For those that don't know, the season has shifted. We are now in the peak rental season. There are few if any concessions being offered, there is less turnaround time for apartments to hit the market and get rented. There are way more people looking than there are places to rent.
Often in this time of year, the best apartments are rented before they are even put into the listing databases. While having a digital representation of the apartments can help when you are sitting at home on your duff drinking a duff, it can be very misleading. Ever hear of photoshop?
The bottom line is that there is no substitute to going out and viewing the actual properties. A good agent will know which ones to show you based on the inital qualification phone call and also your input and feeedback throughout. I can print out ten sheets of listings to show someone and wind up improvising and not showing any of those due to my inventory knowledge. If someone is not interested in seeing something, why waste either of our time by trying to show it?
There is only one way to do things in life. THE RIGHT WAY! By going out to see the properties, you meet the owner's, supers, brokers and get to find out the real inside scoop on any new listings coming up in a building. I have gone to show someone a studio in a building and wound up renting them a unit not even listed. The listing broker showing us the unit got a call on another one right above us, as we were on the way there to meet him. This unit was the same price, but renovated and brighter!
There are less places than there are people looking. Statistics show that 94% of renters, wind up renting something for 20% more than the average price that they had in mind. This is after loosing a place or two and spending more time. Me sitting in an office watching a listings database or you sitting at home looking for pictures on the internet may seem productive, but it is only half effective. I know this from four years of experience. The four bedrooms that I rented for $4850 are now $5200. There is one thing that stays constant in Manhattan. The rents rise and the places still fly off of the market in less than a week during this time of year.
