Envy Apartment

Among the residential brokers who take a whack at commercial, there is a steep learning curve . The businesses, everyone will tell you, are extremely different. Success in one rarely translates to success in another, and very few manage the transition. But Sonia Stock, an associate broker at Douglas Elliman, is good at taking a whack at things—be it a tennis ball or a client from out of nowhere. Like this one time… In the summer of 2004, Stock (then focused solely on residential) had a dental appointment in Union, N.J. Coming from New York and being a runner, she figured she’d take the train from Penn Station to Rahway (the station closest to her appointment) and sprint the eight miles to her dentist. But when the train arrived late , she knew running wouldn ’t get her there in time. So the experienced world traveler hit the side of the road and stuck out her thumb and was picked up by a woman in a Mercedes. “We got along very well,” Stock said, recalling what would turn out to be one...

Last week, we sponsored the 11th annual Points Summer Book Club , a community discussion of Matthew Desmond's piercing Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City . We debated the causes of eviction, the effect on children, how to view landlords' role, and what this discussion means for a city like Dallas. The book club also included an event with the author, in a partnership with Southern Methodist University 's SMU Reads program . On Thursday, Desmond spoke to a crowd of more than 900 people, laying out his research and his experience with evictions' damaging effect on people's safety, family, jobs and mental health. "When you add all that up, we have to conclude that eviction -- which used to be rare in this country, which used to draw crowds — it's not just a condition of poverty, it's also a cause of it. And it's making it worse. It's leaving a deep and jagged scar on the next generation — which means that we can't fix poverty in A...