the way a magazine writes a building study — what it is made of, who drew it, what has been altered and what has survived.

We are honest about the awkward parts. Every apartment has one, and in New York it is usually the kitchen, the board, or the line the bedroom faces. Saying so early costs a few showings and saves the deal.