The article explains that they are pre-vetting renters and handling showings and such. They add value for the landlord, not for you. But, they are also probably extracting the maximum amount of blood from you, because they can...
Sometimes, especially in peak season when they do open houses for a whole afternoon. Many times the broker told me to pick up a key from the doorman and let myself in and let them know if I was interested.
I guess I can see charging some money, but pre-vetting renters is probably just a matter of submitting their application to some service, and maybe doing a Google search, right? How much would you pay someone for that? About $7500?
And I imagine that in an $1100 rent-controlled building, you don't have to do too many showings before someone bites, so how much of a burden is that? A few hours? Would you pay me $7500 for that?
I guess I could see $1000 being a generous amount of money for brokers fees in this situation, if everything was being fairly run. So, in my view, the difference between the asked-for $15000 and the generous $1000 is the amount of inefficiency in this process introduced by what amounts to greed. Greed is to be expected, but when it starts to look predatory, regulators sometimes step in—which means it may be short-sighted and ultimately self-destructive greed.
To be fair, probably nothing will come of it, and the market will just dictate these costs. But, it's still a shitty thing to do.
Equifax, check. Ten minutes and done.
Maybe also all those things you did in high school that went on your "permanent record" ?