Terminating Exclusive Rental Agreement

We signed an exclusive rental agreement with a broker to rent the garden apartment in our house. The broker is not doing much to generate traffic, and we have lowered the price twice. They suggest we pay the broker fee or split it.

I am hoping to get out the rental agreement as it does not seem like the broker is doing much. Also – we signed up with one broker, and said broker went on vacation for 3 weeks and gave the listing to another broker. The listing was also not on streeteasy for the first 2-3 Open Houses, and there has been very little communication.

Any experience, advice, or comments are welcome.

Thanks.

sterlingbk

in General Discussion 7 years and 11 months ago

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gemby | 7 years and 11 months ago

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If you are going the Air BnB route you might also want to check with your homeowner’s insurance to make sure you are covered if something happens due to a short term renter.

NeoGrec | 7 years and 11 months ago

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We just rented our garden floor apartment in Prospect Heights through StreetEasy. We had about 35 applicants, most of them well qualified. As first-time StreetEasy users, we were amazed by the response.

bowl-of-dicks | 7 years and 11 months ago

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I’m looking for a garden unit – If you don’t mind, where is the apartment? And what’s the rent?

sterlingbk | 7 years and 11 months ago

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And….appears as broker is being amicable with our request to terminate contract. Assume no one wants the headache

sterlingbk | 7 years and 11 months ago

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Thanks. We are most likely going to go air bnb route as it allows for us to block off time for visits from family. Ive looked into all the legal/tax requirements and all seems to be ok and also provides us with flexibilty and income.

Arkady | 7 years and 11 months ago

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Follow Slopefarm’s advice closely. Brokers can be really aggressive about any breach of your contract.

slopefarm | 7 years and 11 months ago

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Your biggest problem is that the place isn’t rented and you are missing the income. You don’t know yet how much of your problem is the market, the broker’s lack of diligence, or both. You could list it yourselves and take the risk that if you rent it you’d still be on the hook for the fee to the broker (though — and this is both risky and not legal advice — you could play hardball about this if you have a REALLY good record of their failure to market the unit), but at least you’d see what kind of traffic your listing gets and you might rent it faster. If you very little, you know the price is too high. If you get a lot, you know something’s off with the broker. And if you rent it quickly, you are ahead of the game even if you have to pay the fee because at least you will start getting income. Keep really good records of who contacts you, including date, time and contact info. Perhaps let the broker know what you are doing — it may light a fire under th em. And keep asking questions about what they are doing to market your unit and how many inquiries they have received.

EJR | 7 years and 11 months ago

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For how long was the agreement? Typically they are six months in duration. You can complain to them and try to get out of it, but they are probably not under any obligation to cancel it. There may be diligence requirements in the agreement and you can claim breach of contract, but it’s hard to say without knowing more. It will likely cost more than it’s worth to pursue any sort of legal action, so having a conversation with the broker, or if the broker is not responsive, the company the broker works for, to try to see what you can do.