New York City Apartment Rental Exclusives: Not Always The Best
Some brokers advertise that they deal mainly in exclusive rental listings. For the apartment hunter there could be a disadvantage using one of these brokers. Firstly, they tend to work only with the few landlords that they have exclusives with. Unlike ReloNYC.com (Metropolis Real Estate of Manhattan), they aren't going to search high and low throughout Manhattan to find you the best apartment.
You are working with their limited rental inventory and if you don't take one of their exclusives they say, "goodbye". Secondly, an exclusive broker primarily represents the interests of the landlord, not of the apartment renter. Certainly something to think about.
These days a lot of people want to see NO FEE rental apartments in New York City. Who can blame them? There are a lot of apartments for rent in Manhattan we can show without the traditional 15% broker fee.
The landlords of those apartments pay us the broker fee, so at RELONYC we charge our client nothing (some brokers take a fee from both the landlord and the client, so Buyer Beware). We are very happy to show our clients the NO FEE rental inventory. But there are times when it is actually cheaper in the long run to rent an apartment that requires a broker fee.
Why "No Fee" Apartments Can Be More Expensive
Some New York City Apartment Landlords
Do Not Work Directly With The
Public
There are landlords in New York City who do not deal directly with the public. These landlords would rather rent their apartments in Manhattan through Real Estate Rental Brokers. A landlord of this type will work with a short list of selected brokers. Their apartments tend to be good deals because these landlords have opted for dropping their rental prices rather than offer incentives such as paying the broker commission or granting rent concessions. Therefore, the broker will charge a commission. But in the long run, it could less expensive than a NO FEE rental apartment.
It Might Be Less Expensive To Pay A Broker Fee
Rather than reduce rental prices in response to a softer market, some of the New York City rental apartment landlords offer other incentives such as paying the broker's commission (and therefore the broker should offer the apartment on a NO FEE basis) or granting a rent concession (one or two months free rent).
Rent one of these apartments NO FEE and the annual cost of rental could be equivalent to the rental of a reduced price apartment that requires a broker fee, but only for the first year. Remember, you pay the broker fee only once. But if you rent a higher priced NO FEE apartment, when it comes time to renew your lease in the second year the new rent will be based on the higher rent. It will actually cost you more in the second year (and subsequent years) with the NO FEE apartment.
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