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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
It's official! Tenant-paid rental broker fees in New York City are history.
A longtime scourge of New York City renters — paying a hefty broker fee to move into an apartment — is officially a thing of the past. The city's FARE Act — which prohibits landlords from passing broker fees to their tenants — took effect on Wednesday after a judge denied a petition from a real estate trade group seeking to block the law. It's expected to dramatically lower the up-front costs of renting an apartment in one of the nation's most costly and competitive real estate markets. The change is taking effect just as the city enters its leasing high season. By subscribing, you are agreeing to Yahoo's Terms and Privacy Policy Many tenants are cheering the changes, while others in the real estate industry are noticeably less thrilled. Landlords are fretting about their thin margins getting even thinner, and brokers fear their earnings will fall. 'I think the days of paying high fees are going to be over,' said Micky Lalchandani, the managing broker of Undivided Real Estate. 'It may also open up avenues for different business models.' Until recently, around half of the 2.3 million rentals in the city's five boroughs required tenants to pay a fee to the rental broker hired by their landlord when they signed a lease. Fees varied, but were typically between one month's rent and 15% of the annual cost of a lease. That meant tenants had to pony up thousands of dollars in addition to the standard start-up costs of the first month's rent, application fee, and security deposit. For example, a renter hunting for an apartment that costs $3,850 a month — the city's median rent as of April — could end up paying $14,630 in up-front move-in costs, with $6,930 of that sum going toward a nonrefundable 15% broker fee. New York City Council passed the FARE Act last fall with a veto-proof majority, putting an end to tenant-paid fees and requiring more transparency around rental costs. Under the law, tenants are still permitted to hire and pay their own brokers if they want apartment-hunting assistance, but no longer have to pay for the brokers that landlords hire. Violators, who can be reported via a complaint to the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, face city fines of up to $2,000 and a potential additional $2,000 fine from the state. StreetEasy, the Zillow-owned New York listings platform, estimates that the broker fee ban will drop the up-front costs of renting a formerly fee apartment more than 40% on average — from nearly $13,000 to $7,537. 'I think that's really significant for people," said Christian Emanuel, a real estate agent at Brown Harris Stephens who had primarily been working with no-fee rentals before the FARE Act. "You're already lopping off all of this money that has to come out of people's pockets up front." Rental brokers work all over the country, helping landlords with the administrative aspects of finding new tenants. In the pre-Internet days, they could effectively be gatekeepers to little-advertised listings. But now, many tenants turn to listings sites to screen potential apartments and may not interact with a broker until they request to tour a unit. Read more: Popular housing types for buyers and renters Everywhere except for New York and Boston, it's been standard for landlords to pay the brokers they hire. The changes in New York are poised to bring the city more in line with how rental markets work elsewhere in the country. But in many ways, the New York rental market is unlike any other. For one, 70% of residents rent, and more than half of all households are considered rent-burdened, meaning rent eats up more than 30% of their monthly income. And inventory in the city is also extremely constrained. Manhattan, home to 1.6 million people, had just 6,300 active rental listings in April, according to Corcoran Group data. In recent years, the citywide vacancy rate has fallen to as low as 1.4%. The New York Real Estate Board, a trade group that, along with several brokerage firms, sued the city to block the law, argued in its lawsuit that the changes will drive up rents and worsen the inventory shortage. Some brokers contacted by Yahoo Finance shared those fears. 'The sentiment is that that fee is already baked into your rent,' said Michael Jeneralczuk, team leader at Living New York, a real estate firm that represents landlords. 'I think long term, the implications will be much higher rent growth.' Exactly how much monthly rent could rise is up for debate. No-fee apartments in New York have generally rented at somewhat of a premium to their fee-based counterparts as landlords work some of their costs into their tenants' rent, according to an analysis by StreetEasy Senior Economist Kenny Lee. But how big that no-fee premium is depends on broader market conditions. When New York lost population during the pandemic, landlords broadly advertised listings as no-fee and ate the costs associated with working with brokers to attract tenants. When rental demand roared back in 2022, they passed those fees back onto tenants in the form of rent that was 6.4% higher than comparable fee-based rentals. Lee analyzed properties that switched to no-fee ahead of the FARE Act's implementation and found that rents rose, but not wildly out of step with the broader market. In April, rentals that dropped their broker fees were listed for 5.3% higher than they were a year earlier, compared with 4.6% rent growth in units that kept the fees. 