
NYC Startup Paying $350 a Month in Manhattan for 1500sqft Apartment - camz
http://cameronkeng.com/nyc-startup-paying-350-a-month-in-manhattan-for-1500sqft-apartment/
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dreamux
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.

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jamesbritt
_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.

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camz
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.

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

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dxbydt
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.

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camz
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.

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

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tzs
> 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?

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camz
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.

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BrianHV
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?

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

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awad
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

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ShawnJG
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.

