Best Websites to Look for Housing to Rent
When you rent an apartment in New York City, you may be dismayed to learn that you frequently take to pay a hefty broker fee, which typically ranges from 12 to xv per centum of the annual hire for an flat. It can be a bitter pill to swallow—after all, you're also putting downward the first month's hire and a security deposit.
Broker fees are paid to agents who yous have sought out to assist yous find an flat, and yous can also exist asked to pay the broker fee when the agent represents the landlord of an flat. In slower markets, landlords will often embrace their broker's fee, just when competition heats upwards for apartments, as is the case at present, these possessor-paid concessions start to go abroad.
In some cases, enlisting the help of an amanuensis and paying the banker fee is beneficial. Having an adept do the heavy lifting for you lot may be worth the hefty toll tag if y'all don't have a lot of fourth dimension, can't find what y'all want on your own, or your employer is paying for your banker fee as function of your relocation expenses.
However, if you have the time and grit to acquit your own search, and want to save some money upfront, consider looking for a no-fee apartment on websites that let you filter out fee-based apartments.
Pro Tip:
If you lot frazzle the DIY method—or just feel wearied—sign upwardly here to have advantage of the corporate relocation rate offered past Brick Underground partner Triplemint. A tech-savvy real manor brokerage founded by a pair of Yale grads in response to the frustrating flat searches of classmates and colleagues, Triplemint will charge a broker's fee of ten percent of a twelvemonth'southward rent versus the usual 12 to 15 percent if the apartment is an "open" list (versus an "exclusive" list where the fee is split with the broker property the listing.) Bonus: The agents at Triplemint are a delight to deal with.
These "no fee" come up in ii varieties: Apartments you tin can rent directly from a landlord or management company and apartments where the landlord pays the broker's fee for yous every bit a concession. You may too want to consider a co-living situation—these are furnished apartments that some liken to upscale adult dorms. (Desire more than intel? Cheque out Brick Underground's 2022 guide to co-living spaces in NYC.)
[Editor's Note: A previous version of the article ran in May 2021. We are presenting information technology again here as role of our winter All-time of Brick week.]
Ready to begin your search for a new apartment? Keep reading for Brick Clandestine'southward updated list of the all-time websites for finding no-fee rentals in New York Metropolis, listed in alphabetical club.
Craigslist
Good for: Finding an apartment from smaller mom-and-pop-type landlords.
If you've ever hunted for an flat, second-hand cycle, or maybe fifty-fifty a missed connection, you're probably familiar with Craigslist. Its enduring popularity proves that you don't need a fancy (or even modern) interface to make an effective real estate tool for both renters and landlords—equally long as you use it with discretion.
Under the site'south housing tab, you can cull "past-possessor apartments," as well every bit farther refine your search by selecting "no broker fee" apartments on the left hand side of the screen, then narrow your search according to your housing preferences. You can farther tweak those preferences by using filters for apartments with a washer and dryer, buildings that allow pets, or fifty-fifty furnished spaces. The map part is also useful if you're looking in a specific neighborhood, and also helps requite you a sense of an apartment'southward actual location, versus where its affiche claims it is. (This is a very common switcheroo in NYC real estate.)
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Craigslist is literally a free-for-all, so take care to avoid scams, and only search apartments with photos, which is another filter option. Some listings on CraigsList don't include the address then y'all should focus on listings that practise so y'all can investigate the building and the neighborhood more closely, including information like bedbug history and neighborhood crime rate (more tips on that here), as well as plugging the accost into the city's Building Information System to cheque on things like outstanding violations. Also expect up the proper noun of the management visitor and broker to run across if any cherry-red flags appear.
Facebook/word of mouth/social media/Nextdoor
Expert for: Getting an apartment through a personal recommendation.
High-tech search options abound, simply hearing from a friend of a friend or someone in an online community about an flat is withal a powerful tool in the globe of New York City real manor. The all-time deals and nicest places are often found via well-connected friends, family members, and coworkers, so don't exist shy—reach out to your network.
