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Would love something like this to kill (or at least severely maim) the broker industry in NYC. 0 value added at the cost of 10-15% of yearly rent.
0 value added for the tenant, but brokers typically serve the landlord.
Would love something like this to kill (or at least severely maim) the broker industry in NYC. 0 value added at the cost of 10-15% of yearly rent.
If I’m not mistaken, didn’t NYC enact a law last year that bans landlords from charging tenants the broker fee?
Would love something like this to kill (or at least severely maim) the broker industry in NYC. 0 value added at the cost of 10-15% of yearly rent.
If I’m not mistaken, didn’t NYC enact a law last year that bans landlords from charging tenants the broker fee?
All fees are passed on to the consumer in some way, it is either a line item or hidden
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I’m not mistaken, didn’t NYC enact a law last year that bans landlords from charging tenants the broker fee?
It's good that there's no surprise fees, but they're still being paid. It's like anything, the value is just hidden in the price of the product now, rent in this case.
Would love something like this to kill (or at least severely maim) the broker industry in NYC. 0 value added at the cost of 10-15% of yearly rent.
Previously it had seemed like nothing could get rid of them -- landlords mostly didn't care since it was mostly tenants who paid them in the end.
But COVID suddenly made everyone a bit more willing to consider other options (like virtual tours), and with some rents down landlords are perhaps a bit more willing to realize that if there's no broker's fee, tenants can pay a little more.
I'm actually really excited about this lockbox technology, I genuinely think it could be the key to "unlocking" competition again.
My only concern is that a lot of buildings don't have anything obvious in the front to lock it to, as well as plenty of buildings prohibiting tenants from storing keys in lockboxes in front, both because anyone can take a hammer to one and smash it to get the building key, and also because they don't trust it's not someone running an AirBNB.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/nyregion/broker-fees-real...
[2] https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/you-will-still-have-to-...
No value seems to have been lost in going from humans to software. Yes, vacancies are up, but that is probably due to the 15-20% rent increases and general migration away from the city. I'm sure they are also saving a mint on the two fewer on-site sales FTEs. Seems like a big win for both the tenant and landlord (hopefully the savings are being split.)
EDIT: I dont think virtual showings are a replacement for a physical walk-thru. However, it is a great way to filter out obviously mismatching apartments and a way to not waste time visiting apartments way out of your requirements. For example, if I just want to see the size of closets (a big deciding factor for me), i can do that on a floorplan easily. I can easily filter out apartments w/o walk-in closets.
Glad they didn't go with virtual viewings - scam players here (UK) do that and just run away with the deposit.
Would love something like this to kill (or at least severely maim) the broker industry in NYC. 0 value added at the cost of 10-15% of yearly rent.
0 value added for the tenant, but brokers typically serve the landlord.
Also pretty nice that you do that, but one thing I would recommend is immediately not allow any landlords that require such evil practices and be banned from your system.