New York City Apartment Hunting

Finding an apartment in New York was easily one of the least enjoyable experiences of my life. Apartments are small, expensive and very difficult to find. The market is very tight and fluid - you have very little time to decide on an apartment as nice apartments will only be on the market for a day or two before they are rented. To add insult to injury, finding a “reasonable” apartment generally requires using a broker – many nice apartments in New York are only listed through brokers. However, for access to theses listings a broker will charge you an additional 15% of the first year’s rent or $3000-$6000 depending on the cost of the apartment

When I moved to New York, I received a wealth of advice from friends on how/where to go about my apartment search. If you do not have a significant amount of time for your apartment search, using a broker is the easiest option. However, if you are concerned about costs, finding an apartment on your own can save you more than $3000 (after tax dollars!).

My advice for apartment hunters looking to find an apartment and if possible avoid brokers fees is as follows:

1) Email every friend, relative, acquaintance you have in the city to ask if they know about any apartments coming on the market.

2) Search the no fee listings on management websites

3) Find a broker

4) If you have all the time in the world and lost of patience, looks at Craigslist apartment listings

1) Taking over a friend’s lease or renting directly from a friend’s landlord/management company is generally the best option – not only can you avoid broker fees and potentially a hike in rent but you also know more about the quality of the building you will be moving into….

2) Many management companies list their current vacancies on their websites. While currently an arduous process to check multiple websites daily, apartments rented directly from management companies generally avoid broker fees.

3) Many listings are only available to broker and using a broker to find your new home may be unavoidable. Everyone should definitely use a broker to see some apartments and learn about the rental market. In addition, remember that broker fees are always negotiable – some brokerages charge 8% and others 15%. That being said, using a broker doesn’t mean you will end up renting through the broker – be open with your broker that you’re also looking at direct no-fee options.

4) My experience with Craigslist is that the quality of listings is very low. Many of the listings are misrepresentations or outright frauds. Many of the no fee listings are actually brokers listing fee properties, apartments above market rates with the broker fee baked into the rent or brokers listing a disgusting no fee property after which they offer to show you some nicer properties that have an additional broker fee. Some of the listings on Craigslist are authentic and attractive but they are few and far between – I recommend only using this option if you have significant time on your hands and lots of patience…..

To help with step 2, we are creating a new vertical search engine that lists all the no fee apartments available in New York in one place. Please check back in March to quickly search all the no fee apartment listings in New York in one, easy to use place!

Thanks!