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1. I rented two apartments in Clinton Hill this month for
good rents, including a 780 ft 2-bd for $3,000/month
2. but I'm having trouble getting $1295 for a 375 ft studio
in a PW elevator with super and laundry at the Forest Hills-
Rego Pak border 4 blocks from the subway
3. all apartments take supersized dogs, and have leases that can
be renewed for as long as tanents atys int he apartment. Rents
in each are capped at rent-stabilized incease rates the first
four years after the initial lease expires
4. from my perusal of saved SE rental listings the market in
Clinton Hill is moving much more quickly than that in Queens
5. the studio market in Queens is also a starter market for new
graduates, while Clinton Hill apts got older tenants
6. within the last four weeks, I have had two people sign leases
and back out, and three agree to and not follow through
7. I have marketed my Forst Hills apt exclusively on Craigslist
8. is this the "new normal" for the cheaper, younger end of the
rental market because of the economcy, or simply normal for CL.
9. the putative tenants in question were SF 56, SF w.child 46,
SM early 30's, SF about 30, SF with 5 yr old
THOUGHTS?
that price is very high for a small Forest Hills studio, and your prospective tenants realized it after a cursory search. People aren't (always) idiots. Price it fairly and it will rent.
you have a tiny apartment in a neighborhood where for $100 more per month they can get an oversized studio or a small 1 br. if you bring the price down to market, $1095, you will have someone sign. within the last few years, my friend was renting a 3 br/2 bth in the same area for $2500 per month.
you have a small 2 br in Clinton Hill that will appeal to more then a tiny studio in non yuppyfying neighborhood.
Try again
1. you have a tiny apartment
2. in a neighborhood where for $100 more per month they can get an oversized studio or a small 1 br.
3. if you bring the price down to market, $1095,
4. will have someone sign.
5. within the last few years, my friend was renting a 3 br/2 bth in the same area for $2500 per month.
6. you have a small 2 br in Clinton Hill that will appeal to more then a tiny studio in non yuppyfying neighborhood.
AB11218:
1. the apt is not tiny: it's larger than a majority of area studios
3. while some alcoves and 1-bds are asking $1350-$1550 most are asking more
3. and most come with broker fees and require coop board approvals making net rent $125+/mo. higher
4. also coop board approval drives rents down because of the cost and uncertainty
5. right now SE has only three Forest Hills-Rego Park studios asking under $1200
6. all require Coop board approval and have broker fees: 1-2 are also not well-located
7. SE has three other studio coops in the area between $1200-1299
8. my lease package is also far superior: no fee; lifetime lease; capped rents for 4 years; XL dogs
9. tenants have always paid a rent premium to get that package;
10. so I dont think it's my asking rent, the more since people can always counter-offer
11. either it's the market: I have received only 1 call from a relocator, school graduate,
school starter or new hire
12. or the diffculty in cutting thru all of Craiglist's spam ads and its declining reputation
Thank you for your thoughts
"I rented two apartments in Clinton Hill this month for good rents, including a 780 ft 2-bd for $3,000/month"
Is 780 sqft a 2 bedroom these days? I guess I'm getting old, it used to be a one bedroom. I can also remember renting a 650 sqft studio back in the day. Any respectable 2 bedroom was always over 1,000 sqft.
The apt is tiny and won't fetch 1295. If your apartment appeals to the recent grads/starter apt, the long term lease perk means nothing. It is great the building allows XL dogs, but even if the XL dog lived there alone it would be tiny. Recent grads want to be as close to Manhattan as possible, so areas like Astoria, LIC, Sunnyside, Woodside, Jackson Heights & Elmhurst will be considered first before Rego Park.
It's tiny.
In England it would be called a "bed-sit".
Angray:
1. I also rented a 1-bd in Astoria in June
2. the market there was weaker in fact than it appeared to be on paper
3. both Astoria and Forest Hills-Rego Park were renting much more slowly than
Clinton Hill-fort Green in June
4. the apt is larger than the average Manhattan studio
5. if size were an issue I wouldnt have had so many rent it
6. I htink it's the economy
7. I ran an open house for my Clinton Hill 1-bd in late June w/o listing an asking price
8. most of the people who responded had $1100-#1300/month budgets; many a lot lower
9. even studuos in that area start in the $1600s to $1700s
10. they were people who were priced out of the market who can afford almost nothing
11. unreported inflation which affects poorer people disproportionately may be one explanation
12. the job market is another: the WSJ reports 25% of US males 20-24 are not working or in school
13. or it might be Craigslist, where most of the area rental ads are No Fee by Owner by broker
actually charging a fee, which could lead prospective renters to assume that my ads are phony
Thank you for your thoughts
How large is the average Manhattan studio?
