landlords screen me as a tenant, how do i screen a landlord?

shugabooga

i'm looking for apartments (rented by owner) in brooklyn...never rented directly from an owner....what should i look for? obviously they are screening me, how should i screen them? would you say it's similar to a job interview, where both parties are putting their best foot forward and trying to sell themselves to the other?

my concerns are thus: is my landlord, who might be living above or below me, a person of integrity? i.e. will they respect my privacy?

i've always stayed in my apartments long-term, five to seven years. can i count on my lease being renewed?

surely there must be a legal reference site for folks like me! i'm off to search the web further, but any advice would be helpful. thanks!

apollonia666

It seems simple, but Google the hell out of 'em -- you may very well find out a lot that way -- and you can also check the address of the building you're thinking about moving into on the city Dept. of Buildings website to see whether there are any housing violations to be worried about or a history of them in your building:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/html/home/home.shtml

You might also want to do the same at PropertyShark.com.

Wouldn't it be awesome if there were a site that collected info on landlords? There is actually a site called RateMyLandlord.com, but it has very few entries right now -- don't know if it's new or in beta or just never really took off or what.

http://ratemylandlord.com/

mypasswordwontwork

Such an excellent question. Sadly I do not have the answer though.

pitu

apollonia666 wrote:
Wouldn't it be awesome if there were a site that collected info on landlords? There is actually a site called RateMyLandlord.com, but it has very few entries right now -- don't know if it's new or in beta or just never really took off or what.

http://ratemylandlord.com/

that would work better for the large landlords, but the owner-occupied situation would have to be shockingly bad to rate, no? gooooogle! Like Appollonia said, the address as well as the LL.

I'd say your odds are pretty good with the owner-occupied situation, because they have a more personal stake in the building than an owner with just a business interest. They probably want their privacy as much as you do, but are going to care more about sound and stuff like that. If you can hang out on the block and chat to people, all the better.
Trust your instincts, and beware of peculiar errant sons. The worst my friends have had is weird adult sons living off mom who bang the trash cans around at odd hours...which isn't *that* bad, but it's the owner's kid so there's no recourse.
And like you said, you're at the whim of the owner to renew your lease. I had a good place for three years, until the lady decided it was time to sell. My pal was tucked in for 15 years, then it was over. Huge drag. No way to do anything about that -- people's situations may or may not change over the years. But then, so might yours.

tenant.net forums are useful to see how people resolve problems -- you'd probably be in a non-regulated apt,
linked here

You can learn alot on PropertyShark -- like how long they've had the place as well as history of code violations.

good luck!

shugabooga

thanks everybody!!! invaluable information!!! i'm either terribly naive or highly suspicious, so knowing where to go and what to do for the facts is the best way for me.

michaelkeys

Plenty of good advice on here. Maybe it's been my own bad experiences but personally, I'm quite wary of living with the landlord on the premises.

I've been the recipient of:
- loud, rude knocking on my door on the 1st of the month;
- complaints about gas and/or electrical usage (it was included in the rent and if I was home a lot, well...);
- the landlord's junkie son showing up late at night asking for cash (this actually happened to a close friend);

and a few more that I've forgotten/blocked.

More importantly, shugabooga, if you're a long-term kinda person maybe owner-occupied is not such a good idea based on the fact that their situation can change, ie they decide to sell, they'd rather rent your apartment to their niece etc. Whereas in a regular landlord situation if you stay for the long run or your cirumstances change, you are a bit more in control of your own situation. Good luck.

laura

I could fill a whole page with stories about my landlady-on-premises situation, including:

- demanding rent in cash
- screaming at me on the street on the 1st of the month, demanding the rent in cash right then and there
- suddently raising the rent from $900 to $1600
- turning off the heat for the whole building when she went to work, and crying that I was trying to "bankrupt" her by demanding heat
- refusing to do any repairs
- refusing to look at the devastation to my apt after a large section of the living room ceiling collapsed, because she was "tired" and it would make her "upset"
- refusing to give me any break on the rent during the period my apt was uninhabitable following the above, because it was an "act of God"

Etc. etc. Finally capped off with her giving me a termination of my month-to-month tenancy out of the blue right before Christmas. Ho ho ho.

Obviously every situation is different and not all landlords are lunatics, but I sleep a lot easier these days being in a regular rent-controlled apartment in an apartment building.

shugabooga

Wow.

True nightmare stories here. Had you done any due diligence on the landlord indicating that they were stable and reliable and then gotten blindsided by this behavior? I have a friend who is a landlord on premise and as far as I've seen from his experience over the years it's been pretty mundane from both sides.

But after hearing these horror stories, I'm going to ask a lot of tough questions now!!!!! After eight years in New York I think I've gotten tougher than I was as a Southern Bell! Landlords, here I come so watch out!

laura

shugabooga wrote: Had you done any due diligence on the landlord indicating that they were stable and reliable

As for me, no. I'd just moved to Brooklyn (1992), had a 3-month sublet from a friend of a friend, and then initally sublet the place in question from a woman I worked with waitressing, all very casual.

michaelkeys

shugabooga wrote: Had you done any due diligence on the landlord indicating that they were stable and reliable

I haven't lived in an owner-on-the-premises situation since 1990--thank God!--so "Googling" someone was at least a decade into the future. But you go see the place, talk to the owner and they seem reasonable...and then you live with them.

That's not to say you won't find many reasonable owners who don't play games and just want a stable, quiet tenant. But when you meet them, how can you tell, either way? With landlord-type situations you can always talk to your would-be neighbors and try to get a feel for what the landlord is like.

Obviously, I'm biased. But I just don't want anybody privy to my comings and goings, especially those who have that kind of power over my living situation.
Again, best of luck.

laura

In my case, the landlady was a real Jekyll-Hyde case. Anyone who didn't have to rent from her thought she was the nicest lady around.