Rentals

Most apartment leases will be for 1-2 years in length. The New York City rental market is dominated by stabilized and non-stabilized "free market" apartments, which make up 90% of the market, while a smaller portion of the market consists of rent-controlled apartments with highly restrictive terms. Landlords of modern buildings often receive tax breaks in exchange for maintaining a portion of their units as rent-stabilized, providing tenants in these apartments with the right to renew their leases annually with modest, commission-approved rent increases, in contrast to the free-market rents that can be set by landlords and tenants in non-stabilized units.

In New York, a common benchmark for determining your budget is that your annual salary must be 40x the monthly rent. For someone looking at $6,000/month apartments, they must earn a minimum of $240,000/year. There are ways of getting around this rule through guarantors. Typically, landlords will want a guarantor to make 80x the monthly rent and reside in the tri-state area. If your guarantor is out of state or country, you can still get approved with a 3rd party guarantor.

You can expect to pay $20 for a credit/background report (it is valid for 30 days) and at the time of lease signing, you will be required to pay 1st month rent, 1 month security deposit and brokerage fee of around 15% of the annual rent (who pays this fee is market sensitive and in a strong rental market the prospective tenant is expected to cover it). There might be incentivized listings posted on StreetEasy as NO FEE listings. If you decide to rent unrepresented by a real estate broker these could be potential savings however with significant risks, such as signing unfavorable lease terms, overlooking hidden costs, or falling victim to rental scams.