12. : They are living in their parents' basement. Check back in 10 years they'll still be there.
13. : Isn't there any place else other than Craigslist?
I think your asking rent in Rego Park is way too high (almost $1300 for a tiny 375 square feet), the whole studio size is just the same size of a living room (with dinning area or foyer included) in a typical Rego Park apartment. My friend just rented a two bedroom (around 1000 square feet) in the same area of Rego Park for less than $1800.
Since there are a lot of bigger apartments in queens, many people try to find roommates to share a two bedroom apartment (which can be converted to three as the living room is quite large), and reduce the cost of each person of about $600-900. This is Queens. since they are willing to travel such far distance, the people try to reduce the cost as much as possible by all means. They don't care too much the pretentious Manhattan address or living alone in a tiny studio.
The streeteasy or craigslist is not popular among the renters in Queens as most apartments are tiny and asking way too much rents and not many real realtors/landlords advertise there. A lot of renters are able to find apartments through the local realtors by paying less than one month's broker fee or even by having the landlord to pay the broker fee.
I think if you are trying to ask a local realtor to rent out your tiny studios, you will find out what is exactly happening in the local market.
If no one has rented it yet it is over priced. The market sets the price.
This is not even remotely approaching difficult. The studio is overpriced. Cut it to $1,100. Period.
Rb, not really my customer, but my impression is that your target renter is indeed coming to NYC from some other town where unemployment is worse, and then packing two to a room in Bushwick. It may not even occur to them to look in Forest Hills because they don't know the city, but to the extent that they do they feel they have their culture/a support system in Brooklyn.
Plus CL also increasingly difficult to deal with -- I don't think I've used it in nearly two years -- have you tried the Voice or the NYT? (expensive, I know).
ali r.
DG Neary Realty
I think the benefits you add to the apt (ie constraining rent increases, dogs) are not as valuable to a first-time tenant transplant. They want to imagine the apartment as one year step to getting their place in Manhattan or Brooklyn.
Yeah, Forest Hills, unlike northwestern Brooklyn (anywhere), LIC, or Astoria is neither super close to fun-young-people bars by one subway stop or two or a short walk, nor an area where lots of young-fun-people themselves live.
rb,
1 - craigslist is bad for sales, it is so much worse for rentals..
2 - no one envisions themselves living in a studio for the rest of their lives, so your benefits are nil.
3 - most people who look in queens for a small studio will not have a huge dog. those kinds of idiots only look in manhattan or within 2 miles of the island.
4 - go to local realtors and have them advertise/rent your apartment, what do you care.
5 - as many after me said, "You are overpriced"
6 - Rego Park/Forest Hills are in no way hip, fun or the in place to live. it's the last resort for many who want to live in NYC as a whole. i, myself, would rather live in Forest Hills/Rego Park then Bushwick/Clinton Hill/Bed Sty, but i grew up in brooklyn and have a head on my shoulders. but i would not rent your studio for $1300, i'd rent a 1 br for that, be it small.
All true,ab.
#6, especially.
And comparing your experience with Clinton Hill to Rego Park/Forest Hills is pointless. It is perfectly logical that a safer, cleaner place like Forest Hills ought to command higher rents than Clinton Hill. But logic has nothing to do with it. Most people who rent in Clinton Hill would never say to themselves, "But I could get a studio in Rego Park for only $1,300, so I should live there instead of here."
^^^That. I mean, its safer and cheaper to live in BPC than in nearby Tribecca or Soho. Astoria is cheaper and lower crime than Hells Kitchen. But rents are higher, by a lot, in the fun hip yet more dangerous places. Young people want fun areas. I don't understand why this LL is arguing with reality.
