[mattzito]

As someone who rented for 20 years in NYC, this is a bizarre scenario you describe. You deal with a broker during the leasing process, and then after you lease it, you pay the landlord, they have to sign the lease and approve repairs, and are the person with whom you review lease increases. The most arms length relationship I have ever heard or seen is having an admin assistant for the landlord handle all the operational things.

I have never seen a situation where the broker is responsible for the lease terms, because in the end the landlord has to sign their end.

[harmmonica]

Brokers have gotten more “savvy” where they’ll actually act as a de facto property manager for a small fee or even for free and absentee landlords buy in because it’s less work for them (no communication at all with the tenant). And then the landlord wonders why tenants never stick around for more than a year!

[bsimpson]

My lease is with "Foreign Investor c/o Local Broker."

I think the reason it was listed as a "no fee" apartment is because the brokerage is the de facto landlady.

As the person who told me about this grift explained, this is not an uncommon relationship.

[harmmonica]

I tried to confirm your assertion about this grift but someone downvoted my previous comment saying as much. Just to reiterate: you’re right. This a real, relatively normal situation in NYC.