NYC rent prices can be disastrous at best in the country’s most expensive city. And though rent prices have finally slowed for the first time since the pandemic, it doesn’t make apartment scouting any less stressful for movers being promised a shoebox at a couple grand a month.
The true gold of the NYC real estate market is a rent stabilized apartment. Rent stabilized apartments are units with a regulated rent to counter the city’s housing crisis. This can often be mistaken for rent controlled apartments which prevent tenant eviction and limits the rental charge. The latter is much less common and would be considered the platinum of NYC real estate.
According to first reports by Gothamist, a dream apartment recently hit the market in Flushing, Queens. The rent stabilized, one-bedroom apartment was listed at $1,100/month. Similar listings in the neighborhood tend to go for $2,800, reports renthop.
So with a greater than 50% reduction in price and a promise not to drastically sky-rocket year after year, why wouldn’t the apartment have been scooped up in an instant? It’s because the Flushing apartment had a $15,000 broker’s fee.
Broker fees are commonly incurred when shopping around in NYC’s competitive landscape. Yet, typical rates range from one month’s rent to 15% of the apartment’s annual rent. The broker’s fee being asked for the one-bedroom Flushing apartment exceeded the annual rent more than 100%.
The apartment however eventually found a renter. Supposedly some of the money is being returned to the tenant, answered the New York branch of real estate company, Keller Williams, to Gothamist‘s questions.
With such preposterous happenings, it’s no wonder NYC was crowned the most expensive city in the country.