Everybody:
1. checked out Village Voice
2. average asking price for Forest Hills studios is above $1280
3. and most include broker's fees
4. most are asking $1300 or more
5. local brokers tend to know their local market
6. from an evidence of market value perspective, their collective opinion
is of great weight because they are qualified experts acting in their
own self-interest
7. however, when markets drop sharply within a short period of time, brokers
often lag the market in their pricing
8. I posted ont he Voice and again on Craigslist
9. and let you know how things go
10. another interesting observation
11. about 1/2 of all my callers are looking for 1-2 bds
12. there are none at my price point in my geographic area
13. the only time I get that kind of mismatched calling is when large
numbers of people are priced out of the rental market and desperate
14. I personally think the US economy might be heading towards full-blown
collapse and an thus looking very carefully at the responses to my
rental ads for evidence of that
Thank you all of you for your thoughts
you are over-priced to the market. period
rb345:
1. Rego Park isn't Forest Hills (is this four block from the Rego Park stop or 67 Ave?)
2. This is about 10-20% less square footage than an average studio
3. If you are comparing Forest Hills to Clinton Hill then you must think Apts in Jamaica are a steal.
4. I am currently renting a ~500 sq. ft. 1-br. apartment in Woodside for ~$1,150 (albeit due to rent stabilization, lease is 2-yrs old) so I guess I have a huge deal compared to your unit.
THOUGHTS?
rb - if you're having trouble renting the apartment at this price, the brokers told you the wrong price. Yes, they should know, but they can be wrong. You need to put distance between the price of your studio and the price of a 1-br in the same building or nextdoor, and it needs to be a sizable distance.
lowerylowery:
1. I havent spoken to any brokers about ptice
2. I am using their asking prices as a price guide
3. part of my problem is that I dont have anyone reliable to show my apt
4. and am too busy to show it myself which nakes it harder to get people before they rent something else
So you are a lously rental agent, but it's ok because you are your own client. You can come to streeteasy and complain.
rb - sounds like a neighborhood broker is what you need - that way you don't have to be there to show it, and they can go three or four times a day - they ought to have a sense of what price will feel right to viewers - going by ads is misleading - maybe there are listings you don't see advertised, and maybe the ads you see are for the overpriced units - also, you may be finding the rental market isn't quite as superhot as it's made out to be
I found you listing. The pictures are too small to see. The Forest Hills/Rego Park border is Yellowstone Blvd., so Wetherole St. is not in Forest Hills. You are getting calls for 1 bedrooms because the title of the listing does not state it is a studio. You need to remove the fact that it will be available June 25th since we are well past that date. Having the June 25th date in the listing shows laziness and that the apartment isn't renting. There are typos like "laregg couch" in the listing. I don't get why it says "lifetime lease" and capped rent" in the listing and don't understand why a sponsor unit in a coop would give you the right to automatically renew - you should go into more details on the terms of this. As nice as your coop board may be, board approval still is a hassle that demands a lower price. Also, if the tenant doesn't have to cover the board application fee, that should be made clear in the listing.
Woodside Paul:
1. the ad was posted late on Saturday nite
2. it contains ewrors but SE hasnt responded to mey e-mails asking for info on how to change add
3. June 25th should have been Sunday, July 25th
4. the apartment is a Sponsor Unsold Share
5. as such it doesnt need Coop board approval: that also got left out of the ad
6. the reason I offer a lifetime lease is that case law requires me to
7. a decsiin of the appeals court for landlord-tenant court in Queens, Brooklyn
Staten Island and Westchester called Paikoff requires Holders of Unsold Shares
like myself to automamitcally offer all of our Unsold Share sub-tenants renewal
lease under the Rent-Stabilization Code (the appellate court in Manhattan has
ruled in the exsact opposite manner)
8. so whoever rents my Wetherole studio will get a lifetime leaae
9. as well as rents which I voluntarily cao fior 4 years under the Rent-Stabilization Code.
10. my Craigslist ads explain that ... and pulled five callers yesterday
11. the unique lease provisions of my lease is one reason my apt is priced as it
GRASSHOPPERS
1. the apartment rented yesteday at $1295
2. with a back-up app
3. I changed my marketing
4. first person who saw it took it
5. second person who saw it wanted it
6. thank you to all of you for your recommendations and observation
rb, thanks for the update.
Ali:
1. I changed my marketing
2. before last week I had a friend answer ad calls because I was busy
3. last Tuesday I started using a different cell # than my usual one
4. I promptly got four qualified leads for a Wednesday evening showing
5. with two takers and two no-shows
6. it might have been the end of the month surge of people who must move
7. even after pulling my ads I kept getting calls, tho not many
8. I remain struck by the weakness of that outer borough middle income market
9. to me that raises a serious caution flag about all but elite NYC neighborhoods
Thank you again to everybody for your suggestions and input
When shall we begin burning our dollars and start hoarding guns and canned goods?
>When shall we begin burning our dollars and start hoarding guns and canned goods?
Idiot