Post #9 Principal-Agent

An experience I had with this model was while signing with my current apartment complex. Over the summer, I was running low on time to find a new place to live. My sister strongly suggested I research this one place off campus. She told me she had lived there for a year and thought very highly of it. I gathered all the information I could before I called the company.

I ended up talking to someone that I’ll call John for the purposes of this post. Before I committed to anything, I first had a few more questions that I needed answered. John was very helpful in getting me the information I needed. This is in contrast to some of the other apartment companies I called that either didn’t have the information or didn’t communicate the information well.

Even still, I was on the fence on whether or not I would sign a contract. Nevertheless, I took one of their roommate matching tests to see if I’d be able to get a room anyway. They stressed that they can’t place me in one of the three remaining rooms unless I was a good enough match. They may have just been trying to pressure me, but since I needed an apartment, I had no choice but to believe them.

Since John told me there were so few rooms and that I had a short time frame, I had no choice to go to the apartment office to sign the deal. On a side note, I did my absolute best never to sound too eager or desperate. I also never made it clear I was set on signing a contract. Nor was I sure I would actually sign. I didn’t expect to bargain, but if that happened for some reason, I wanted to have some bargaining power.

Again, I ended up talking with John. He was in charge of the tour. Again, he was very informative and he seemed very trustworthy. I didn’t feel like he was lying to me or trying to trick me. Eventually I signed the contract.

All was well and good until a few weeks later. Not long before classes started, I got an email that said my roommates had been switched. This didn’t really bother me because I hadn’t met or talked to my roommates yet, so I had no preference of roommates.

And then, about a day before moving in, I got an email from my new roommate who mentioned having a dog. My original roommates didn’t have a dog, which is a big reason I signed the contract. If I knew there’d be a pet, I would have gone with my second apartment choice. I called the office, but they didn’t think it was unfair to switch me into an apartment with a pet without even telling me.

Since then, the people running the apartment have failed to come through on many different promises. The most notable being the night shuttle program which was discontinued because the person in charge just didn’t feel like doing it anymore. Just like the dog situation, I would absolutely not have signed a contract if I knew they’d do this ahead of time. Thus far, they have been unconvinced by complaints to reboot the night shuttle program.

So in the end, I don’t think the agent was the problem. I think the apartment company who hired the agent was the problem. I believe that John told me what he believed to be the truth, but I don’t think he had the whole truth. He couldn’t have known I’d be switched or that the night shuttle program would be discontinued. I don’t even know if the apartment company could have expected that. Nevertheless, the apartment company filled another room, the agent they hired still got paid, and I’m out of luck.