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ome Reconditioning Sal
Leo M. Bernstein S. Co. Sold B,1DD RevitalizI Alvin Q. Ehrlich, Vice-president of Kal Advfa
THEY all said it wouldn't work. All of the real estate experts in Washington, D. C, said it. First of all, these greybeards decided you could not build up a market for reconditioned homes.
Then they said that you could not sell anything but small units over the air. That was in the days when radio was in its infancy, and even automobile dealers had not dared to offer their products over the air.
Both of these impossible ideas were a challenge to Leo M. Bernstein, then a starry-eyed graduate just out of school with a diploma in one hand and $800 cash in the other. (The capital had been saved from a part-time job as a sodajerker.)
Through the classified business opportunities of a local newspaper he had an opportunity to buy into a rental agency which found apartments and houses for newcomers to Washington for a fee of one-half the first month's rent. It took only two weeks for him to find out that the business was practically all gravy. So instead of putting his $800 into someone else's business, he invest
ed the magnificent total of $38 in second-hand office equipment and went into business for himself. That was in 1932.
(Mr. Bernstein points out that he was encouraged to take this step by the fact that the only two classifications of business enterprise that then did not require a District of Columbia license were those of real estate operator and undertaker. He had no qualifications for the latter.)
The depression was at its peak. Hundreds of houses built during boom times were coming back on the market. Practically all of them needed a lot of work done to put them into saleable condition again.
What was left of the $800, and some money borrowed from the banks went into the complete reconditioning of one
On opposite page . . . Operation of its own fleet of maintenance trucks results in extra savings which are passed on to clients when they invest in a CERTIFIED LEO M. BERNSTEIN 8C CO. reconditioned home.
Below ... A staff of courteous salesmen takes clients to visit LEO M. BERNSTEIN dc CO. homes in comfortable, new cars without obligation, to all parts of the city.