how many units you saw before renting?

I saw about 80 apts over a 4 months period before finding mine. You wouldn't believe the amount of overpriced crap i've been offered...

Back when I was a renter, I saw two units before settling on the one.

I stayed there for 10 years.

why did you bother seeing the second one? no formica countertops?

One.

I'd been looking to buy for a few years, had thought a lot about neighborhoods and apts, and had even made a few offers that had fallen through. So it was very clear when I saw the place for rent that it was an infinitely better arrangement for me than anything I'd seen on the market for sale.

Pre-SE, 50+. Post-SE, around 20.

Yes, i think it's important to note that in my case, that was before Street Easy existed. A time when Ny'ers relied on Village Voice, Craigslist , your daily newspaper and local agent in the neighborhood... Very few listings had pictures unlike now.

Here's a question for those of you who used agents. How many times did you see the same apartment apartment before you gave up on the "one agent, one apartment" method of searching?

Yeah, post SE, in 2009, about 8-10 over a month. Pre-screened online.

NYCREAgent: never. I scheduled appointments with the listing agents exclusively. Best time to view is mid-week when all the agents' schedules are free, and you can bang out 5 or 6 in a couple of hours back-to-back.

About 6. It was the most miserable thing I've ever done involving RE. I hated every second and every aspect of looking for a rental from finding the places, to dealing with the agents, to the time-suck of managing companies and their awful customer service (like never picking up the phone or returning messages). Torture. All of it. We ultimately found a great pre-war in phenomenal location with awesome staff. FWIW, it was far far from a bargain. But at least it was no fee. I was so relieved after seeing 5 horrid other places that I couldn't sign fast enough.

Probably 20 or 25. All through listing agents (if condos) or directly through management companies. We had pretty specific criteria, and were willing to put in the time and effort to get it right. Glad we did, but it sure was painful.

I saw at least a couple dozen places to rent in 1987, and stayed for 2 years. Then, I saw at least a dozen places before buying in 1989. In 1998, a life change signaled time to downsize which took at least 30 tries. What I learned from the experience was that attractive smaller units go very, very quickly.

KW & NYCMatt, how many before buying?

Before buying, about 20 in 1988 and when I bought in 2008 we had looked at about 80. The buying process was a lot more fun throughout the "looking" phase. We really loved open houses and the Sundays spend wandering from one to another, taking notes, trying to imagine our lives in each place, etc. I'd walk through the apartments and renovate them in my mind, tweak the floor plans, pare down the units to their "bones" in my mind's eye, think about what I'd do to them. Looking back at the way the process of renting compared to the process of buying, it is hard to believe they were even related activities given how dreadful the former was for us and how fun the latter was. I do not mean to imply any universality to our experience--it was how we responded given our own situation and the two processes may well elicit quite different emotional responses from other perfectly sane people.

I'm entertained by how many people (you're not the only one) take the process of renting so much less seriously than buying. Granted, it was a long time ago for you, and you were in a different place in your life. In the end, you're going to spend similar amounts of money, so why be flippant about one but not the other? I know, length of time you're going to spend in the place. But if you really like looking, looking for rentals should be fun too. I can take you out at some point and show you how it's done. Like most things in life, you're going to get out what you put into it IMO.

Nads - Can you explain to us here how it's done without us actually having to go inside a rental property, or share a vertical conveyance with a rental broker?

Can you ask Van Gogh to explain how he paints? He dips the brush in the paint and swipes some strokes.

If you play nice, I'll let you come along too. From the descriptions of the places you've rented, it seems like you could use the experience.

Renting sucks the life force from my veins, which is why I never want to get close to another one. But thanks for the offer.

inoada, I'm not sure how you concluded I took renting less seriously. It was very serious. At it was quite recent--not a long time ago. I rented in 2007 and 2008. One was coop sublet for 6 mo and the other was regular rental where we ended up for a year. At the time we rented the latter, we had not found something to buy and were fully prepared for the possibility that the rental we signed could be our home for years. It was a very serious decision.

But when renting, one does not envision moving a wall here, expanding a closet there, redoing the kitchen, or installing a glass partition in the tiled shower you will put in with a shower head that feels like you are under a waterfall. When renting, you imagine some new paint (that you know you'll have to cover with white before leaving), and you ask yourself "can I live with this kitchen, bath, closet configuration. When renting you hesitate to pay for custom closets and to install mouldings to make the place feel finished. It is different.

And it IS NOT the same amount of money. I can walk away from a rental anytime I want. Buying is a longer prospect--it is setting stakes for the future (at least it was for us since we wanted a place we could stay for 10-20 years). One is necessarily more vested--literally and figuratively) in a home they will own versus in someone else's home they will rent. These are some of the emotion aspects that many people figure into the rent vs. buy decision that don't show up on a balance sheet but can matter a lot to people.

We loved making our home in the rental prewar with the step-down living room and wonderful views. It was a fun year. But shortly after we signed the lease, though, we found "the" apartment that we purchased and it took almost a year before it was ready for us to move in (going to contract, closing, and renovation process). That is why the rental was just one year. But we didn't know that's how it would end up when we signed for it, and it was taken seriously.

