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Renting in New York City: guides and market notes

HomeMatch reads New York City rental groups all day. These are the things we keep having to explain — what a no-fee listing means now, where the apartments that never reach StreetEasy are posted, and what a room actually costs.

• No-fee apartments in NYC: what the FARE Act actually changed

  The broker fee that used to cost New York renters four to eight thousand dollars up front is, for most apartments, gone. Here is what the law changed, what it left alone, and how to tell a real no-fee listing from a repackaged one.

• NYC Facebook rental groups: where the apartments are before they are listed

  A large share of New York's rental inventory never reaches a listing site. It is typed into a Facebook group by the person leaving the apartment, answered within the hour, and gone. This is how that market works.

• Off-market apartments in NYC: renting directly from the person who has the keys

  Off-market does not mean secret. It means nobody paid to advertise it, so it is only visible where it was posted — and usually only for a few hours.

• StreetEasy is not enough on its own. Here is what it misses

  StreetEasy is the best index of the brokered New York rental market, and you should use it. It is also, by design, blind to an entire category of apartment. Both of those are worth understanding before you spend a month searching.

• Rooms for rent in NYC: what a room actually costs and where to find one

  A room in a shared apartment is the cheapest legitimate way into New York, and it is almost entirely a word-of-mouth market. Listing sites index whole units; rooms are posted by the roommates who need to fill them.

• How to find an apartment in NYC fast, without a broker

  Most New York apartment searches are lost on response time, not on budget. The apartment you wanted was available; somebody replied to it forty minutes before you did.

• How to spot a fake apartment listing on Facebook

  Informal rental markets attract scammers because they run on trust and urgency. Almost every fake listing fails one of five checks, and none of them takes longer than the walk to the subway.

• NYC rental alert tools compared: StreetEasy, FirstMover, LeaseSwap and others

  Every apartment alert tool is defined by the sources it reads. Most of them read the same ones. Here is what each covers, what it charges, and where it is blind.

• Renting in Crown Heights: prices, streets and where listings show up

  Crown Heights has more informal rental inventory than almost anywhere else in Brooklyn — large pre-war apartments, shared between three and four people, turning over constantly.

• Renting in Bed-Stuy: prices, streets and where listings show up

  Bedford-Stuyvesant is brownstone housing stock rented as floor-throughs and shared apartments, which means most of it is advertised by the people living in it rather than by a broker.

• Renting in Bushwick: prices, streets and where listings show up

  Bushwick turns over faster than almost any neighborhood in the city, and a large share of it moves through group posts and lease transfers rather than brokers.

• Renting in Astoria: prices, streets and where listings show up

  Astoria is the clearest example in the city of a neighborhood where small owner-landlords still hold the buildings — which changes both what you pay and how you find it.

• Renting in Washington Heights: prices, streets and where listings show up

  Washington Heights is the last large area of Manhattan where a one-bedroom is available for less than most of Brooklyn, and the trade you make for it is measured in minutes on the A train.