'Market conditions will still prevail over landlord expenses,' Lee said. 'Property managers pay a lot of attention to demand and supply.' Ahead of the FARE Act's implementation, many properties had already switched over to no-fee. Some landlords and brokers holding out in the hours before the law went into effect were testing two-tiered pricing models, like listing a two-bedroom East Village rental at $4,200 with a broker fee, or $5,000 without one. On Wednesday morning, many were re-listed as no-fee, with rents a few hundred dollars higher. Jeneralczuk has concerns about inventory levels going forward. He's seen fee-avoidant landlords opt to pull listings from the market with the intent of only showing them to tenants who hire their own broker instead of paying for a broker to advertise them broadly. Though there's another argument that the FARE Act could end up improving inventory by making it easier for New Yorkers to move. High up-front moving costs effectively lock some New York renters into their homes, StreetEasy's Lee said, and lowering them should ease that friction. Time will tell. Lease turnover typically peaks in New York in July and August, as families move before the next school year and the city's many students and recent graduates relocate or settle in, giving the market a busy adjustment period. 'The goal is, sometime in the next couple of months, everything normalizes,' Jeneralczuk said. 'This will be the new normal, and we'll be able to go from there.' Claire Boston is a Senior Reporter for Yahoo Finance covering housing, mortgages, and home insurance. Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
It's official! Tenant-paid rental broker fees in New York City are history.
A longtime scourge of New York City renters — paying a hefty broker fee to move into an apartment — is officially a thing of the past. The city's FARE Act — which prohibits landlords from passing broker fees to their tenants — took effect on Wednesday after a judge denied a petition from a real estate trade group seeking to block the law. It's expected to dramatically lower the up-front costs of renting an apartment in one of the nation's most costly and competitive real estate markets. The change is taking effect just as the city enters its leasing high season. By subscribing, you are agreeing to Yahoo's Condiciones and Política de privacidad Many tenants are cheering the changes, while others in the real estate industry are noticeably less thrilled. Landlords are fretting about their thin margins getting even thinner, and brokers fear their earnings will fall. 'I think the days of paying high fees are going to be over,' said Micky Lalchandani, the managing broker of Undivided Real Estate. 'It may also open up avenues for different business models.' Until recently, around half of the 2.3 million rentals in the city's five boroughs required tenants to pay a fee to the rental broker hired by their landlord when they signed a lease. Fees varied, but were typically between one month's rent and 15% of the annual cost of a lease. That meant tenants had to pony up thousands of dollars in addition to the standard start-up costs of the first month's rent, application fee, and security deposit. For example, a renter hunting for an apartment that costs $3,850 a month — the city's median rent as of April — could end up paying $14,630 in up-front move-in costs, with $6,930 of that sum going toward a nonrefundable 15% broker fee. New York City Council passed the FARE Act last fall with a veto-proof majority, putting an end to tenant-paid fees and requiring more transparency around rental costs. Under the law, tenants are still permitted to hire and pay their own brokers if they want apartment-hunting assistance, but no longer have to pay for the brokers that landlords hire. Violators, who can be reported via a complaint to the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, face city fines of up to $2,000 and a potential additional $2,000 fine from the state. StreetEasy, the Zillow-owned New York listings platform, estimates that the broker fee ban will drop the up-front costs of renting a formerly fee apartment more than 40% on average — from nearly $13,000 to $7,537. 'I think that's really significant for people," said Christian Emanuel, a real estate agent at Brown Harris Stephens who had primarily been working with no-fee rentals before the FARE Act. "You're already lopping off all of this money that has to come out of people's pockets up front." Rental brokers work all over the country, helping landlords with the administrative aspects of finding new tenants. In the pre-Internet days, they could effectively be gatekeepers to little-advertised listings. But now, many tenants turn to listings sites to screen potential apartments and may not interact with a broker until they request to tour a unit. Read more: Popular housing types for buyers and renters Everywhere except for New York and Boston, it's been standard for landlords to pay the brokers they hire. The changes in New York are poised to bring the city more in line with how rental markets work elsewhere in the country. But in many ways, the New York rental market is unlike any other. For one, 70% of residents rent, and more than half of all households are considered rent-burdened, meaning rent eats up more than 30% of their monthly income. And inventory in the city is also extremely constrained. Manhattan, home to 1.6 million people, had just 6,300 active rental listings in April, according to Corcoran Group data. In recent years, the citywide vacancy rate has fallen to as low as 1.4%. The New York Real Estate Board, a trade group that, along with several brokerage firms, sued the city to block the law, argued in its lawsuit that the changes will drive up rents and worsen the inventory shortage. Some brokers contacted by Yahoo Finance shared those fears. 