That said, it was a miserable, awful process of finding the rental and the fees seemed like gouging for many we looked at. I hated, hated, hated, hated it.

KW, the numbers say it all. You looked at 6 places to rent vs. 80 places to buy. Given that you couldn't change certain aspects of the place you were renting, shouldn't you have been more selective? It seems like you saw 5 places that were horrid, and then you saw a 6th that was poorly-priced by liveable and said "good enough". Imagine you decided to purchase the best of the first 6 homes you saw for buying because you couldn't stand the process / figure out how to make it better. That's what you did on the rent side, IMO.

I know you take great pride in your apartment, and ownership provides you with happiness, and I don't want to take away from that. But let's get serious. A person who looks at 6 places to rent vs. 80 to buy, reacts with "hated, hated, hated", does a 6-month sublet of a coop, and then purchases shortly after moving into a rental (why the heck were you looking at 80 places to buy during this same time?) is not serious about finding a great place to rent and truly making a home there.

As far as a search, it depends on whether KW used a broker or not. Brokers make money based on volume, and as a result, we really do show the "best things first." There's no point in seeing 80 rentals with a broker, because if the broker has any skill at all, everything good in that set of 80 will have been shown in the first 8.

The one exception to this rule is if someone is low-balling their budget; then a prolonged hunt will produce better results because the client will be unhappy with the first cull and move his/her budget up to produce more satisfying results.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

kylewest is right - it's a MUCH bigger commitment to buy. I still took renting very seriously (because I knew we would be plunking down $50-$70K / year for at least a couple years), but as kylewest says, if we find out we made the wrong choice, the cost of correcting that choice is moving costs + headache of looking again + maybe $10K broker fee (or maybe not).

By contrast, if we buy and realize we made the wrong choice, the cost of correcting that choice is $200K of transaction costs on the way in and out, plus renovation costs (could be huge $$), plus the risk of a market decline in that time (could be huge $$). Plus still the moving costs and headache of looking again.

Even now, when we are pretty focused on buying, we are finding that we are having a very hard time finding a place we love at a price we can live with. And we really, really hate the idea of settling. But, because we really do *have* to move, if we are forced to settle, I'd much rather settle for a rental than settle for something we buy.

Back in the day when I rented my first and only Manahattan apartment, a 650 sqft alcove studio for $350, I saw about 6 apartments.

"NYCMatt, how many before buying?"

About 30.

As Kyle pointed out, buying is a much bigger commitment.

I was also slogging through a roster of idiot brokers who refused to show me what I wanted, including apartments three times more expensive than the budget I had set for myself ("But you can afford THIS range!"), and apartments with those fucking open kitchens ("There just aren't any apartments with separate kitchens in your price range!" -- WRONG!).

I see my experience is shared by many fellow owners and would-be owners. Inonada, I do not understand half of what you say and can't follow the logic of what you write. Why was I looking at 80 places? Because we wanted to buy something that had to be right for the next decade or two and weren't willing to settle. We'd have rather rented a nice place and kept looking to buy than to buy something we didn't love and which didn't fit our budget. The 6th apt we saw, btw, was not just "livable." It was wonderful. A huge one-bedroom that had a fresh reno and new kitchen and floors. I think it was about the best 1-bdrm rental available in the central village area where we wanted to live. My point was that even the best rental didn't compare for us to the experience of owning and creating the one bedroom of our dreams. The rental wasn't "badly priced." It was priced appropriately for what it was and the market reflects that since there is rarely availability in the building. Vacant apartments rent within about 60 days there. But no matter how good the rental was, we knew that for about the same money, we could own a place and make it our own. The "extra" costs for us were the reno costs which make the owned place cost a bit more. But that cost easily fits within our budget and longterm financial goals and is worth it to us.

I say time and time again, owning is not for everyone. But if it fits into your budget, you have conservative long term financial plans, and your goal is not to die with as much money as possible in the bank, owning provides the opportunity to enhance your quality of life in some very special ways--ways that we value each day we come home and every minute we are in our city home. For me it isn't a debate--it is something driven by individual financial circumstances and priorities/preferences.

Thank you Kyle. I couldn't have put it better.

There's an intangible quality to living in an apartment that is, without question, *yours*. I love going through MY apartment, running my hands over MY woodwork, cleaning MY windows, enjoying MY kitchen, and knowing that my decision to move will be MINE alone, and not because some overlord decided to raise my monthly housing costs.

Geez, I didn't mean to incite another "joys of ownership" post. You guys value ownership of stuff, you get great pride / validation in it, that's fine.

I'm merely pointing out that you just weren't as serious about finding a good place to rent as others might be. As you say, "owning provides the opportunity to enhance your quality of life in some very special ways". Why would you have been serious about renting a great place? It was merely a temporary step you had to take on your way to the bliss of ownership. From what I can gather from your words, you looked at 80 places to buy during the same period of time more or less that you looked at 6 places to rent, and you took a 6-month sublet knowing you'd have to move in 6 months. Those are not the actions of a person serious about renting a great home. Those are the actions of a person serious about buying a great home. No shame in it, own it.

