Job Creation: Supervillain Real Estate Brokers

I like the idea of The Broker in this image. Anybody who has ever opened a superhero comic book or has ever seen a superhero movie knows that a villain is likely to take up residence in a location where he or she (or it) could remain under the radar from the authorities. Outside of legitimized villains like Lex Luthor, who have the pleasure of living in their homes, typical hideouts include abandoned warehouses, factories, amusement parks, and toy stores. I still have not been able to come up with an adequate theory as to why villains have such proclivities towards toys -- perhaps it has something to do with having easy access to seeminly innocent gadgets, which could in fact cause substantial harm to a superhero with proper adjustments (those little bomber helicopters seem particularly dangerous).

Let's take the case of Gotham City. Indeed, when one thinks about poverty-striken and run-down cities in the DC Universe, one instinctively thinks of either Bludhaven or Gotham City. That means that there should be many abandoned buildings, warehouses and amusement parks for villains to choose from. Here's the problem: the villain count in Gotham city is growing rapidly, especially following the "death" of Batman. As such, there is heavy competition for the best hideouts, especially among the newer villains trying to break into the business. And even though there are likely many abandoned buildings, obviously not all of them are useable or are located in areas that maximize a villain's ability to remain hidden.

Hence, there are lots of villains and a limited number of vacancies. Not to mention, criminals might be a cowardly and superstitious lot, but there's no denying that they're busy. They have better things to do then look around for a place with adequate plumbing. So what's the solution?

Enter The Broker. An invention only possible from the mind of Paul Dini, The Broker seems to be an independent real-estate agent exclusively for supervillains, who finds potential hideouts for his clients and charges them a finder's fee. This might be a profitable enterprise for crafty businessmen. Let's take a look at average salary statistics for real estate brokers from payscale.

Median Salary by Employer Type - Job: Real Estate Broker (United States)

It looks like the self-employed brokers make the most annually. I am assuming that The Broker is self-employed and does not work for some evil supervillain brokerage firm, so this is fortuitous news for him. What about statistics by city?

Median Salary by City - Job: Real Estate Broker (United States)

If you take a look at New York (the closest model to Gotham City), you will note that average broker salaries seem to pretty decent, relative to other cities. It is not as high as Phoenix or Atlanta, but higher than Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. So, it seems as though The Broker had picked a lucrative enough criminal profession in a decent location.

There are, however, a few major problems with The Broker's choice of a career path. First of all, I think The Broker would need to charge larger fees in order to compensate for occupational hazards. The guy is working with supervillains. It's a dangerous line of work and it is not unreasonable to assume that some of these villains might not pay, might turn on him, and might even harm him. Look at what happened to the gentleman who tried to sell the Joker the abandoned amusement park in The Killing Joke. I think that even a high of $60,000 a year is not a generous enough salary for dealing with the dangers that The Broker has to face on a daily basis.

Secondly, The Broker is limiting himself to buyer services. Typically, brokers act as intermediaries between buyers and sellers. They help buyers find affordable homes for the lowest possible cost, but they also help sellers sell spaces for the highest possible costs. The very nature of matching up criminals with abandoned hideouts prevents The Broker from providing seller services, from which brokers make a large percentage of commissions. He is not speaking to criminals on behalf of any owners and does not own the buildings himself. It is an illegal transaction, which also has the potential to be discovered by the authorities. Not to mention, he is most likely dealing with up-and-coming villains such as the BoneBlaster. These newbies are not likely to be able to afford the high-scale, upper-class abandoned warehouses, but rather the more modest ones in questionable neighborhoods.

Thus, it seems The Broker is actually quite restricted in the income he could make from his business. Though creative, a "thriving business" in Gotham City it is not. I highly doubt it would last long and I believe The Broker would be filing for bankruptcy rather quickly if he continued.

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Jonah Hex Exercises Some Real Estate Intuition

Well, maybe. One of the great things about reading Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray's Jonah Hex series is that, aside from the sheer badass adventures of the meanest, ugliest, most violent bounty hunter in the old west, there are lots of subtle implications about economic development in the late 1800s United States, specifically regarding the massive industrialization and business expansion.

In his latest adventure, Hex was hired to rescue a hotel owner/manager and his daughter from a gang who had kidnapped them. In the process, Hex had burned down the hotel and upon attempting to collect his fee, the bank (who evidently hired him because of their interest in the hotel) informed him that they would be unable to pay for his services. The reason being, simply, that he burned down the source if income with which they would have paid him.

You might be wondering why it is that the bank would elect to honor their agreement at all, being that Jonah Hex technically operates outside the law. The reason is, also simply, that they fear Jonah's wrath on them might exceed that of his on the gang and the hotel.

So, we have a problem where the bank and hotel owners have no money to pay Hex. The solution that is eventually agreed upon is that the hotel owner would transfer ownership of the land on which the hotel was built over to Hex, who gladly accepts, declaring the land a fine form of currency in the rapidly industrializing economy.


I have a few comments on this:

1) I'm a bit confused as to how this transfer of ownership works. I'm not a real estate expert, especially concerning 19th century property values, but it seems to me that this is the basic way it works: someone wants to open a hotel, so he or she goes to the bank to acquire a loan for land (remember that land is considered real property and also one of the four basic factors of production in classical economics) as well as the capital to actually build the hotel. The new business owners now use the profits they earn from the hotel in order to pay back the loan, however the bank still technically owns all or part of that property until reimbursed. This is what I think the bank owner meant when he said that they had a "vested interested" in the hotel.

So, now that the hotel is burned down and the family has no means of paying back for the loan (and has no property insurance!!), it seems to me the equivalent of a default. Obviously, in this situation, it is perfectly acceptable to transfer land ownership to someone who could pay the rest of the loan (and this would also save on foreclosure costs, legal and administrative expenses, etc., and and save the owner from applying for bankruptcy), but wouldn't this still mean that Jonah would have to pay the bank? Unless his fee was so large or the amount the hotel owed was so small that they just considered it even (which I doubt) , I would think Hex would still owe the bank. And that doesn't sound very Hex, does it?

2) This demonstrates the importance of insurance (superhero insurance will be the topic of a later post).

3) Hex's comments on the last page confuse me. When asked what he would do with the land, he profoundly respond, "It's currency." Then he goes on to talk about the growth of towns and railroads, which leads to the implication that Jonah might want until the value of the property increases before he sells it to inevitably expanding businesses who might need the land. This is, first of all, an incredibly shrewd and economic tactic that is surprising coming from such a notoriously rough-around-the-edges bounty hunter. Secondly, however, Hex then goes on to say "with railroads and towns poppin' up, it's gettin' so a person can't keep to themselves. Best thing ta do is leave it clear and free." Does this mean that he actually just wants to keep the place and not sell it eventually?

All in all, Jonah Hex is a more shrewd economist than I would have guessed.

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