Apartment rental question - sketchy broker?

My friend and I are looking to rent an apartment in NYC and have been looking for only a couple days so far. I'm not currently in the city so my friend has been handling all of the interactions with the real estate brokers so far. Yesterday he came across a VERY nicely sized apartment for a VERY good price (If it's too good to be true...), and we were very excited about it. I'm a paranoid person... [more]

My friend and I are looking to rent an apartment in NYC and have been looking for only a couple days so far. I'm not currently in the city so my friend has been handling all of the interactions with the real estate brokers so far. Yesterday he came across a VERY nicely sized apartment for a VERY good price (If it's too good to be true...), and we were very excited about it. I'm a paranoid person so I wanted to do some research on who we were working with before handing them any information. What I found, to me, seemed extremely sketchy and makes me not want to work with these guys, but I don't want to screw my friend out of a potentially good apartment because I'm overly paranoid. Here is everything that doesnt add up to me: * The person my friend talked to first (we'll call him John) has a linkedin that I found. There, he claims to have gotten his BA in 2012, but on the FB page of a company he appears on linkedin to currently work for, claims to have had an MBA by December 2013. However, he is currently representing a DIFFERENT company as a broker, one he has written as having stopped working at 2 years ago on linkedin. My friend claims he seems like a nice enough guy, and from what I've stalked out of him, he does. The things he claims do not add up, however. I don't see how someone finished an MBA less than a year after finishing their BA. I looked at his school's program and it is definitely a 2 year program. * Yelp reviews for the company he claims to work at are terrible. Very obvious shills providing 10+ 5 star reviews, probably some shills providing 1 star reviews, and a couple 1 star reviews that seem legitimate claiming them to be scammers and sleazeballs. They claim that the company lied to them about fees and refused to refund their "good faith deposit." Now yelp isn't exactly a trustworthy company either, but when a seemingly normal and active reviewer claims something like that I tend to listen. In another review, the owned claimed to know (cousins with) the guy who owned the building. He also just claimed to know the owner of the building we're looking at, supposedly a different building. * The owner/lead broker of the "company" the broker my friend was talking with claims to have been in the Real Estate business in NYC for 17 years. From what I can tell, he has started at least 3 businesses during that time, all real estate, and all essentially the exact same business under a different name. Only one appears to be current, but one of the ones he claims has a complaint with the BBB (also a non-reputable company but none of the other company's under his name have complaints so I'm guessing this one is a real complaint). This company was claimed to have 35 employees at one point, but only has a recent facebook page with 1 like and no posts, and an empty twitter page with no tweets or followers. Generally I find that companies make at least some effort for online branding, but not only did he not try, it was impossible to find anything on this company that has been around for "almost 10" years. His website and forms (application/requirements) are, to me, blatantly unprofessional, rampant with misspelling and no branding of his company name whatsoever (in my eyes to avoid any connection to his "company"). * From one of the forms they sent us, they claim that once you are approved you have to submit first month's rent and a security deposit, but also that until leases are signed and they are paid, they will continue to accept all applications. From what my friend has told me, one of them is essentially telling him that we will be approved no problem and is implying he is the one doing the approval. Fair enough, but how are we supposed to be sure we won't start paying fees and then get fucked over by them accepting other applications as written in their policy? Again, I am generally an overly cautious person. I have no experience with NYC, NYC real estate brokers, or anything of the like. My last experience with renting an apartment was in VA and everything was extremely clean and professional, no bullshit and direct from the building I was renting from. I understand that things are different in the city and I was hoping for some opinions from other people whether they thought this sounded like a normal interaction with a real estate broker. I am VERY uncomfortable giving this guy any information on me, ESPECIALLY my bank, balance, SSN, address, etc. To me, this screams like we're about to get scammed. Even if we get approved, I think they will shove some fees on us and then claim one of the other groups looking at the apartment got it first. My friend does not think they have much to gain from scamming us and is willing to proceed. What do you guys think? Sketchy brokers or normal small real estate firm trying to help us out? Should we run? [less]