brokers showing no-fee apts

I am not a broker, but I don't think he did anything slimy by showing you an apartment you requested to see through him. secondly, it wasn't his credit check or deposit fee. it was your lack of rental-market knowledge that put you in this position but yeah that's NYC rental market for you. I always use brokers because they do make the process lot easier, but yeah you can get open listings by yourself if you have lots of spare time to walk around the city grabbing different keys and scheduling shows.

what a scum broker--sue em in small claims

provide the name here, pls, so others can avoid

well, your application isn't with the broker- it's with the landlord/their management company- go to them.

be very clear as to whether the $500 is a deposit or an application fee or something else.

I think you want to know will you "win" in small claims court, not whether you can take him.

Who cashed the deposit?

Did you give a certified check or personal check? If person, stop payment on it.

As much as I hate brokers, I don't think the broker did anything wrong. That is one of the services they provide - you tell them what type of apartment you want and they take you to 3-4 that meet your requirements. Of course, you pay a fee for that.

i disagree--i think it's sleazy for a broker to show a no-fee apt to client and not to be up front about it.

and, where a client pays for a credit check and a "deposit" towards a lease, and the lease is unsigned, and the client chooses not to sign, for the broker to not insure the return of the deposit to the client, is also sleazy.

chopsooey--use nybits.com, and give up the name.

Why didn't you do a google search to find the apartment first?
It may be no fee, but the broker did find apartment for you.

I am by no means a brokers advocate, but I think she deserves something for finding the apartment for you,

I'm no broker or broker lover but why is it slimy what he did?

Broker showed you an apartment that you didn't know about, you liked it and were willing to put in a deposit.

Why isn't he entitled to compensation for his work?

It's slimy because the deposit shouldn't have been collected until the full application package, including all documentation, was ready to be submitted. It has less to do with the no-fee aspect. If renter is not comfortable with any of the documentation requested, it shouldn't happen down the line. And if it does the broker must be graciously willing to release the deposit.

Specifically, you should sue in night court (every other Thursday) in Harlem, likely an inconvenience for broker. Be sure Harlem is a valid venue for you based on your/his county of residence.
http://www.nycourts.gov/courts/nyc/smallclaims/courthours.shtml#harlem

Ideally, he'd pay up at the mere thought.

Default judgment in your favor is likely (certain?) if defendant doesn't show or otherwise respond.
http://www.nycourts.gov/courts/nyc/smallclaims/definitions.shtml#d

Collection is another rigamarole if he/brokerage are not cooperative, but the cancelled check's info will help you to hit up the defendant's account. Court clerk's office can advise on sheriff or whatever.

As a broker, I have to say that while you can always find no fee rentals by yourself, it takes both time, and footwork and so the broker is indeed providing a service. As long as their fee is reasonable, and you like the broker, he/she should be compensated for his knowledge and time. Too many people feel that we should "work for free" and resent paying a fee of any kind. Landlords and owners no longer (or rarely) will incentivize us to rent units, and so in essence, the fee must come from the renter. We'd certainly prefer the landlord or owner pay us, but as that doesn't happen, it has to come from somewhere.

Sorry, I assumed the broker was not charging a fee to the prospective tenant in the event that the deal is completed -- he is, after all, being compensated by the landlord for that in a "no-fee" situation.

But if I'm wrong, rkbraines, are you seriously suggesting that a broker should be able to double-dip, and get full commissions from both LL and tenant?

More broadly speaking, rental agents as a whole provide no service. Their industry keeps rentals off the open market, thus artificially creating the "need" for "services".

If illegal, as tenant-paid rental agents should be, any tenant could find an apartment at no greater cost than the same rent, simply by going to the web or walking around a neighborhood. Amazingly, that's how it works in virtually the entire country. When a LL wants to outsource the basic functions of his business, the LL is the one to pay someone to do it.

1) The industry standard is that brokers are paid upon realization of the lease- while it may be painful for this broker, that the OP was not clear on the elements of the business transaction and decided to pull, OP is within his rights to do so, and broker should not expect comp.

2) What is the deposit for? Isn't there a document, signed or not, presented upon payment that makes clear if it is refundable or nonrefundable? I think there is a pretty good chance it was an application fee, in which case simply submitting the application makes the money go poof.

well said AH

op: "I put in an application with $500 for a deposit"

I assume this is a deposit to be applied to rent after approval of tenant and signing of lease.

What if LL had not approved tenant, due to bad credit or whatever?

