The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-07-19
LOTS SOLD BY CANVASSERS,
A CHANGE Nv THE BUSINESS or
REALTY COMPANIES.
Once People who Wanted to Build Home,
Went to Them-Now the Customers
Are Sought Out-GOOd Lot Statesmen
Scarce--Ingenious ways or Selling Lots.


Are Sought Out-tsOOd Lot Statesmen
Scarce--Insenious Ways or Selling Lots.
The big realty companies in this part Of
the country have seen their business I'm.
dergo surprising changes in the last six or
eight years. Before that time peopls wh,
wanted to build modest homes would 90
to the companies Offices This is change
now. The lots are sold. more and more
by canvs~-~-~.
| One of the leading men in a concern
that buys up large tracts in New Jersey
and sells them said the other day that the
sales he now makes in the Office in three
days would not keep the business afoat
for a day. Canvassers dispose OF the
property. for the people will not come;
they must be sought out.
! 1t is not an easy thing to get good build
ing lot statesmen. Men who have made
marked successes in other lines OF can.
wasting fail utterly when IL comes to SELL
| ing lots.
The work is in many ways hard and not
infrequently distasteful. Many good can
vassers make from $50 to $50 a week Now
and then a good man is put On salary
| Of something like 500 week
AThe trouble is" said real estate man.
good men have not yet discovered that
this is a good business. We get the rifraY
| now, fellows who have made failures %
themselves and who are drifting about
looking for some way by which they can
make living without work.
| Now and then We get a good man and
he stays because he finds it is a good BUSH
ness with great field. The majority dron
out within fortnight. had fifteen new
men in here last Monday. Next Monday
there won't be more than three or four Of
| them, but there'll be a new batch ready
to try their luck.
Zone of the best men we have IL a car
penter by trade. Another good man was
once a minister Of the Gospel who took to
drinking. He doesn't touch thing now.
and he is making more money than he ever
| made in his life. We have q little Italian
who earns his $40 week. He works among
his own people. and how he does it don't
know, but he sells lots in punches among
them
Some Of our best men invest quite a
little capital. said another man, 1befors
they get the business where they want IT,
We have one chap who used to BIO a builder.
He lost all his money.
soon after he came with us he set to
work to make small model OF house
He put in all his evenings on it for a month
or so. The framework will fold up, and
the partition and exterior walls are mads
in sections Of tin, painted.
He can throw open any room by remov.
ing certain exterior walls, when you get a
peep into tiny room, the walls of which
are attractively painted. Then be has a
way of enlarging this house, of putting on
veranda, and of adding what would
amount to say fifteen or twenty feet to
it's frontage.
He viii. so to speak. build you a $500
house before your eyes, and then. if that
doesnt suit, he will make his extensions and
there you have 5000 house. He is a
| wise man, because, as building ia his strong
point, he makes the lots attractive by
showing, from his own practical knowl-
edge, what kind Of structure you may
build on it after you've got it.
This canyasser makes the house propo-
sition so fascinating that the family be-
comes possessed with the idea of having
home OF its own, and 80 the lot is sold.
His set OF tin wall slides Is Increasing
every week, and he thinks he is getting the
business down TO a finer point constantly.
we have another fellow, scarcely moro
than n boy. who has taken a series Of pict-
ures Of the properties We sell, and he q
very clever at it. Then he has had lantern
slides made and he carries around his
lantern and slide outfit evenings to the
homes of workingmen, having made an
appointment in one tenement or another
| beforehand.
"He works up two and sometimes three
Of these exhibitions for each week and
most Of his time in the day is put to getting
friends of the family where the exhibition
is to he given to come. Then, on the
night appointed he sets up his lantern in
the dining or sitting room, or in the parlor,
if the family possesses such an apartment,
and no shows his slides.
He has regular lecture which he gives.
and he burned the midnight oil on that
lecture for long time before he first gave
it. He studies the company he gives the
show to and he cuts out or adds on depend
ing upon his audience.
you see, a large part OF New Jersey
soil is historical. You can scratch up a
fairly good and reasonably authentic story
about nearly every square mile OF it. You
can't always get Washington's head
quarters on the property or even within
ten miles Of it, but you can find something
or other pertaining to the Revolution IL
you try real hard.
This sort of thing goes with some crowds.
but with others II is OF no use and this
canvasser is careful to cut 1t out when he
is satisfied that it would do no business
for him. His slides show the prettiest
parts of the property. the photo
graphs have a way OF throwing a sort OF
| glamour over the uninteresting parts that
Is very satisfactory from our standpoint
He has slides of the houses already
built and he also has a few interiors. That
chap never falls behind s35 a week. and hs
has been doing this for over a year He
! will continue to do as well If not better,
if business continues good
There are other canvassers who are at
their strongest in going around the shops
and factories during the mems incoming.
| They get any amount of iollying at times.
| but some seem TO have gift for corralling
six or eight and sometimes dozen men
al at one jump.
A FAMOUS OLD HUNTER DEAD.