Post on Facebook, hit upwardly your higher'southward alumni network, send a mass e-mail to everyone y'all've ever met in the metropolis, and use any of your other social feeds of option (Y'all can also try Twitter or Instagram to go the word out through networks that are more than geared toward sharing photos, videos, and opinions than looking for services). By reaching out, you're letting your network know that y'all're on the hunt. You'll be surprised past how serendipitously the timing can work out to be. Maybe a friend is moving out of an apartment y'all've always admired, and you tin scoop it up before it fifty-fifty hits the market.
Nextdoor is a hyperlocal site organized by neighborhood where members are verified. Yous need to bring together in social club to access the site and yous tin can but postal service for the neighborhood you alive in. So if y'all wanted to ask if there are bachelor apartments in a particular edifice or surface area in order to movement well-nigh a friend or family member, you could ask them to mail service on your behalf.
Frele
Good for: Browsing apartment listings past video instead of photos.
Frele, from the founder of Leasebreak (more about that site later on), launched in 2018. It does not charge to postal service listings so you will likely find rentals here that you won't observe on other sites. In response to the pandemic, the site focuses on showing listings with videos rather than photos—which may give you a ameliorate sense of the space, nevertheless the site does have thousands of listings with photos.
There is a no-fee filter that you tin use on the top right of their page. Out of their roughly x,000 listings, 73 percentage are no fee. Out of those, 68 per centum are in Manhattan, 24 pct are in Brooklyn, and vi percent are in Queens.
The site uses the same algorithms as Leasebreak to detect scams and prevent scams from being posted on the site. In add-on, information technology has an extra layer of security: The site is manually checked for listings that announced suspicious. Both brokers and landlords are allowed to post listings and some come from feeds, including the Existent Estate Lath of New York's RLS feed.
Pro Tip:
To hire an apartment in New York Urban center, near landlords require yous to earn an almanac salary of at least 40 to 45 times the monthly rent. If you don't—or if yous're an international employed person, cocky-employed, not-employed with assets, retired, or an international student or Us student—you'll need to notice a guarantor for your charter who earns at to the lowest degree 80 times the monthly rent and lives in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut. Or you tin turn to Insurent Lease Guaranty. Accepted at more than iv,700 buildings across the city representing over 475,000 apartments, Insurent Lease Guaranty is a quick and like shooting fish in a barrel fashion to get the apartment you want. Click here to learn more.
Gobii
Good for: Searching for apartments with very specific features.
Real estate start-upwardly Gobii, formally Igluu, allows users to filter their searches for no-fee listings. Currently, there are two,526 no-fee apartments, which makes up about 24 percent of the site's listings. Twenty percent of Manhattan listings are no fee, 3 percent of their Brooklyn listings are no fee, and less than 2 percent of their Queens listings accept no fee.
Gobii also has a partnership with Insurent, which serves as a guarantor for renters who need i, and users tin browse listings for which Insurent can guarantee the lease. Other filters include proximity to specific subway lines, days on market, amenities like wheel storage and roof decks. Some other useful feature is the ability to search not simply by neighborhood just by specific boundaries: Users can specify that they are looking for apartments to the south of a particular street, for instance.
The search results page leads to an interactive map, and individual listings include the verbal accost of the flat, its civilities, and information about the exposures. Each list also rates the condition of the building, though at that place aren't further details on how those ratings are determined. Gobii aggregates its listings from MLS data feeds and verified landlords can also post listings.
Leasebreak
Good for: Short-term rentals and sublets.
Taking over someone'due south apartment is a surefire manner to become around having to pay a broker fee and get a deal if you don't need a long-term lease. Renters who need to become out of their lease list their apartments on Leasebreak, so leases here are for less than a year, which tin be helpful if you're in between jobs, cities or only looking to try a place out for less fourth dimension. And if you like the apartment, at that place'south unremarkably a adventure you can renew the charter—meaning yous'll score a new lease with no banker's fee.
The site has both fee and no-fee listings, and it's uncomplicated to search all five boroughs using the "no fee" filter. According to Leasebreak, 75 percent of its listings are no-fee. There are about three,000 short-term listings at any given time, and around viii,000 listings with 12-month leases. It is free for someone to mail their listing on the site, so you might detect lower-end rentals here that aren't on other sites. Brusk-term furnished rental companies like Furnished Quarters also postal service listings on their site.
