The most attractively priced apartments advertised on CL are on there because they are great deals. There are thousands of people looking for the cheapest apartments, and when someone rents it, that means 999 other people get to hear "I'm sorry, that apartment is gone." Obviously I understand the frustration, since I've been on both sides of those conversations, and there are some brokerages that put out shady ads, but nearly all rentals are on the market less than a week, and smart landlords price their apartments so well they are rented within a day - just because apartments get rented is not evidence of a mass conspiracy.
- brokers and rental companies ALWAYS post in the "by owner" section. I've had agents from Citiapartments actually pretend to be the "owner!"
- brokers post in the "no fee" section but there are always fees.
- no photos... because everything that's a decent deal is also a dump.
- "Net Effective" rent prices in the listing. It's listed at $1700 but that's the "Net Effective" rent not taking into account your 2 months free after 14 months and waiving the fee we didn't tell you about which means that you're really sending us a check for $2150 every month but really, trust us, it's only $1700.
Not having pictures is directly related to how fast apartments are rented - sometimes it's simply not reasonable or possible to gain access and go take pictures of an apartment before it is rented.
Net effective is slimy, but not prohibited, as long as it's labeled properly.
For what it's worth, I never advertise without photos and have never used net effective prices, which is my personal decision, but it still bothers me when people extrapolate from a few bad ads or ads they think are misleading and then disparage the entire industry. The real CL scams are much worse than what people are typically paranoid about real estate agents doing behind the scenes.
As far as I can tell, almost every price listed by a management company for an apartment in a new development is "net effective," whether they list it as such or not.
> As far as I can tell, almost every price listed by a management company for an apartment in a new development is "net effective," whether they list it as such or not.
You're right - new developments and management companies are the ones who thrive on advertising net effective prices. They are not officially "brokers," so they are not held to the same guidelines and restrictions that brokers are, and they operate in an uncomfortable gray area when it comes to advertising on CL.