It’s time to rent an apartment in New York City<\/a>! Before you begin searching for apartments and inquiring about their status with brokers, it’s important to prepare yourself. Before meeting a real estate broker<\/a>, one of the best things you can do is understand the process of renting ap apartment.<\/p>\n

Tips to Know Before Meeting Your Broker<\/h2>\n

This post is the first entry in our series on Tips to Know Before Meeting Your Broker in 2014<\/a>.\u00a0 The series is based on our experiences shadowing several rental brokers in New York in late 2013.\u00a0 We learned a lot about the best – and worst – ways to work with brokers.<\/p>\n

Tip #1:\u00a0 Understand the Process Going In
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It\u2019s a broker\u2019s job to educate you about the rental process, but your experience will go much more smoothly if you teach yourself a bit about the market first. Understanding what\u2019s possible (a $1500 studio on the Upper East Side<\/a>) and what isn\u2019t (the same studio in NoLita<\/a>) can help you set reasonable expectations. Sites like RentHop<\/a> can give you a solid sense of the market. Just beware the \u201cfalse education\u201d of venues like Craigslist<\/a>, where the preponderance of scams can give you a distorted impression of what\u2019s out there.<\/i><\/p>\n

The internet can give you general knowledge of the rental process and market, but there\u2019s no education like experience. That\u2019s why many brokers actually encourage first-time renters to search on their own first. A few even told us that before they became brokers themselves, they never used brokers. Some found apartments through family or friends, others by approaching management companies directly.<\/p>\n

As Asha Makalani of Bond NY explained, \u201cI\u2019ve always just been a DIY kind of gal.\u201d Are you surprised that agents would recommend renters try going it alone first? Don\u2019t be. When I asked Makalani what the most frustrating part of her job was, she said without hesitation, \u201cWhen people decide after weeks of working together that they don\u2019t want to pay a fee<\/a>.\u201d Clients who aren\u2019t really sure they want to pay for a broker\u2019s services can waste huge amounts of that broker\u2019s time. And when you work on commission, time is money.<\/p>\n

Makalani\u2019s colleague, Steve Druth, agrees. Druth\u2019s dream client? \u201cOne who\u2019s gotten screwed over and over and over.\u201d These clients, who\u2019ve been through the Craigslist gauntlet and interacted with numerous second-rate brokers, come to his office with a hard-won understanding of exactly what he\u2019s saving them from.<\/p>\n

Our next tip: make sure that you work with the right expert<\/a> – it can make all the difference! You can also go see the entire list<\/a> if you want to look ahead.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Note: We updated this article to enhance readability.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s time to rent an apartment in New York City! Before you begin searching for apartments and inquiring about their status with brokers, it’s important to prepare yourself. Before meeting a real estate broker, one of the best things you can do is understand the process of renting ap apartment. Tips to Know Before Meeting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19513,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"yes","_lmt_disable":"no","footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brokers-and-landlords"},"yoast_head":"\n