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Money, Money, Money

At first, I didn’t think I was going to find anyone. I started to worry. Then I thought, oh well, I don’t really need to sublet my place anyway. It’s not a big deal. It’s not a big deal if we don’t move in together. It’s really just about saving money.

Then suddenly, I had a lot of interest. A contractor confided, “You’re underpricing your place. Everyone else I’ve looked at is charging over $2,000 and their places aren’t as nice as yours. Plus you have parking and you’re including everything. Incredible.”

Others emailed, “Please call me. This looks like such a great deal. I’m very interested.”

And then I found her. My perfect subletter.

Hi – I’m interested in renting the unit for June/July/August. I’m an extremely professional, neat and respectful MBA student who will be in San Francisco for a summer job. I would like to set up a time to have a friend come see the apartment for me this Saturday morning – if you could let me know if that might work for you, I’d be extremely appreciative. Thanks so much.

Lisa
MBA Candidate, Class of 2010
The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania

I focused on those key words: “extremely professional, neat and respectful MBA.” Music to my ears. Further, she was very responsive each time I emailed her. She’s doing her summer internship at Apple–strategy for the iPhone. And apparently, Apple has a direct shuttle that picks up on Geary and Divisadero which is one block away from where I live.

Then her friend Julie came to view my place. “So how do you know Lisa?”

“We went to college together.”

“Oh that’s great. Where did you go?”

“We went to Harvard.”

Shoe-in. As soon as Julie said that, I was like, I want this girl. I don’t care if I have to discount the rent. She’s the one I want. Clearly Lisa’s responsible, hard-working, smart, career-oriented.

I tried to play cool. “I have one other person coming in half an hour to take a look at the place so if you think Lisa would be interested, just have her call me.” There was no other person.

I felt giddy when I received Lisa’s voicemail and email. Voicemail and email. That’s right.

Hi Catherine –

I left you a voicemail earlier but wanted to follow up by email. Thank you so much for showing Julie the apartment today – she thought it was tremendous, so I officially would like to move on to discussing dates and logistics with you. I’m heading to bed now but please feel free to give me a call in the morning. I’ll look forward to hearing from you; I’m so excited to have (finally!) found a place that I’m excited to live in for the summer!

-Lisa

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05.12.09

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Welcome to my site, derived from an advice column I wrote while getting my MBA. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I give helpful, opinionated advice based on my own experience and from the expertise of my extensive network. For more, click here.

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