William B May, dead or zombified?

[financialruin]

Anyone notice that the formerly proud and pedigreed firm of William B May is facing imminent financial ruin (agent connission checks bouncing) since Billy May, A/K/A William Talcott May, assumed an illegal role (he's a convicted felon) in managing the firm?

-- financialruin :D

[accidentalNYer]

Case of demonic possession. The exorcists have been called.

[tiny12]

They've wet their pants and can't afford to advertise.

Alzheimers sets in after 139 years of proud history.

And their agents are defecting to third string firms like Warburg.

-- Tiny

[meccanic]

Tiny

This is a bit confusing.

Click on this: Google Search for William B. May (http://www.google.com/search?q=william+b.+may).

I find 4 William B. Mays in the clutter:


William B. May (http://www.wbmay.com)
Century 21 William B. May (http://www.c21wbmay.com)
William B. May International (http://www.wbmayre.com)
Wiliam B. May Commercial (http://www.williambmay.com)
The first of these, William B. May unadorned, is still under ownership of the original family. Nevertheless, the firm is financially moribund. Or possibly, as suggested earlier in this thread, it has already turned zombie. Too many liabilities and too few effective sales associates. Hard to say how it happened. Maybe failure to call an exorcist sooner. Sometimes demonic possession results from senile dementia. For further information, look for the recent New York Observer story (http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=NYOB&p_theme=nyob&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_text_search-0=talcott&p_field_label-0=Author&p_field_label-1=title&p_bool_label-1=AND&p_field_label-2=Section&p_bool_label-2=AND&s_dispstring=talcott%20AND%20date%28last%206%20mon ths%29&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=-6qzM&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no) by Gabriel Sherman about William Talcott May.

The Century 21 franchise seems to be in a decent financial condition. Moreover, the industry recognizes this William B. May as the true and authentic William B. May. Speed dial is telling. Industry leaders like Corcoran and Brown Harris Stevens have the Century 21 number for William B. May on speed dial.

International and Commercial have barely any visible footprint in the industry. This doesn't prevent International from puffing itself in a Google sponsored link as "New York's Gold Standard since 1866." Commercial shows similar pluck. Despite their near invisibility within the industry, Commercial appears second in a Google search for William B. May.

Are there other William B. Mays crawling around under this rock? I can't say. I do know that all of us should hurry out to buy presale units at the Orion (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5152) for a fast flip.

Meccanic, since 1974

[graylady]

You could either leave with Peter and sit with him in a retail space below grade or you could stay and wear a Century 21 gold jacket.

These were the viable alternatives. You could not go to one of the branches and wait for the day when the commission checks bounced and the ads failed to run.

I work for a much bigger firm now, but at least it is not Brown Harris or Halstead or any other firm run by the Zeckendorfs. I do not believe any of this would have happened if those people had not enticed Peter into destroying William B. May.

In spite of that horrid article in the NY Observer, Billy would never destroy the firm that bore his name and the name of his family.

Graylady

[financialruin]

Who's Tubby? Just more ballast to drag down the name in its decline?

Does he have a thyroid condition?

financialruin

[accidentalNYer]

Whcih reminds me of an old joke. There was a woman who was sooooooo fat that when sat around the house she sat arooooound the house.

I like that one. Fun to tell your friends when you're standing in line behind a fat chick on a hot Summer day. And at least it's not that old George Burns and Tina Turner having sex all night in Las Vegas joke.

Heh.

Back to Mr. Tubby. He's more pedigreed deadwood, just like the aforementioned William Talcott May!

accidentalNYer - since 1968

[financialruin]

Nah-uh! You mean there's LESS to Tubby than meets the eye.

financialruinaion

[refan12]

What I find interesting about these 4 entities named with similar names is that, for example, one can't even find William B. May International (http://www.wbmayre.com) on google without typing in the exact full length name in quotes -- what kind of search engine is this?

[accidentalNYer]

[/URL]see: [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Leopold"]Steven Leopold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Leopold)

[LincolnParkResident]

Or should I started there. I understand it is a commercial company now only for real estate and the residential was sold off to one of the others.

Commercial it is with GMAC and the is how "Liberty Harbor North" was the company advertised for all the commercial listing there by Peter Mocco.

Residential went some where. As far as with William B May, at one point, the May Family and the Peter Marra President of the Company-the son-in-Law or Grand-son-in-law to the founder though he would get stocks in the Brown Harris Stevens and under handedly get the company sold off to a competor with another prestigious house and some feud broke out I heard, which now many in residential reside. As the company is contacted for Residential and the act like they know nothing....so there was a split of residential and commercial in the two.