←back to thread

New York City Council Votes to End Broker Fees Squeezing Renters

(www.bloomberg.com)
258 points JumpCrisscross | 1 comments | 13 Nov 24 21:38 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
kelnos ◴[14 Nov 24 01:51 UTC] No.42132344[source]▶
I never understood why landlord brokers are even a thing in a market like NYC. I live in SF and I've never heard of such a thing here, and we probably have a similar market when it comes to landlords getting to take advantage of high demand when it comes to listing visibility and negotiation.

Why do landlords think they need a broker in order to rent out their units in NYC? I would think demand is so high there that listings on all the regular-suspect listing sites would be more than sufficient to get their units rented quickly and at a price they're happy with.

No-fee listings seem to be a thing in NYC, but appear to be for a small minority of units.

replies(5): >>42132390 #>>42132783 #>>42132956 #>>42133149 #>>42133355 #
1. jakevoytko ◴[14 Nov 24 05:24 UTC] No.42133355[source]▶
> I never understood why landlord brokers are even a thing in a market like NYC.

NYC is all about optimizing the grift.

Imagine a small-time landlord that owns six 20-unit 6-story buildings across Queens. When 1/3 of their inventory turns over in September (the busy time for apartments in NYC), do you think they want to run all over the borough to 500 showings until they finally get all of the units rented? Do you think they want to hire a staff that will show all the units? Hell no! They can, FOR FREE, just tell one (or several!) brokers, "if you manage to rent this unit out, you get to charge whatever fee you can get them to collect." And then they just need to do some paperwork when the broker finally lands someone.