And I stand by my prior statement that brokers should be up front about showing no-fee apts, for which they will expect a fee. It's skeevy not to.

Also, chopsoooey, be sure to demand credit-check fee returned as well. There's been no reason to run the check on you yet (your application package incomplete as it is), and besides that credit checks don't cost anywhere near $200, or even three figures ... so that's really another fee masquerading as a specific purpose.

If they are a RENTER's broker, then no. They don't need to tell you its no fee - you engaged them! If you are randomly answering a craiglist ad, then yes its skeevy. But if you walk into Citi or Halstead and say "show me apts" they have carte blanche.

Also TOP is a dummy.

first, OP what made this apartment "no fee"? Do you have proof that the owner is compensating the broker for the bringing them a client, or is it just a case of this owner/landlord dealing both with the public and brokers. in scenario 1, the broker is legally supposed to apprise you of where compensation comes from and you have a right to your deposit. in case 2, he/she did nothing wrong as this is the case a fair amount of time. caveat emptor.

alanhart
about 2 hours ago
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More broadly speaking, rental agents as a whole provide no service. Their industry keeps rentals off the open market, thus artificially creating the "need" for "services".

If illegal, as tenant-paid rental agents should be, any tenant could find an apartment at no greater cost than the same rent, simply by going to the web or walking around a neighborhood. Amazingly, that's how it works in virtually the entire country. When a LL wants to outsource the basic functions of his business, the LL is the one to pay someone to do it.

i think stock brokerage should be illegal. i should be able to call the companies i want to buy stock in and just deal with them directly. they brokerage firms collude to make that impossible.

sounds ridiculous doesn't it, fuckface?

I'm not a broker. But I think lots of building (condos or coops) charge a deposit (moving in fee?) and application fee. Maybe the broker himself doesn't charge a fee, but the building management would require fees.

I went to train at a company like that. well i can say is the $200 dollar fee is ridiculous but the 500 deposit is call a Good Faith Deposit is reasonable because its for the landlord to know you are serious about getting this apartment and you a couple of days to get your paperwork in order i had 3 deals fall through because the client decides to wait another day

So you hire a broker to show you apartments, and he is slimy because you went to look up the building and found your apartment direct to the owner? So now you want to sue him for trying to get you approved and taking an apartment off the market with your deposit, and he is slimy?

A. The deposit should of came with an agreement that said it was non-refundable unless you get rejected.
B. The purpose of a deposit is to make sure you dont back out, and if you do, you lose it. You are actually lucky it wasnt a full months deposit and only 500.
C. You hired a broker, the building may charge no fee, but that doesnt mean the 3rd party you hired to find it for you doesnt. I know i know, you feel stupid because you could of found it on your own and saved the fee, but i bet you did run a search, i bet its not your first time on Streeteasy, so i will go on and bet you it did come up, but the pictures sucked, the location wasnt right, it didnt have the 800sf you wanted, etc, that was until the broker just took you there so you could actually see it. Now all of the sudden the listing pops up in all your searches, and that is because you are looking for it. This is why you hired the broker, to show you apartments that meet what you want, not what a picture or particular neighborhood name gives the listing online.

Angeloz, I think what is missing there is many people don't hire brokers to show them "any" apartments. They respond to ads with pictures of a specific unit and the broker redirects them.

I had the following situation in my last search. I responded to an ad for a reasonable-looking place in hells kitchen. The broker shows it to me, and it had unmentioned deal-killer aspects. She then insisted that since I'm there, see another unit. I told her absolutely not to show me no-fee buildings as I already had been searching for them separately. What does she do but walk me right to a Bettina building I had already researched but not visited, at which point I had to wipe it (and it was a decent no-fee unit) from my search because I didn't want to end up in a fight over who showed what.

jim_hones10
4 days ago
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first, OP what made this apartment "no fee"? Do you have proof that the owner is compensating the broker for the bringing them a client, or is it just a case of this owner/landlord dealing both with the public and brokers. in scenario 1, the broker is legally supposed to apprise you of where compensation comes from and you have a right to your deposit. in case 2, he/she did nothing wrong as this is the case a fair amount of time. caveat emptor.

I can't believe I actually generally agree with Jim bo on this. Wow! And to think just the other day I got CC and HB to agree on something( I forget)) too.

Hallelujah hallelujah

Expensive lesson learned. No Fee rentals are all used by brokers for a quick dollar for the unsuspecting rental consumer. All in all, there should be disclosure about the apt somewhere that it is no-fee. Perhaps streeteasy can be a central location where all buildings are marked no-fee (other than simply the listing) but have contact info for renters to no-fee buildings.