Listings are searchable by how long you want a identify as well as move-in and move-out dates. They have too added a new filter to search exclusively for apartments with virtual or 3D tours.
Listings Project
Good for: Vetted listings for artists and creative types.
Listings Projection is a weekly email listing that'southward carefully curated past Stephanie Diamond and her team, catering to artists and other creative types searching for everything from studio space to sublets to long-term rentals. There are 300 to 400 listings posted on the site each week, all of which are no-fee and personally vetted by staff through straight correspondence with posters. The site only accepts listings posted past NYC tenants and owners, who are charged near $30 for each week their listing is upwards.
The site started small, but has expanded to much of the U.S., plus 70 countries effectually the earth, nevertheless the majority of listings are in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The weekly e-mail has besides evolved over the years, and become increasingly easy to use. The benefit for prospective renters is huge: They tin trust that each listing has been vetted past the team. Brokers, apartment managers, and third-party services are non permitted to submit apartment listings.
Diamond says the service is vital to supporting the arts community. "It draws on the conventionalities that nosotros are our best selves when nosotros feel both grounded as individuals and deeply connected to a vibrant, energizing public," she says
Pro Tip:
Whether yous're looking to relocate to NYC long-term, or you want a short-term rental in 1 of the city's all-time neighborhoods, selecting the right place for the right price with the correct civilities tin exist tricky. Blueground takes the guesswork out of the apartment chase, offering fully-furnished apartments - many pet-friendly - with rentals starting at just 30 days. The app-enabled tech-meets-hospitality company offers top-name neighborhoods, similar Williamsburg, Midtown, and the Financial District, with over 300 unique apartments from which to choose. Compare prices and photos here.
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Localize
Good for: A snapshot of what it'southward like to live at an address.
Localize uses artificial intelligence-assisted technology to sift through the information available on buildings and neighborhoods and prepare highly specific search parameters. They have over 100 holding "insights" exclusive to their site such every bit listings about acme schools, parks, tranquility streets, low law-breaking, and even proximity to Trader Joe's.
Almost 35 percent of the site's listings are no fee, which you tin filter by clicking a button right adjacent to the search bar. The site draws its listings from brokers via their firms' feeds, and so analyzes each listing based on a number of factors, creating recommendations for the near promising units in their feed. Localize says its utilise of fraud detection and transmission checks keeps scams and bunko schemes off the site.
Of the 3,000 to iv,000 no-fee listings on the site, typically about 25 percent are in Manhattan, 20 percent in Brooklyn, and 15 percent in Queens. Some of the building and neighborhood information is very negative and presented to help you make an informed conclusion, like whether new construction will shortly block a edifice'due south views, or its elevators are decumbent to breaking downwards; the noisiness of the streets and whether you can hear or experience the subway passing nearly the edifice; how much sunlight the apartment gets, and whether the building has any violations.
It also includes an interactive map that pinpoints exactly where each listing you're looking at is located.
NYBits
Skilful for: No frills with quality control.
NYBits is ane of the oldest rental listings sites in New York, and its straightforward interface makes finding no-fee listings piece of cake. Out of their current listings, 73 per centum are no fee. Each listing includes the address for the flat, which is unique, also as the role of the poster (owner, manager, or banker), and specifies if information technology is no-fee. The team also researches each mail service before putting them up. This helps cut downwardly on duplicates besides every bit bunko scams, and allows y'all to inquiry a building on your own more easily. Postings are also express in how long they can be agile.
You lot can navigate the site by building type (condo, co-op, rental), neighborhood, and companies (brokerage, belongings managers, individual brokers) and meet apartments bachelor in specific buildings.
Other features include a map at the bottom of every search results folio, which makes information technology easier to meet exactly where all the apartments are located. NYBits also has rental alerts, which notify users when a listing from a preferred building or search criteria appears on the site, considering rentals usually movement quickly.
RentHop
Adept for: Handy filters plus the HopScore feature.
