lease renewal in cobble hill
Hi all, I rent a 3bd2ba garden duplex in cobble hill (1/2 blk from bqe). Decent bathrooms and kitchen, good storage, nice private yard. I currently pay 4500 and my landlord wants to increase the rent using NYC Rental Guidelines Board recommendations. Is this realistic in this market? What are people renting this kind of…
Hi all, I rent a 3bd2ba garden duplex in cobble hill (1/2 blk from bqe). Decent bathrooms and kitchen, good storage, nice private yard. I currently pay 4500 and my landlord wants to increase the rent using NYC Rental Guidelines Board recommendations. Is this realistic in this market? What are people renting this kind of space for? How to proceed? help!
Thanks
The catch is that moving is a PITA, and the bigger the apt, the bigger the Pain. And, landlords know that. If you consider the amount of the increase versus the thousands you’ll spend moving (and the huge hassle), plus the cost of finding a new place… it may make sense to stay.
i am in a similar situation, also in cobble hill. our lease renews on august 1st and i know for sure that they will automatically raise it by at least 75 bucks. trouble is there are no real comps in the immediate area because i do not live in a b’stone. i am in an elevator building right next to F at bergen. 2 bedroom w dishwasher, 650sf…. we pay $2475 with only cooking gas/water included. heat is elec and not included in rent (huge con-ed bills!) i am prepared to leave the building if they don’t honor my reduction request, but no clue what kind of amount to ask. any thoughts? thanks!
Without knowing exactly where you are, a 3br duplex in cobble hill at 4500 does not sound unreasonable to me. Most decent 2BR’s in cobble hill are 3,000+. I can only imagine that a 3BR would command a pretty hefty premium to a 2br.
As the other posters said though, you will need to do some legwork.
We recently negotiated a rent reduction with our current landlord after going and looking at several places. You have to actually go and see places or you’ll never know exactly what the comparables out there are (listings will never give you the full picture). We took a couple of weekends to look at several places, and ended up deciding that we would first ask our landlord for a rent reduction on our lease renewal. If he declined, we were confident that we could find a place. Our landlord agreed to a reduction that made sense for us, given the cost (both monetary and psychological) of moving.
Do your homework and figure out if the comparable apartments out there warrant you asking for no increase or a reduction. It’s really the only way to be sure.
Good luck.
Only you know how nice your apartment/duplex is. So you have to do the research by looking at ads on realtors site and visiting a few in person to see if you’d be better off somewhere else. And, of course, remember what broker fee/cost of moving does to the your total expenses over term of lease.
Can you replicate your living situation for less? What are similar apartments around you going for?
All the mass media “prices are dropping” noise aside, the apartment is worth what the market will bear. What I mean by that is, if you look at comparable apartments around you and find they are renting at $5k+ then yours at $4500 is “below market”. If comps are less you have room to negotiate.
Do some research.
Regardless of market and price, the only real overall answer is to the age old questions, can you get a similar place cheaper? are you willing to move? is the landlord willing to let you leave?