Brokerage firms to use/avoid for rentals?

It all depends on what you are looking for. If you are looking for a medium to high end rental, your larger firms such as the ones you mentioned may be better suited to 1) handle those deals and 2) know which buildings are right for you off of the bat.

If you are looking for inexpensive rentals, you may be better off choosing a company such as CitiHabitats that focuses on rentals, or even a smaller company that is deeply rooted in a particular area (I have no idea where you are looking).

When it comes to sales, every firm that is a member of REBNY shares its listings. When it comes to rentals, it helps to send your listing out if it is an exclusive so that you can reach the most people. But if it is an open listing, some companies will not have immediate access to those same listings.

Your best bet, if you want to work with a broker, could be to find someone with listings that you think resemble what you want and then ask them what else they have available. This is not to say that someone with only sales listings should be avoided, especially if they have sales listings in the area you want to rent, but it is just some advice.

Best of luck.

Stay away from the firms that are listed on Craigslist. They are BS artists and use bogus pictures.

All of them.

nybits.com.

Craigslists includes scammers who copy other ads word-for-word (including the phone number of the real owner/broker so that visitors to open houses think the ad is real), but the email address is fake. When people follow-up via email, they're asked to wire money overseas and never see it again. Careful!

Why go through a broker at all? Why not find an apartment through the big management co's?

@grunty: The original poster hasn't at any point said what they are looking for. In some situations, you can go to the management company (assuming you can find it). In others you have no choice but to use a broker. Until the OP provides a little more info, the info here is as good as it gets.

nybits.com is a GREAT site as well.

It really depends on what you mean by "decent" -- I remember a couple of months ago there was a "luxury" apartment rental thread and I told the poster that I specialized in luxury rentals (which I do) only to find out that his/her definition of a "luxury" rental was a $3K 1-BR.

In general, all the brokerage firms share their rental listings, and if you want to pay at median price or above, anyone can help you.

The exception is if you're looking in a specific neighborhood or for a specific thing, and then you want a specific specialty broker -- because some of the inventory you might want to look at isn't technically on the market yet, and thus hasn't hit the shared listing pool.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

Thanks, everyone. I'm looking for a one bedroom rental on the UWS (doorman building) for around $3000. I've been trying to go through either craigslist by owner or contacting management co's directly, but I don't want to miss out on the coop/condo rentals that might be out there. I am definitely wary of most of what is on craiglist other than by owner, which is why I'm trying to figure out if there are brokerage firms that are worth looking at directly for listings. I would much rather avoid a brokers fee, but if it gets me into an apartment in a great location that I like a lot, I'll do it.

a lot of what you want might be on nytimes.com -- you could check those listings out and see if you think they're better than what you are seeing on CL before you commit to spending $$ on a broker.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

Use streeteasy with the "must have address" option and contact exclusive listing brokers directly. Most of those at Corcoran and whatnot will be real. For other companies, check the other listings from that broker. If you see they have 18 listings, they're fishing. If there are no pictures, skip the listing.

nada, that's pretty stupid. what if the photos aren't up because the apartment is under renovation? or because folks still live in the apartment? very stupid.

If the apartment is occupied by the owner, they have access for pics. If it's rented, they'll have pics from the last go, or they just ask the tenant for permission to take pics (contractually obligated per the lease, but won't get there if LL-tenant relations are good). On "being renovated", the OP was asking about coops/condos. Those usually don't get renovated looking for an incoming tenant.

Now, I understand that you might live in an lower-quality rental building and certainly peddle these same buildings, but the point is that there is an entire market you seem ignorant of. This market wants high quality and is at a pay grade where walking from pic-free listing to pic-free listing on the off chance that of a decent listing just doesn't cut it for them.

Hones, what's your opinion on the rest of my tactics -- the "must have address" thing, and skipping brokers with 18 listings?

Front_porch suggested NYtimes.com but those listings seem to be mostly from the same handful of companies which , I don't know, but seem sketchy. Platinum Properties, Caliber,Manhattan Connection, New York Living, Quality Living, Metropolitan, Nestseekers. Am I wrong about these places?

I think you're looking for listings from Real Estate Board of New York member companies -- that's our trade association. REBNY member companies shouldn't list rentals without addresses (though one or two notably do) but if you just looked for the listings with addresses you should be fine.

Like most firms, our firm buys classifieds in bulk on NYTimes.com, and when we get a new rental listing we tend to throw it in -- they don't stay up long because if they're well-priced they go.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty
member, Real Estate Board of New York