Apartment by owner - advice needed

I just started listing mine on here after years and years of CL, check out my thread for some more answers...

http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/12032-owners-worth-it-to-list-rentals-on-streeteasy

Best of luck!

Posting here is a good start. I believe that 15% is typical, but I'm not an owner and therefore not a very reliable source.

I think there's some way to pay Streeteasy to list an apartment. There was a discussion on this a few days ago, if you search the threads.

MAV - thank you for that, helpful discussion. I'll post on SE too.

starry, I assume/hope you know how to check out your prospective tenants so you don't get a lemon.

flatironj - yes, well I have a co-op, so the applicant would have to go through the board approval process, which is run by the building's management company. So the screening process is taken care of.

I'm also an owner and have used Craigslist for years. However, within the last two years increasing
numbers of people have come to distrust CL's no-fee-by-owner listings because of false postings by
brokers. It got to bad in 2007 that a number of prospective rentsrs asked me for proof that i actually
owned what I was advertising.

Craigslist worked well for me for years until the current depressions began. Now it's a much less reliable source of prospects.

It's expensive to advertise through the NYT, but not nearly as expensive as using a broker. I think the accepted standard has been to require the lessee to pay for it, but in this market that's going to be a very hard sell.

"I wanted to go the broker route, but the guy I wanted to use wanted me to sign an agreement that would make me liable to pay 15% of the annual rent, which was too much for me."

Who is this broker? The TENANT pays the commission, not the landlord! The only time you have to pay the realtor is when you sell.

Except, Alpine, that with plenty of no-fee inventory and the fact that it's a co-op requiring a board interview, it'll be hard to find a renter who's willing to pony up. I think Starry can do just fine locating a renter, between craigslist, NYT, SE, and word of mouth.

No, alpine, in this market the landlords are paying the fee more and more - not just small landloards, but Rockrose, Avalon, Rose, Brodsky, etc are advertising on their websites that they will now pay the broker's fee - where have you been?

Mega landlords like Avalon, Glenwood, etc. have always paid realtor fees. It's the small landlords that do not.

"Mega landlords like Avalon, Glenwood, etc. have always paid realtor fees."

Wrong, Alpine. This was flat-out not the case in the boom years. Perhaps you could get around it by contacting the office directly, but in that case there simply is no broker to be paid in the first place. You couldn't rent an Avalon, Glenwood, or other management company's apartment through a broker and expect them to pay the fee until very recently. God knows I'd have moved a lot sooner had that been the case.

An Avalon complex in NJ paid my realtor fee during the boom years.

Lucky you. That was New Jersey. Not exactly as desirable as Manhattan, so I suppose they had more negotiating room.

15% is usually negutiable, so he's just trying to take you for a ride by having you sign a contract.

in most cases, the commission is 1 month's rent. I'm too lazy to do the math, but I think 1 month is less than 15%.

That's what I thought. But I just didn't want to sign something that would make me liable to pay that kind of money - if it did come down to it. Broker was a nice guy...it's the company policy. Oh well. I might use BHS - they seem a little better to deal with. Though brokers are brokers....

One month would be 1/12 of the total.

$3000 * 12 = $36k. $3k/$36k=8.3%

Far, far less. And more the usual fee.

I could've lived with one-month fee. But it was a no go. 15% is just way too much.

Alpine, the major landlords did NOT pay broker fees in Manhattan for the five years prior to 2009. You would know that if you lived here.