That's what urbansherpany.com was for (list of all no-fee landlords and availability)! But then they changed the website substantially and you can't find anything on there anymore :(

nybits.com

dnazinit
about 2 hours ago
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Member since: Jul 2011
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That's what urbansherpany.com was for (list of all no-fee landlords and availability)! But then they changed the website substantially and you can't find anything on there anymore :(

oh no! that's why my income keeps going up. lol

I've been a broker for 2 years and I can guess what happened here. Most likely the broker took you to an open listing which when you researched the address online you discovered the landlord is advertising the same unit for NO FEE. A simple streeteasy search in your neighborhood/criteria would have taken you to the listing first, most likely.
The broker's job is to find you an apartment. Once he does, doing a Google search of the address you obviously didn't spend the time or effort to find/schedule a viewing on your own definitely doesn't give you the right to call "FOUL".
Who's to say later in that day, if this particular broker just took you to only closed listings (which you are posing is the ethical thing for a broker to do, rather than perform the service of securing you an apartment). The closed listings available in the marketplace didn't do anything for you, and the broker said "Well that's all I have to show you." Something tells me you would have gone out with ANOTHER broker who took you to the same open listing and put in an application on the same unit and be here complaining what a slimebag the second broker is.
I've been a broker for 2 years. It's happened more than once with me, I find listings, I coordinate showings, I GET APPLICATIONS APPROVED with landlords I have a good relationship with-some are technically open listings. I get renters better deals. It might sound easy to you, but even on open listings, this amounts to hard work.
These brokers are not on a salary. This guy didn't do anything wrong. Its obvious you are new to this site due to this being your first post.

And if you signed a fee agreement with him, no, you are absolutely not entitled to your 500 dollars back.

Hi Guys im a broker in Nyc and I would like say that there seems to be a big misunderstanding on how this works. In reality I can tell you honestly that all apartments are technically NO FEE if you have the access, as in the connections or know how to get to the landlord unless it is a signed exclusive. There is a difference between an apartment that is no fee and the broker is being paid by the owner and then when the owner rents directly to clients if they have the resources to fidn their listings. Please note that Brokers work soley on commison and it is their sole job to help you find a home and that is what the broker did. The broker only fault may have been not tellign you that the deposit was non refundable due to the fact that you back out of the deal which is standard with management companies otherwise the apartment would be off the market for 2 days and people could pull out of the deal all the time hence the term good faith deposit. Dont get me wrong I agree with you that some broker fees are outrageous and some brokers maybe scammers but the judgement cast on a larger coomunity of professionals is based off a smaller group who does not consider this to be a career. I would urge you that when contacting a broker do some small research on them find out who they are and what their about . Lets not say we dont deserved to get paid for our services because at the end of the day we all are trying to work to make a better lives for ourselves and I would never say that you dont deserve to get paid for what you do because I respect everyone. Thanks

Since tenant did not apply broker or owner might be entitled
to keep the $500 deposit

please excuse my spelling and grammar errors

If good brokers would get their industry to eliminate bad brokers like my stalker Jim Hones, then good brokers would have more trust from the public.

Sorry chopsoooey, no offense but technically speaking you would actually be considered the "slimy" one in this case. The broker did his/her job and now you are trying to go around him/her to get the apt without them...Thats exactly why the deposit exists (if in fact is was a hold deposit and not a management company deposit), so brokers can be protected against renters who use them to find a place then try to go around them without paying a commission.

ia

about 2 hours ago

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If good brokers would get their industry to eliminate bad brokers like my stalker Jim Hones, then good brokers would have more trust from the public.

hi cunt. stalker? try again. and you (and most of the public) don't know what a good broker is. because you don't own the property. stop thinking as a consumer (you probably aren't bright enough to understand this) and you'll figure it out. and maybe then you will start making enough money to stop bitching about not being able to afford the rent.

Jim, do you own any property in NYC?

All apartments in the city can possibly be a 'No Fee' it is not what you know but who you know. If you are best friends with a building owner that usually uses a broker... Then it is a good bet you can possibly rent without a fee. You are using the services of an expert that lives to service customers in assisting in renting an apartment. Brokers often know about future vacancies before they are even available officially. Using a broker is getting what you pay for. i.e. Do you fly business class/first class or in coach?

nybits.com

did you know that nybits was owned by a brokerage firm yikes? probably not.