'The sentiment is that that fee is already baked into your rent,' said Michael Jeneralczuk, team leader at Living New York, a real estate firm that represents landlords. 'I think long term, the implications will be much higher rent growth.' Exactly how much monthly rent could rise is up for debate. No-fee apartments in New York have generally rented at somewhat of a premium to their fee-based counterparts as landlords work some of their costs into their tenants' rent, according to an analysis by StreetEasy Senior Economist Kenny Lee. But how big that no-fee premium is depends on broader market conditions. When New York lost population during the pandemic, landlords broadly advertised listings as no-fee and ate the costs associated with working with brokers to attract tenants. When rental demand roared back in 2022, they passed those fees back onto tenants in the form of rent that was 6.4% higher than comparable fee-based rentals. Lee analyzed properties that switched to no-fee ahead of the FARE Act's implementation and found that rents rose, but not wildly out of step with the broader market. In April, rentals that dropped their broker fees were listed for 5.3% higher than they were a year earlier, compared with 4.6% rent growth in units that kept the fees. 'Market conditions will still prevail over landlord expenses,' Lee said. 'Property managers pay a lot of attention to demand and supply.' Ahead of the FARE Act's implementation, many properties had already switched over to no-fee. Some landlords and brokers holding out in the hours before the law went into effect were testing two-tiered pricing models, like listing a two-bedroom East Village rental at $4,200 with a broker fee, or $5,000 without one. On Wednesday morning, many were re-listed as no-fee, with rents a few hundred dollars higher. Jeneralczuk has concerns about inventory levels going forward. He's seen fee-avoidant landlords opt to pull listings from the market with the intent of only showing them to tenants who hire their own broker instead of paying for a broker to advertise them broadly. Though there's another argument that the FARE Act could end up improving inventory by making it easier for New Yorkers to move. High up-front moving costs effectively lock some New York renters into their homes, StreetEasy's Lee said, and lowering them should ease that friction. Time will tell. Lease turnover typically peaks in New York in July and August, as families move before the next school year and the city's many students and recent graduates relocate or settle in, giving the market a busy adjustment period. 'The goal is, sometime in the next couple of months, everything normalizes,' Jeneralczuk said. 'This will be the new normal, and we'll be able to go from there.' Claire Boston is a Senior Reporter for Yahoo Finance covering housing, mortgages, and home insurance. Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Inicia sesión para acceder a tu portafolio Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Chrissy Teigen wonders what is 'wrong' with those who feel the need to insult her online
Chrissy Teigen has wondered what is "wrong" with those who feel the need to insult her online. The 39-year-old model took to social media to address her 41 million followers where she reminisced on the pre-Internet era that allowed celebrities and those online to never really learn what has been said about themselves. Speaking in a video posted to Instagram, she said: "Stop being miserable. Honestly, like, what happened to just thinking things? Remember thinking things?'. "You'd go through a magazine, you'd be like, 'Oh, that person looks like s***. Ugh, I would never have that haircut. Blegh, those teeth suck.' We all do it, but we used to do it to, like, magazines, and then we spit it out and it would go into the universe and it would disappear. "Just do that. Like, what the f*** is wrong with you? Now, you take the time to type it out — like, what? "Somebody's like, 'Feeling really good about myself today,' and you're like, 'Guh, you shouldn't feel good about yourself because you look like s*** and your backyard looks dumb!' "Her cheeks look too filled. Why would she fill her cheeks like that? Why would she do her lips like that? Ugh, I would never. I would never. I would never, that's so gross." The former 'Lip Sync Battle' host begged her followers to keep their insults to themselves and seemed to deny having any She said: "Just say those things inside, in your head. Say them inside your big brain. Your big brain is so ready for all your thoughts, but you don't let them keep anything in because you're spewing them Keep those big, beautiful thoughts to yourself. Keep them inside. "I know it makes you feel better to think that you're the only one with eyes, but, like, why would I fill my cheeks to the point where people talked about my cheeks?"
