Rockrose/200 Water---to renew or not to renew?

almost all financial district buildings will have onsite offices which are staffed by their brokers so you don't need your own to see apartments...

However,

you will have to go on nybits.com and call each landlord individually and find out what apartments are available. It is definitely easier to call a no fee broker that works in the financial district, blackstone, platinum properties, etc... and ask them to show you available apartments. They will get paid by the landlord and you don't have to do any research.

200 water is one of the nicest buildings in the financial district behind 95 wall street, the metro lofts at 34 wall and NY Plaza. If you're really getting a 1 bed for $3000, that is a great deal. You may find the other buildings to be way less snazzy.

90 west, 90 washington and 21 west always had the best deals when I would go down there to show.

Best

Don't use a broker in the financial district - almost all of the rental buildings have rental offices you can pretty much just walk into. I live in a metro loft building down here and they run a website www.rentfidi.com listing the vacancies in their properties. Good luck!

You're not the only one - I just got my renewal package, which jacked rent up from ~$2,000/mo by about $400 on a studio... It's a great building but a $450,000 mortgage costs the same per month before tax deductions on interest (granted co-ops have fees/taxes).

I moved out a Rockrose building to 95 Wall to catch their incentives a few years ago. Both the other Rockrose building and 95 Wall partially giving in to my rent ask but only after I had already signed a new lease. At the end of the day they would rather keep the same tenant than have to have the unit open for a month.

Good luck

i think it's silly not to use a broker in the financial district unless you know exactly what building you want. there is no way that the tenant is going to get a better deal than a broker that gets constant updates of available apartments in the city. There are so many buildings and more keep popping up every day.

Let the landlord pay them and tell them that you won't go see buildings that are fee ( i think there are 2 or 3 in the financial district).

best

Unless you are set on staying in "FiDi" proper, try looking across West St in Battery Park City. Lots of nice buildings, with many 1BRs listed for less than $3000. Most of the buildings in BPC have on-site leasing offices, so no fee to the tenant. A few suggestions (they all have websites, but SE won't allow me to include all of 'em in the email): milford management, south cove plaza, brodsky, the solaire or verdesian.

Totally untrue, Snezan. You can always argue that since the landlord isn't paying a broker's fee, they can cut you a free month of rent instead. And each building maintains its own website, so you can monitor availability very easily. There are not so many buildings that this is hard to do, and with inventory at 1% you're not going to be flooded with so many new listings that you miss some gem.

OK here are a few issues I have with some of the comments above:

You should always at least talk to a broker. They have more information on the listings than you do, and they will be able to help you no matter what people would have you think. You don't have to pay them to talk to them.

If you're thinking about renewing your lease but want to negotiate, what information will you use to get a lower rent? You're a good tenant? That is great and all, but there are a lot of 'good tenants' in Manhattan.

Lets say comparable prices are still in effect for similar units in the same building. Why would they negotiate price for you when it would be more cost effective for them to have the apartment vacant for a month until they find a new, equally or better financially qualified tenant?

The list goes on and on...

These are all issues brokers deal with on a daily basis. Talk to one even if you don't want to use one. Most are happy to help you over the phone with basic issues you might have concerning this.

Only bad or new brokers wont help you. Any good or experienced broker knows that helping people almost always leads to referrals (the only sustainable way to get clients over time.) And if you call one and they help you, don't be ashamed to tell people how well everything turned out.

Chris Riewaldt
Licensed Real Estate Agent

http://www.nyls.net/agentdetails.aspx?agent=55125

Ok here is an issue I have with one of the above postings:

"You should always at least talk to a broker."

Utter and complete BULLSHIT. This is a no-fee building. only a complete fucktard would speak to a broker about a no-fee building. Almost ALL the buildings below Chambers street are no fee. IF they pay the broker's fee, they WON't also give you a free month.

You can throw a piece of tissue paper in gale force winds and still be guaranteed to hit a no-fee doorman building with an on-site rental office and phone number on a big banner.

Brokers are not always scum, and are often quite helpful (if you want say a quaint little west village pied a terre.) But in this case the poster above is one level above Satan.

I have to say i agree with Jason on this one. There is absolutely no use of a broker on a no fee building and i do not care what Chris says most of the time you go meet a broker you unknowingly sign away your life.

Chris you obviously also have issues with a licensed real estate agent being smarter then a renter. Lets make it clear that anyone can take and pass the test and call themselves a licensed real estate agent. i looked at your bio and it states you are a musician and an audio engineer. What was your training for advising on real estate as that should be in your bio.

To answer your negotiation question, i am not sure where you get it would be better to lose a tenant then negotiate. There is always a month lag or some lag between a tenant moving out and a new tenant coming in, as you normally need to clean, paint, etc. So lets say you are paying 3500 a month, they want 3800 a month, and you offer 3750 a month. so the differnce is $1800 over the year. Are you telling me that they would rather kick you out over $1800 when they will lose the $3750 for at least one month?

I do not understand your equally or better financially qualified tenant comment either. If this person was not qualified he would not be there already, if he did not pay on time, they would not offer to renew.

This is typical of an inexperienced broker looking for a commission. of course you would say you know better you need people to get your fee.

Before coming on here and advertising yourself to get business, don't post a rambling message telling people on here that they do not know what they are talking about. Most of us have rented and or bought and sold apartments. We all understand the system and also have learned that with techonology and online listings, etc, brokers are becoming useless in a lot of the rental process.

I have plenty of friends in the past few years that on their own negotiated for lower rents then they were paying on a renewal lease. No need for a broker to get involved.

Please come again when you understand real estate, oh and let me know your qualifications other then the music background that qualifies you more then a lot of us.

Borktanic?

You don't have to get a broker unless you'd like to rent a condo.
Check out the no-fee rental listings on www.nybits.com.
I guess Rockrose may have offered you a 2-month free rent when you signed your lease last year.
That is probably why you paid only $2,550 for a 1-bedroom in such a nice building.

Anyways, my current lease is up and I'm very interested in renting a studio at 200 Water St. Can I ask you a few questions about the building?

What do you like most about your apartment and the building?
What about the thickness of walls? Do you often hear your neighbors?

Thanks and good luck!

Thanks for all the advice. We're going to some looking this weekend, I'll keep you posted.

jcc10004 --- 200 Water St. is a great building. It is large (around 33 floors) but does not feel crowded whatsoever. The gym, rooftop, and laundry room are usually empty. Most of the tenants are young, but it's not a party building. The doormen are wonderful. Whenever we need maintenance, we let them know via the buildinglink website and they are in our apartment fixing the problem within a couple hours. It's close to 4 major subway lines and across the street from the Seaport (which is lovely year round). We've never heard any noise from our neighbours (so I'm guessing the walls are quite thick). I don't want to oversell the building because we want to stay---but I really can't say a bad thing about it!

w67thstreet
2 days ago
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Borktanic?

I suggest trying Pine Management, they have no fee apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Visit their site at www.pinemanagement.com.