Personally, having moved twice so far in the crazy, corrupt rental market of Manhattan, I've been dying for someone to solve this problem. For those who aren't familiar with renting an apartment in NYC, the turnover is so fast and vacancy so low, that you can only start looking for apartments the month before you want to move.
In addition, the landscape is filled with predatory brokers that add no value to the process. In some cases landlords hire them because they don't want to deal with the process themselves, and in some cases the brokers will re-list apartments they find on Craigslist or other websites to make it seem like they have an exclusive listing, then try to get you to pay their fee if you rent the apartment. In almost all cases, the renter winds up having to pay the broker fee of one month rent to as high as 15% of the annual rent. Finding a no-fee rental is extremely rare. I would love to have a transparent system that was easy enough to use for landlords/management companies that resulted in two things:
1) Owners don't feel the need to retain brokers to deal with prospective tenants, passing the ridiculously high bill onto them.
2) The market for these no-value-adding middleman brokers that re-list no-fee apartments and other brokers' listings dries up.
I believe that the only case that a renter should have to pay a broker fee is if the renter him/herself retains the broker to show them apartments because they don't want to do the work.
The situation obviously sucks for tenants, but do the owners have any incentive to invite change, given the current supply demand situation and the fact that they are able to pass on 100% of the cost to tenants?
Not now honestly, but if the system is designed to be as easy or easier than retaining a human broker, market forces should take over. I would be willing to pay a higher rent in exchange for not having to pay several thousand dollars up front in a broker fee. This becomes a win-win for both sides of the market.
In addition, the landscape is filled with predatory brokers that add no value to the process. In some cases landlords hire them because they don't want to deal with the process themselves, and in some cases the brokers will re-list apartments they find on Craigslist or other websites to make it seem like they have an exclusive listing, then try to get you to pay their fee if you rent the apartment. In almost all cases, the renter winds up having to pay the broker fee of one month rent to as high as 15% of the annual rent. Finding a no-fee rental is extremely rare. I would love to have a transparent system that was easy enough to use for landlords/management companies that resulted in two things:
1) Owners don't feel the need to retain brokers to deal with prospective tenants, passing the ridiculously high bill onto them. 2) The market for these no-value-adding middleman brokers that re-list no-fee apartments and other brokers' listings dries up.
I believe that the only case that a renter should have to pay a broker fee is if the renter him/herself retains the broker to show them apartments because they don't want to do the work.
/rant