Dealing with Brokers - Learn from my mistakes

Don't the majority of tenants in Manhattan go through a broker?

BWC?

Doesn't seem like it. The couple of times I posted a question about renting, people referred me to various no fee sites like NYbits.com. I looked at the latter briefly and unless I am not navigating it properly, the selection was rather limited.

It's anecdotal, but I do think the majority of tenants go through a broker. Majority doing it doesn't make it any better of an idea.

lo888 - having done this in the past, I found the best way is to actually look for no-fee buildings (which, by the way, are the vast majority, from what I can tell), then contact them directly. Yes, this is time-consuming, but in my experience and that of friends, going through brokers is equally time-consuming, because so many of the listings are bait-and-switch and because they drag you to see crappy apartments.

Happened to me -didn't get my free month at Windsor but I knew I saw it with a broker - not one in disguise. I had the same bait and switch last year on craigs list- got me to an apt that was no fee and of course it was rented then took me to rental bldgs with a fee. What a pig

In this market, you can and should negotiate hard anyway on a fee apartment. At most, pay a month. Better yet, insist that the owner pay the broker fee.

For condo buildings, express interest. Then don't return calls for three days. No one is beating you out on it. Come back and lower your price, and negotiate on the fee. If no take, go silent for another two days and if no take, there's another place waiting.

You should report this to craigslist as they only charge fees for Help Wanted ads and Broker listed Real Estate.

I would argue that the apartment was falsely represented -- negotiate directly through Glenwood. Rent by Owner is rent by Glenwood. they have there own in house people where you do not pay a fee. If a month free rent is the current market - demand it. They have lovely buildings. Good luck to you.

manhattanfox - that's exactly what I told Glenwood. However, they have a policy where they "protect" the broker that made the initial introduction for a period of time, at least in that building. I don't blame them, since in the long run, they want brokers to bring them business.

In any case, I will negotiate hard. None of this is disastrous, of course, just annoying and frustrating.

15% for this broker or 7.5%?

Fees, if the broker does a good job, shows you legit listings and without an attitude, paying a fee is not so ruff. although if the apartment rent is that high of rent 5k, 15% is a little rediculous to pay for.

If the broker listed the apartment in the "by owner" section, you can report him to the craigslist management. There is a perfectly acceptable "broker - no fee" category for this type of transaction. Is the listing down? Did you print it out? If the broker is a member of REBNY, you can report him there as well.
I'm a broker cant's stand and this type of shady behavior - it is why y'all hate us so much!

uh, and maybe because we can't spell.
(That last sentence was meant to read "I'm a broker and can't stand...")

Going building to building sounds so daunting - how do you narrow the playing field? Also, is the fee different for a shorter rental period (1 year vs. 2+)?

I rented from Glenwood - good building and mgmt. Lame to see they "protect" the scum broker at tne expense of one who will actually live in their building. WTF?

Going building to building sounds so daunting - how do you narrow the playing field? Also, is the fee different for a shorter rental period (1 year vs. 2+)?

I went building to building to find our current rental. Lots of hoofing around. Unfortunately, the building we decided on has its own broker so we wound up having to cough up a fee to her even though she did virtually no work whatsoever. Maddening, really. Though it is a great apartment.

^^^Should have bracketed the top graph, which is a quote from another poster...

I am a owner who has been posting in the "by owner" section of CL for more than 5 years, and it has become so watered down with fake bait and switch ads like that, people are very skeptical when they find me, and less do, because less people are willing to sort through the fake ones

Oh, and no. The fee is generally based on one year's rent.

contact management companies directly and ask about availability. many do not even advertise. if selling brokers make you nuts, just wait until you meet rental brokers--hard to believe but they are even worse. they make so much less on rentals that they have to push to get deals done fast and will pretty much say anything in my experience. dealing with rental agents was HATEFUL in my experience with NO value added. I've now rented twice directly via managing agents. in one case, i simply walked into a building I liked and asked the doorman what was available and whom to contact. no fee, no hassle, great apartment.

-" Explicitly confirm that the person you're dealing with is not a broker"

newbuyer99, if it's a broker, it should be stated in the add, or it's a false representation.

Let me ask you this: Would you pay to a broker let's say $500 fee if he shows you an apartment with one month free rent?

elena
(broker)

{{contact management companies directly and ask about availability.}}

Just be advised that they may have a relationship with a broker (as was the case with my rental) so you may still get stuck with the fee even if you've contacted them directly (as I did).

Also, doormen will often put you in touch with a broker if you ask walk in to ask about rentals (they may get kickbacks, for all I know) so that doesn't always solve the broker bypass goal either.

{{Would you pay to a broker let's say $500 fee if he shows you an apartment with one month free rent?}}

Show me a Manhattan broker who takes only a $500 fee.

there are a number of management firms that there really isn't a need to go thru a broker.

Any broker, that holds RE license in NY State, can collect commission in Manhattan ($ 500, 1 month rent or 15% - is negotiable and depend on several things). So potentially a broker can narrow down apartments from all the rental buildings that give one month free rent (save potential tenant time and hustle) and charge flat fee. Would it be a valuable service?

elena
(broker)

elena -

For the true DIY-er, it's not a valuable service. For others, it is a valuable service, however, most people feel irritated when they pay a fee for something they could have gotten for "free," not recognizing the extra time it would have cost them to do research and find the places themselves. This board will have many DIY-ers, and I bet the nays will outweigh the yays.