RentHop currently has over 22,220 listings beyond Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens; 83 per centum of its listings in Manhattan are no fee, while in Brooklyn the percentage is 77 percent and in Queens, 63 per centum.
Apartments are listed past owners or by current renters looking to manus over their lease to a new tenant. Users can also filter for listings with no fee and no eolith, with the option for a map-based search. Brokers can also post their listings on the site. RentHop as well receives listings from feeds like Existent Estate Board of New York, Brokers NYC, and other providers. Everyone who lists apartments on the platform goes through a verification procedure through a new third-party company. You lot tin can too anonymously report issues if a list seems off.
RentHop recently launched a mobile app for renters and subletters and have integrated virtual tours from sites like YouTube and Matterport. They as well analyze data to discover trends which they publish reports on.
The site also analyzes apartment photos and determines whether they're relevant to renters—are they of the infinite itself, or mutual areas like the gym, or the building's exterior? The relevance of the photos is included in what's chosen the "HopScore," which was adult to place and encourage authentic listings and upstanding behavior among real estate professionals. RentHop says the HopScore allows information technology to take open listings, because the visitor's quality control algorithm ranks apartment listings based on "manager responsiveness, listing quality, and freshness."
Other search filters include: No flexes (meaning no convertible units), floor plan inclusion, and, particularly relevant now, live video tours. RentHop has also implemented catch-all keyword searches: type in "thick walls" and all listings will be parsed.
Scammers are as well actively shut downward: RentHop employees personally verify email addresses and unremarkably have an actual phone conversation with new listers to make certain they're legit. And if you're on the hunt for someone to share that flat with, they've got a roommate finder tool, in which renters are matched upwards with roommates based on the answers given on a questionnaire.
StreetEasy
Good for: Getting the 411 on buildings and neighborhoods.
StreetEasy is one of the best-known sites in New York Metropolis for both sales and rentals. It's at present function of the Zillow Group, which also includes Trulia and Hot Pads.)
StreetEasy features a prominently placed "no-fee only" search filter on the site, as well equally the option to save your preferred searches and receive notifications if something new hits that market that fits your criteria. This year, 81 per centum of StreetEasy's listings are no fee, which is an increase from 72 percent in 2020, and 55 percent in 2019.
The site but accepts exclusive listings—and so that means at that place are no duplicate listings from multiple agents for you lot to wade through—and they are verified with the listing provider. Listings can be provided by agents, brokerages, owners, direction companies, or developers and are provided straight or via a syndication vendor.
On both the mobile app and the website, you can connect with an flat'south agent or landlord instantly. (And the app has a useful "map view" feature that lets you see what listings are nearby—platonic for when you're out and most scoping neighborhoods.) The site is also skilful for research cheers to their building pages, which allow y'all find more info about the specific edifice an apartment is listed in—things like amenities and zoned public schools—also as price history so you can run into rent trends on comparable apartments. They also have added a new feature that displays cyberspace rent vs. gross rent for any listings that are offer free months as a concession.
Transparentcity
Good for: Finding listings from the urban center's no-fee management companies in 1 place.
Transparentcity aggregates the listings of NYC'due south no-fee apartment management sites into 1 place and vets them for accuracy. Users tin can browse listings by neighborhood, filtering by number of bedrooms, price range, and civilities including lift, laundry, alive-in super, gym, pool, and more; there is also the selection to search for stabilized apartments and those offering gratis months of hire equally a concession.
Search results reveal listing addresses and the name and url of the management company and so yous can confirm information technology is an bodily listing and not a scam; they likewise include an interactive map to assist you look for apartments in specific areas. There are around 5,000 to 6,000 listings on the site, all of which are no fee. Out of those 70 per centum are in Manhattan, with 25 percentage in Brooklyn, and v per centum in Queens.
The site added 3D and video tours of apartments last year in response to the pandemic and recently added a new filter for walk-upward apartments. You lot can also now schedule tours and apply for apartments for over 1,000 management companies directly on their site
—Before versions of this article contained reporting and writing by Georgia Kral and Alanna Schubach
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Source: https://www.brickunderground.com/blog/2012/01/8_best_websites_for_finding_a_no_fee_apt_in_new_york_city
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