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Analysis-OpenAI cites US roots to dodge India courts, but lawyers say case can be heard
By Arpan Chaturvedi, Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil NEW DELHI (Reuters) - OpenAI faces an uphill climb as it argues that Indian courts cannot hear lawsuits about its U.S.-based business in the country, where Telegram has failed with similar defences and U.S. technology firms have faced government heat on compliance. OpenAI, which counts India as its second biggest market with millions of users, is locked in an intense court battle triggered by domestic news agency ANI for alleged use of copyright content. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. The case gained prominence in recent weeks as book publishers and media groups, including those of billionaires Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani, banded together to oppose OpenAI in the case. OpenAI, which is facing new challenges from Chinese startup DeepSeek's breakthrough cheap AI computing, has maintained it builds its AI models using public information in line with fair use principles. The company faces similar copyright infringement lawsuits in U.S., Germany and Canada. Details of legal rebuttals by OpenAI in other markets are not known, but in New Delhi it is opposing ANI by saying in court filings its usage terms call for dispute resolution only in San Francisco, it is beyond the jurisdiction of Indian courts and it "does not maintain any servers or data centres" in the country. "It's a pre-Internet era argument which will not fly in Indian courts today," said Dharmendra Chatur, a partner at Poovayya & Co., which advises foreign tech companies. "Google, X, Facebook all perform services through their foreign companies and are party to litigation across India," Chatur added, explaining courts typically assess if a website is accessible and offers services to customers in India in deciding the point. OpenAI did not respond to Reuters queries for this article. Its lawyer in India, Amit Sibal, declined to comment, citing ongoing proceedings. Six other lawyers, and submissions of two court-appointed experts in the OpenAI lawsuit, Arul George Scaria and Adarsh Ramanujan, said Indian judges can hear the matter. "It is evident that OpenAI is making their interactive services available to the users in India," Scaria wrote in his Jan. 25 court submission, which has not been made public but was seen by Reuters. OpenAI's website shows it charges an 18% Indian tax on paid offerings and it said recently there was a "massive uptake of ChatGPT" in the critical market. In the OpenAI-ANI case, an outright win on the jurisdiction argument will mean OpenAI will not need to face the copyright lawsuit in India. If it loses that argument, it will have to contest ANI's demand for deletion of training data and pay $230,000 in damages. The Delhi court is set to hear the case next in February on the jurisdiction and other arguments. Asked about the lawsuit, Reuters, which holds a 26% interest in ANI, has said it is not involved in its business practices or operations. "FOREIGN DEFENDANT" Batting for the power of Indian courts, lawyers and the court-appointed expert Scaria cited a 2022 decision involving Telegram as a legal precedent. An Indian author had sued Telegram for her leaked copyright works appearing on Telegram groups, but the company declined to share details saying it was governed by laws in Dubai, where it is based, and had servers outside India. Telegram disclosed the details after a Delhi judge ruled: "the conventional concepts of territoriality no longer exist ... (Telegram choosing) not to locate its servers in India cannot divest the Indian courts from dealing with copyright disputes." The court did not impose a penalty. OpenAI, however, argues there is 2009 court precedent in India that says merely because an app or webpage is accessible there does not mean judges can get jurisdiction "over a foreign defendant." Even if OpenAI's argument on jurisdiction fails to stop the lawsuit initially, an Indian intellectual property lawyer said it could later help the company make the point that a court order would need enforcement abroad. The lawyer declined to be named because of the matter's sensitivity. Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is not party to the OpenAI lawsuit, it has had a love-hate relationship with Big Tech. India's IT minister in 2021 referred to U.S. tech firms and said their "position that 'I will only be governed by laws of America' ... is plainly not acceptable." In the most bitter public faceoff that same year, Twitter, now X, declined to comply with orders to remove certain content and the government issued a press release, titled "Twitter needs to comply with the laws of the land". The company complied later but sued New Delhi. The case is ongoing. Even before Indian legal challenges mounted, OpenAI chief Sam Altman planned an India visit for Feb. 5. An email shows two other senior executives, James Hairston and Srinivas Narayanan, also plan to be in India. "India is really important ... we've seen massive uptake of ChatGPT," OpenAI India executive, Pragya Misra, said last year.