Plus you really need to define the value added. Do they screen the apartments beforehand? I used a broker many years ago and was sent to some serious dumps that didn't even meet the basic paraments (doorman, etc.)

When I did find a place I liked, he made me go straight back to the rental office to fill out an application immediately. He then told me that in the space of the time it took us to walk those 5 blocks, someone else took the apartment but there was another one in the building that I could apply for that was pretty much the same. He was very annoyed when I refused to accept it without seeing it and took me back to the building to show me a dark back facing apartment on a lower floor that had been reconfigured to accommodate roomates (oversized bedroom and practically no living room.) Not the same thing AT ALL. Long story short, I refused and somehow the original apartment mysteriously freed up.

Silver lining - I lived there very happily for many years and then arranged for a friend to rent it when I broke my lease to buy a place.

The fee in question was 1-month rent, which is a whole lot better than 15%, but still a lot of $$.

To answer someone's question above, the reason Glenwood protects the broker is that they want to broker to continue bringing them tenants in the future. Seems a lot of the tenants they get come through brokers, because they don't really advertise (essentially brokers do it for them), so many people don't know about them and their buildings.

In my opinion and experience, in 95% of the cases, going through rental brokers is not value-add, partly because the incentives are mis-aligned even worse than with sales brokers, and partly because the vast, vast majority, are scum.

I guess I can see the exceptions to this rule (out-of-towners, people who don't have time to look for listings, etc.), but I think they are pretty rare.

{Plus you really need to define the value added. Do they screen the apartments beforehand?}

- Unless it is a high-end rental building where quality is consistent, apartments absolutely should be previewed by a tenant’s broker, because in many cases web-description is very different from a reality.
Also, in case of a condo or a co-op, building’s rental criteria should be looked at and matched with potential tenant’s needs and abilities prior introduction. It’s unacceptable if a person likes an apartment but can’t have it, because building does not accept guarantors from out of the state; or mgmt. wants to hold one month rent up until tenant moves out (and tenant doesn’t have those extra funds); or it takes extremely long to get an approval from a board; or because an interview is involved, board meets only once a month and as a result time tables don’t work.

So, yes, brokers have to add value.

elena
(broker)

As a broker who has gotten happy rental clients off this board, I agree with newbuyer99 that the NYC rental system doesn't generally work. Even though rental fees are high, real estate agents make more money from sales than rentals so the "good ones" tends to concentrate on sales.

However, as barskaya pointed out, there are some exceptions, and relos are perhaps the easiest case to make. There's another thread active on streeteasy right now where the relo is freaking out because they didn't realize how long it would take to get through a co-op board for a sublet -- had elena been his/her broker it would have saved him/her aggravation, not to mention the costs of being stuck in a hotel room for a couple of weeks.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

It seems to me, that by the comments that you post, you already think that brokers make this world a living hell. Brokers as you see guys, are like any professionals. Have you ever heard horror stories about lawyers, doctors, civil engrs. etc. and there also are good stories about the above professioanls. Right? Brokers in general can be ethical/un-ethical. Rigth? som why you guys blame otrhers for your dysfunction? Thanks.

Sincerely,

Late to the game: in a lot of places (outside NY), you don't even really have "rental brokers": what you have is porfperty managers who have RE Brokers licenses and they get paid to manage the property, part of which is renting it out. I think that type of system tends to work much better. i also think that the reason this doesn't happen as much in NYC is yet another vestigial organ of the RS system and what LL's did to deal with it.

newbuyer99, this guy by no means is your broker. if he was your broker, he should be bringing you dozen listings tailored to you to expediate your search. Ofcourse the building should pay for this guy and on top you should get your free one month off/consessions, as he tricked you into believing he was the owner/leasing office.

Glenwood should take the lose when they use a broker. ie. it would be a winning situation for them if someone walks in by themselves, saving them the broker fee.

There are many vacancies these days, just threaten them you will otherwise get a place in a building you walked in yourself, that ofcourse comes with one month off, if they won;t play it fairly from your perspective.

To Elena Barskaya, Silvemar and Front Porch: rental brokers do not add value. Most of them are dishonest and look out for their own fee rather than tenant interest. Unlike in the legal and medical fields that one of you quotes, MOST brokers are dishonest and unprofessional, while in the other fields professionals are much more honest. The single biggest problem with the real estate brokerage industry is that brokers are not required to have fiduciary responsibility to the buyers/renters. Fiduciary responsibility means a relationship where the service provider places client interests above his/her own, even if it results in lost income. My experience has been that people who enter the real estate industry could not hack it in a professional, dignified environment and went to one of the places where slease thrives -- the real estate brokerage industry.

I believe that Churchill said it best with respect to his broker when trying to purchase a summer place outside of Moscow.

A Broker is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Glenwood has been awful to deal with overall. Not only did THEIR broker (I went directly to them) lie about building amenities and the fact that it's not set up for cable (you have to run wires on the outside of your walls if you want internet or cable), he lied about a lot of other stuff, like the utilities costs, etc. We pay almost $500 a month for utilities!