Question about brokers' fees on rentals

It's split 50%/50%, so your broker's firm sees 7 1/2 percent of your yearly rent, and the listing firm sees 7 1/2 percent of your early rent.

Each firm then in turn pays out the brokers, usually around half of what came in -- the firm keeps the other half for overhead -- which is mostly rent, advertising, running the computers, etc.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

If your circumstances are such that you would like to seriously try to avoid the commission (for example, you only need a 1-year rental and the commission is a huge transaction cost for a 12-month stay), you can try finding your own apartment by asking doormen in buildings you like if any apts are available and then contacting the managing agent directly. Many such apts are not even listed--you can only learn of them by directly contacting the management company. If your company is paying the fee or you don't care about the expense, a renter's agent is probably more convenient.

Good suggestion, Kyle. One caveat, though--some buildings have a relationship with a broker, so even if you do go knocking on doors, you may wind up having to pay a commission anyway. This happened to us--found great apartment to rent after hoofing around and asking doormen/supers about vacancies. The downside--couldn't bypass the building's exclusive broker, who made a tidy little commission on our rental for doing basically zilch.

bramstar-

Hope you were able to negotiate a hefty discount since you did all the work.

That's the downside - many buildings / management companies prefer to work with brokers - whether exclusive or not. From their perspective, the broker will handle the questions, the showings, and - most importantly - the qualifying.

For others that might be interested - there are sites (there's always a website) that list whether a particular building requires you to go through a broker - Urban Sherpa comes to mind.

John--yes, we did negotiate a discount on the commission but it was still a mugging.

Suggest this website avoid any Broker FEE (Apartments for rent in NYC)

http://www.rdny.com/affiliates/z4d1

How much of a discount can you negotiate? I assume 7.5% is reasonable given that would be the fee if brought in by another broker.