NYC Startup Paying $350 a Month in Manhattan for 1500sqft Apartment | Hacker News Reader

NYC Startup Paying $350 a Month in Manhattan for 1500sqft Apartment

cameronkeng.com

8 pointscamz13 comments

From story:

- Lease a 4 bed apartment, get better rates by paying full year of rent in advance (not easy for most people).

- Sublet the 3 remaining rooms at near market rate.

- Accept the risk of default and/or not finding tenants.

What you really get for 350$ is a single room in a big apartment. Still a good deal, but there are substantial risks and lots of upfront investment. Like picking up nickels in front of a bulldozer, it'll work out for the better... most of the time.

How do I protect myself from my tenants? The greatest single step to being a landlord is picking the right people. I list my extra rooms at just under market prices with above market amenities and then select the best people. They provide me a month’s deposit and they sign a sublease that clearly states that non-payment of rent for a single month without prior written approval results in automatic cancelation of the lease and eviction (avoiding the long drawn out civil court system).

This approach works with consulting and picking clients. If you go for the highest rate you think you can get away with you end up with fewer clients to chose from; sometimes you end up with the one client to chose from.

If you price your rates lower you'll (generally) get more potential clients giving you a better choice of who to work with. Caveat: People are funny, and price sensitivity is funnier still.

BTW, it's been years since I had any dealings with NYC housing court, but if it's at all the same then all bets are off even if you have a signed contract regarding eviction. My recollection is that the courts were very reluctant to evict people, even when they've skipped paying rent for many months. OTOH years of Bloomberg could very well have changed this.

Hey James, well the beauty of it is that you're not asking for a judgement. A judgement requires the judge to deem that they shouldn't be there or should pay rent. The contract deems the lease broken if they pay later than 30 days without written consent by me (landlord). Thus, they revert to a month-by-month tenant and the judge is required to follow the law so the tenants can be evicted by the local sheriff's department.

Ah, I see, thanks. Seems much simpler for the landlord.

Heh. This is exactly what Infosys/Wipro/TCS do. If you've ever worked for a big financial services co or IBs and meet tons of Indian IT folk day in and day out and wonder hey where do all these people stay and how do they afford to live in this big city...well, the company rents hundreds of 3 and 4-bdrm apts in NJ, NYC, Atlanta, Charlotte, Sunnyvale etc etc... you get on a plane from Bangalore on your B1 visa and land at one of these apartments for your 90 day "onsite", after which you leave and the next Indian takes your place. I've been to several of these apts. Typically its 3-4 Indians to one apt...you take turns cooking, cleaning out, buying groceries. Weekends you take in your Hindi movies & your pirated bollywood DVDs :)) Its a phase I guess...if you are an IT professional in India, I heartily recommend it. Fun lifestyle, like living in a dorm & getting paid the market rate...At some point you grow up and file your papers and become an NRI & get your green card & the your US citizenship & say goodbye to shacking up with 3 random programmers...but it is fun while it lasts, and keeps the US real estate market humming as well.

Heyos (I'm the Author),

I live in the Upper East Side and this usually works best with large managed apartment complexes because they have the necessary infrastructure to take care of any concerns such things breaking down and stuff getting clogged. I personally dont want to deal with this stuff.

1. I'd like to clarify. I dont pay any rent upfront. So, I only pay the deposit. Rent is not paid upfront in full in advance. I only paid 350 a month total out of pocket

2. I'm in the Upper East Side with a view of the river.

3. Finding tenants is actually not a problem because I usually have the apartment rented out in 7 days or less because i get a flood of applicants. I'm a dude and I only accept female roommates because they're generally better roommates lol.

4. I have extensive experience in real estate because ive been a landlord, went to civil court for tenancy and etc. I've been a real estate agent. So I'm pretty comfortable with the industry and i'm not risk adverse.

If you guys want I can post a follow-up to give you more details.

I love a follow-up. Especially with regards to the sublease agreement.

> The most expensive apartments per square foot is a 1 bedroom apartment at about $31.50 per square foot (Average: $2,100). But, the cost of a 4 bedroom apartment is about $25.60 per square foot (Average: $3,200).

I am having trouble understanding this. If the average 1 bedroom is $2100 and it is $31.50 per square foot, that would mean the average 1 bedroom apartment is 67 square feet. The average 4 bedroom would be 125 square feet based on his numbers. This sounds way off. Am I misunderstanding him, or did he get the numbers wrong, or what?

The way cost per square feet is measured in real estate is awkward. You take the monthly rent and annualize it by multiply it by 12 months. So, 2,100 is multiplied by 12 to get $25,200. Then, it's divided by the number of square feet in the apartment, which is 800 square feet. That leads to $31.50 dollars per square foot.

Assuming the author is reading these comments, I have a few questions:

- What neighborhood in Manhattan?

- How do you approach the owners/managers to negotiate?

- Do you find that small owners are more (or less) receptive to the idea than larger management companies?

I imagine that printing out a credit report and bank statement that the full year pre-pay will come from works most times..

The points brought up are valid, I'm just curious as to which part of NYC this is in since that can make a huge difference in price

this strategy is good for any place anywhere. I used this same method while i did my undergrad and grad work. I found a really nice place paid several months rent up front, pledged I'd be there until a graduated. ( not hard since this was my plan and i hate moving with a passion!) i then rented out the rooms to the best people i could find. i bundled utilities at a flat rate. i found people preferred to know what they would pay upfront. not only did i get what i wanted, but i also was able to pick the choice places in the apt for my stuff and reduce the amount of rent i paid.

This is the hacker hustle that extends way beyond coding and helps if you ever launch a startup.

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