The number of apartments for sale on the market vs. rent are about the same. Why would you think looking at 5 horrid ones plus a 6th acceptable one is suffient for ferreting out the great ones for renting when it's a pretty crappy idea for buying? Of the 20 places I saw, 5 were exceptional, 10 were acceptable, and 5 were horrid. I had a wonderful experience looking, pretty much every broker that showed me a listing was exceptionally professional. I didn't view it as a step to something else, I didn't find the experience awful, I didn't feel like the fees were gouging. How can you compare your "serious" in the rental market vs. my "serious" in the rental market or your "serious" in the purchase market?

In terms of central village apts, I don't think you understand what it takes to find a good one to rent. I have a friend in a nice top-floor duplex, great light, multiple outdoor space, double-height ceilings in some parts, large. Not fancy, but nice. Has been there for many years, still well-priced despite years of increases, ain't going nowhere.

I also saw an interesting place this past year, on Washington Square Park with a direct view. Old bones, but newly renovated kitchen and baths with a rustic look. Beautiful place, extremely well-priced. I saw it the day it came on the market, I was the second person to see it. It already had an offer from the first person to see it, and I didn't care for it enough to pursue it. The broker told me he had been waiting 7 years for this unit to come back on the market. It lasted all of an hour.

It is so true that exceptional apartments are rarely available to rent or to own. Whether those apartments are priced reasonably or expensively, they don't stay on the market long.

inonade, you're trying to pick a fight and I don't understand why. "I'm more serious than you," "I know really good apartments and the one your rented couldn't have been," "good rentals go really fast," etc. I'm not engaging in this anymore. If you need to believe I didn't care where I rented even though I realized I may live there for years, then you go ahead and hold on to that. I don't know why you even have an opinion on something so silly. I don't even understand the point of the thread at this point.

>" I was the second person to see it. It already had an offer from the first person to see it, and I didn't care for it enough to pursue it. The broker told me he had been waiting 7 years for this unit to come back on the market. It lasted all of an hour.

And that story is supposed to encourage people to rent?

I'm not trying to pick a fight, I'm just trying to understand the contradictions between your words and your actions/motives. Let me recap:

Ino: "I'm entertained by how many people (you're not the only one) take the process of renting so much less seriously than buying."

KW: "I'm not sure how you concluded I took renting less seriously."

Let the record state that KW believes he took the process of renting as seriously as buying. Let the record also state that Ino is left scratching his head as to why KW believes that despite the stated actions and motives of KW. Let peace return unto SE.

>Let peace return unto SE.

Peace be upon us.

Nada isn't really a bad person, just clownishly self impressed. He loves to read was he's written. He's also a self-hating closeted real estate broker.

Just look back at how many times he quotes himself, once just isn't enough with a man named nada!

The View from the Other Side of the Pond

1. many of my apts rent to the 1st person who sees them
2. at times I've even had multiple offers from one ad
3. if I show an apt 4x and it doesnt rent, I look for signs the ecomony has fallen into a depression
4. I hate it when someone says they really like my apt but need to "see just one more"
5. as a rule I dont rent to them
6. my ideal tenant froths with joy over what he or she has seen
7. while I dont actively encourage it, I allow applicants to kiss my feet as a gesture of appreciation

8. Nibbling of the toes will get you a month's free rent!

NYCMatt:

Since this is a family publication I cant say what gets a tenant (female) a free month's
rent. Let's just say that in my experience with rental market cycles:

1. when rents go down, landlords go down
2. when rents go up, tenants go down

Very nice, rb.

"Families" read this "publication"?

Since when?

Lucille with her multiple personas qualifies as a three-generation
family all by herself.

"Since this is a family publication I cant say what gets a tenant (female) a free month's
rent."

By the way, rb, I think it's highly sexist of you to not allow prospective male tenants to suck your toes.

Just sayin'.

This apt. - 5 (was seeing if I liked new types)
Last apt. - 2

Both were through management companies.

Part of it might be I know what I want, and that I'm always paying attention to apartments.
But I think some of has to do with not looking for cheaper rentals, sublets, or whatever. Compromise takes time I guess (my only major compromise was space, and I was ready for that).

rb345
about 2 hours ago
ignore this person
report abuse Lucille with her multiple personas qualifies as a three-generation
family all by herself.

saywhatnow?

can you please, for the record, state why you think this? besides various degrees of lucille, i've only been one person. it was never a secret. and even if this is what you think, what was the point of bringing this up on this thread where i didn't even participate. or are you suggesting someone here is another "lucille"? who?

probably 15-20 over a 6 month period

lucille:

just jest ... I've never really thought of you as having more than
two personalities

ok thanks for the clarification rb

We looked at half a dozen units over the course of 3 months to get a feel for the market, and then knocked out 5 or 6 places on a Saturday morning when we were serious. The next weekend we probably saw another 5 or 6 places. About a week later, the LL dropped the asking price on the unit we liked the most, and we signed the lease that afternoon. I actually noticed that the ask had been dropped online, and I ended a vacation in the Hudson Valley early to drive back and sign the lease, which was very well priced. We signed for 2 years.

Last time I looked at about 6. Before that about 10....