Mo' Better Moves
New York City real estate brokers won't be singing the bagel blues for at least another couple of weeks. In an effort to deter rental brokers from posting the same apartment several times in a single day, Craigslist had planned to start charging them $10 a listing beginning today. But just hours before the deadline, a two-week delay was announced by site CEO Jim Buckmaster:
"Based on feedback received through your emails and in this forum, we are not convinced we are ready to provide the level of customer service required for paid postings in the NYC apartment categories, and will be postponing charging by at least two weeks. More details to come."While we wait for the specifics on these changes, I wanted to pass along a couple of Craigslist-related tips. I found my East Harlem apartment on Craigslist and after catching a glimpse of my place in a recent NY Times article, readers have emailed looking for details on how I did it.
My trick of the serial moving trade is quite simple: Never meet a broker without seeing pictures of the apartment first. I searched hundreds of apartments online by using one search word: "pictures". Plug this word (and the neighborhood where you'd like to live) into the search button on Craigslist. If you don't see pictures, the broker doesn't get your bagel. If the pictures appear blurry or warped, move on to the next posting.
Also, the search words "rent stabilized" and "pictures" can work. If, by the way, the apartment is listed as "rent stabilized" but the rent is more than $2,000 a month, you have not found a rent stabilized apartment. The broker is pulling your bagel. Rent stabilization is only valid on apartments below $2,000 a month.
With a little help from my friends at Curbed.com, I've attached a few Web sites to make your bagel hunt a bit easier. If you know of any other good sites, please let us know...
Craigslist.com - Fee and no-fee apartments. I found serial move apartment #3, #6 and #7 on this site.
NYTimes.com - An oldie but a goody. I found serial move apartment #1, #2 and #5 on this site.
Plugstar.com - "Low listings volume but pleasing layout like Craigslist."
RealtyPostings.com - "Slick-looking newcomer with seeming potential."
posted by Rachel Natalie Klein at 12:28 AM
13 Comments:
I am curious about your experience with NYtimes lisitings. When I tried using the site, the brokers with lisitings (and pictures) would tell me those places were long gone. When I asked why the listing and photos were still up they said that was the nature of business to get you to call. I would see apartments left up for weeks at a time. How did you find new (valid) listing on NY times?
Your place looks awesome from the article. Keep up the good work with your blog - it's great.
Bagel seems to be a genuine master renter whereas most people consider me a master... oh never mind.
I think I'll go check out the latest intern openings at the Clinton center.
Hallo,
I'm one of those who emailed asking for details on how you found your apartment.
Thanks very much for the info.
Paul
Great tips...I just realized that I saw that article in the Times and never made the connection...hey, that's the girl with the Bagel blog until you mentioned it.
West Harlem Brown
Thanks for all the tips. I'm planning to move to NY this fall and need all the help I can get.
There are rent stabilized apts over $2000 -- usually in new buildings, in which the builder traded some tax breaks for temporary stabilized rents -- once the breaks run out so does the stabilization, however, so it's not forever.
Yep, babs is right. The solaire in bpc for example was built with tax rebates so all apts are rent stabilized but 1100 sqft 2 BRs still go for $5000 or more there which is the preferential rent. Legal rent is in above $6000 but the legal and preferential rent (whichever they use when they renew) is always increased by the rates set by the RGB.
VDH
I'm unclear on how an apartment can be rent stabilized if there is no long-term rent protection for the tenant. My understanding of rent stabilization is that the legal rent of a rent stabilized apartment can only be raised by X percent each year. That keeps the tenant protected from massive rate hikes for AS LONG as the tenant resides in the apartment.
But it sounds like these new buildings you're referring to don't do that if the rent stabilization can actually time out. Can you (or anyone else) shed some light on this?
The "luxury rent stabilization" seems like b.s. to me.
From what I've read, the building is under rent stabilization rules, no matter what they charge for rent, for X amount of years, and in return they got some sort of tax break. The bullsh*t part is that the "Legal Rent" is often more than they can get away with charging for the unit! So they make you sign a lease where you acknowledge that you are getting a "preferential rent" and that they could actually raise your rent UP to the "stabilized rent" whenever they want (in the case of the Solaire, per VDH, that amount would be more than $1000).
So where is the "benefit" that deserves a tax break?
The City of New York's Housing website explains it in detail. I believe there may be a few apts. that have limited stablization but I think they are more the exception to the rule. When trying to gentrify areas like Harlem they want to make a certain number of apartmens available to the residents who were displaced and the developers want to take advantage fo the tax breaks provided by stablization.
WHB
To the anonymous poster re: NYTimes listings:
I would avoid the large real estate firms that routinely post listings that are no longer valid. If you email me, I'll send more details...
There's a service, ZapTXT, available that might help with your search. With zaptxt you can filter and monitor any RSS feed. So, you can define a task that will monitor craigslist RSS (apartment category, for example) and when a new post contains the search keywords "rent stabilized" and "pictures", ZapTXT will notify you via email or SMS. This way you don't have to sit at your computer all day long. You can also use it to monitor any housing site that is RSS-enabled (look for a small RSS link at the bottom of the page).
I enjoy your blog very much, and i wanted to correct something you said re rent stabilization and the $2,000 ceiling. There are many apartments over $2,000 that are rent stabilized. If the landlord made improvements and got a real estate tax deduction under the J51 program, the apartments must remain stabilized. The buildings do not have to be new.
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