The 30-Minute Interview - Norman Bobrow - NYTimes.com Mr. Bobrow, 61, is the founder and president of Norman Bobrow & Company and the managing partner of First New York Realty Brokers, both of which specialize in tenant representation for office and retail space. His clients have included the fashion designers Elie Tahari and Perry Ellis. Q. You run two brokerage companies. Is there much difference between them? A. No difference. Same company. You come into our offices and its says on the door "Norman Bobrow & Company" and "First New York." When I started in the business, I saw that people wanted more of a generic name. They didn't want it to just be under my name, unless I was Harry Helmsley or someone famous. So we set it up as two companies. Brokers who wanted more of a corporate name use the First New York name. Q. You represent only tenants. A. Correct. The only time I've represented landlords was when it was a family member or distant relative. I felt you couldn't be fair representing the tenant and the landlord. I wanted to be an honest broker, so I said I had to pick one side or the other and I decided to choose the tenant side. Q. So many other brokerages do both. A. And I believe that those tenants don't get the best deals. Q. How many deals have you done so far this year? A. The whole company has probably done approximately 125 leases. We are about 15 percent slower than last year. People are very nervous that they're not making as much profits as prior years and everyone is being more cautious. Q. And your biggest deal this year? A. Square footage-wise it would be Hanky Panky, the lingerie firm, which we expanded into 80,000 feet in Queens. That closed a few weeks ago. And a big one in Manhattan is the Grace Building, at 1114 Sixth Avenue: we just did a renewal for 40,000 feet on the eighth floor. Q. What are average rental rates these days? A. In Midtown it's about $50 a foot for the better buildings. But when you go into New Jersey and other areas, the rates are tremendously lower and you don't have to deal with the chicanery of the loss factor in New York City. Q. What do you mean by chicanery? A. The landlords remeasure all the buildings. And when I started in the business, the average usable space had a 14 to 18 percent loss factor. So you rent this floor and it's 10,000 square feet, or 100 by 100, the landlord charges you for space that doesn't exist. He calls it 12,000 square feet, because the City of New York lets landlords get away with it. There's no law. There's no one to go after the landlords to make them justify whatever their square footage is. Q. Does most leased space in the city have a "loss factor"? A. Yes. Q. In addition to running the company, you also actively broker deals. A. Yes, I did approximately eight leases myself. I did the Tahari deals this year. The Hanky Panky deal I did myself. Q. Who is your biggest client? A. My biggest client is Elie Tahari. Q. What is the average lease length and space size for your clients? A. What I find is tenants that are here to stay and they're not in some crazy growth pattern, they'll take from a 10- to 15-year lease. The smaller tenants take shorter leases because they really don't know what their destiny is going to be. The tenant that's between 3,000 and 7,000, they usually take between a five- and 10-year lease. Q. Are you seeing any new leasing trends this year? A. Tenants are again becoming very conscious of the cost of their space and how it makes a major impact on their business. And there are a number of people who are trimming down the size of their space. One customer who had four floors is now renewing for 3.5 floors and someone who had 10 floors is now only renewing on eight or nine floors. Q. I understand that botany has been a lifelong hobby. A. I was dyslexic growing up and I had a lot of hobbies, and one of them was plants and I was infatuated with growing cactus. At 10 years old I was the youngest member of the New York Cactus and Succulent Society. I'm still a member. But where we used to have 200 members, we now have 20 members and we meet in my offices every month. I have two greenhouses and this is my outlet for my sanity - to get away from everybody.