Finding an apartment in New York is hell! Apartments are so scarce, most people end up PAYING brokers several G's just to find out where there's an apartment available! It's INSANE!
Well anyway, the smaller buildings often require you to go through a broker, because they don't have the staff to do the background checks themselves. Brokers also typically pay them some kickbacks in order to get the listings first. So to recoup these costs, brokers have to charge a large fee to you, the apartment seeker. It's seedy, but that's how it is, so I can at least understand why there's a fee in these cases... it's basically a bribe.
But the good news is that today there's a new class of luxury high-rise buildings that typically have their own management office, so they don't need brokers. Yay! They do the background checks themselves, and they welcome walk-ins off the street. And these buildings are popping up everywhere! Yay again!
But how can you find these buildings? Amazingly, brokers will happily show you these buildings, which are completely open to the public, and still charge you their FULL BROKER'S FEE of several thousand dollars just for telling you the address! This is not justified, because there's no bribery involved here, these buildings openly advertise to the public. What a rip off!
So if you're considering one of these luxury high-rise buildings, skip the broker!! Just call them or check out their websites!
Amazingly, there's no comprehensive listing of these buildings that I'm aware of for poor apartment hunters like us... until NOW! Here's a list of all the free buildings in New York City! Their websites list vacancies, or at least phone numbers you can call to inquire. Many of these sites have time-consuming intro pages, so wherever possible I've tried to bypass that and link you directly to the actual listings. So for 30 minutes of work, you can save yourself several thousand dollars. (If you don't know what to do with all that saved money, feel free to send some my way as a thank you!)
I've created this page as a service to the world, or at least to the subset of the world that's interested in living in NYC.
These listings are completely 100% free. If anyone at any point tries to slap you with any sort of broker's fee, let me know and they'll be removed from this site.
(Note: some buildings do charge an application fee, which is typically around $50. But that reflects the actual labor required: some paperwork and a background check.
If broker fees were that modest, I wouldn't have created this site!)
New buildings like these are coming up every day, so if you know of one, share the love and let me know: info@aptsinthesky.com
You're welcome! Enjoy! And buy yourself something nice with the extra dough!
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