NYC’s cutthroat and chaotic battle for rental apartments leaves tenants desperate and defeated

The hunt for a New York City apartment has gone from frustrating to downright feral.

This summer, renters are battling it out like never before, all for a shot at a roof over their heads in a city where landlords are calling the shots and jacking up prices to astronomical levels.

Take Aurielle Catron, a 29-year-old security engineer who braved the NYC jungle in search of a two-bedroom in Bushwick. After a brutal month-long search and 52 viewings, Catron landed a rent-stabilized fourth-floor walk-up for $3,200 a month.

It wasn’t her dream pad — it’s missing a laundry room and elevator — but after losing a bidding war that saw a $2,800 unit shoot up to $3,600, she was just relieved to have a place to call home.

“People are willing to say, ‘Hey, if you give me this apartment, I’ll pay like $200, $500, $600 over asking for rent,’” she told Bloomberg , which reported on today’s general rental scramble. “I can’t compete with that.”

But it’s not just about losing bids. For Amber Melhouse, 49, the stakes were even higher. Forced out of her Brooklyn pad when the landlord hiked the rent by $1,350 a month — too much for her to handle after a divorce — Melhouse’s search for a smaller place turned into a horror show.

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At one studio viewing, she showed up half an hour early, only to find a line of four people ahead of her and a swarm forming behind her. The place was snatched up before she even had a chance to apply. Now she’s crashing with friends, considering giving up her small pet-care business, and wondering if she’ll have to leave New York altogether.

“I feel like this whole apartment-hunt experience has been a test of whether I’m meant to stay in New York. Like, is this New York’s way of kicking me out?” Melhouse told the outlet. “I don’t want to leave because my whole life is here.”

This savage rental market isn’t just a collection of horror stories — it’s the grim reality for thousands of New Yorkers this summer. Bidding wars, outrageous rents and lines of desperate apartment hunters snaking around the block are the new normal. It already has been for several years.

According to Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, the tables turned in favor of landlords right after the pandemic.

“Landlords resumed control and landlords could dictate terms that were more and more favorable for them,” he said.

In fact, some of these tactics are straight-up dirty tricks. Real estate agents are stoking bidding wars by underpricing apartments, pulling in hordes of hopefuls to open houses and then picking the highest bidder or the tenant with the best financials.

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“There’s too many TikTok brokers now that are trying to do things to go viral,” Douglas Elliman agent Keyan Sanai told Bloomberg. “At the end of the day, we’re in the business of sales. But 80% of the rental market competition is real.”

This summer, with recent grads flooding the market and mortgage rates so high that even the thought of homeownership is off the table, renters are in a pressure cooker.

For some, like Cornell grad Matthew Braganza, the search for a pad became more grueling than the hunt for a job.

Despite landing a solid accounting gig, Braganza had to jump through hoops — like providing personal references, his LinkedIn profile and a cover letter — just to stand out from the pack. After seeing nearly 100 apartments, he gave up on living solo and is now sharing a Lower East Side place with three roommates.

“I had a harder time finding an apartment than I did finding a job,” Braganza said. “It felt like I was competing with a million people.”

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Agents like Compass’s Thomas Hollingsworth are taking full advantage of the desperation. For applicants with thin rental histories or limited income, he’s demanding college transcripts.

“If you were an A student, we are much more likely to trust that you will be successful in your job and able to pay your rent,” Hollingsworth said. “If you were a dropout or got all Ds, we’re going to be much more cautious.”

And don’t think for a second that the bidding wars are entirely organic. Some brokers are playing dirty, holding back-to-back open houses and booking appointments just minutes apart, creating a frenzy that drives rents even higher.

Coldwell Banker Warburg’s Bill Kowalczuk admitted that these tactics almost always push offers above the asking price. It’s the kind of strategy that’s making New York’s “Wild West” market more chaotic than ever.

The rent madness hit new heights in June when bidding wars exploded in Manhattan and Brooklyn, with nearly a quarter of new leases in both boroughs caught up in the frenzy.

Hollingsworth himself put up a “basic” $2,000 fourth-floor walk-up studio in central Manhattan on Second Avenue that brought in 100 people and 20 applicants, eventually leasing to someone who offered $2,075 and was “generally pleasant” to work with.

An applicant who bid just $25 more but proved difficult to deal with was passed over, sparing the landlord from a potentially troublesome tenant, Hollingsworth said.

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