Rented in 7 cities on 2 continents - never used a broker. I know they exist but are they that common. Don't people mostly uses Craiglist along with a few other online resources?
Don't disagree the process could be greatly improved...
Don't disagree the process could be greatly improved...
In NYC it is hard to find a place without a broker in many neighborhoods. I found an apartment on Craigslist a few years ago and was surprised I was able to get it. Often, Craigslist is full of broker spam disguised as a landlord listing an apartment or the apartment is simply taken up by someone right away.
The other option is to find a building managed by a larger company. They almost always have "0 fee rentals". However, they often cost more too since they tend to have many facilities.
Honestly, many landlords like the broker system because brokers weed out bad renters by referencing their credit and arranging all the paper work and the landlord doesn't really have to do anything. The tenant pays all the fees and as this article pointed out, the landlord may in fact receive kickbacks. At least in the NYC area, I don't expect brokers to go away any time soon. NYC is a beast upon itself in the housing world for renting and buying.
I would love to see brokers go away, however. I have a suspicion they largely drive up rent prices as they can create an artificially small market and because they rely on inefficient methods, tenants are really only able to visit a small subset of places and brokers can get them to bid against each other. This creates an artificially small market that is largely in the landlords favor. They also will usually not show you places unless you are ready to move in by the end of the month which creates time pressure and panic in renters which, as you guessed, artificially drives up rent.
In most I have lived in, brokers dominate (NYC, Boston, Washington, DC). Even going onto something like Craigslist, most posts there are just brokers posting. Maybe it's less prevalent than I have experienced in other cities?
Maybe agents are more common in Europe? Which continents did you rent on?