Rent to Own

The New York Times ran another article on rent-to-own, a viable and increasingly popular option for both renters and owners of apartments in New York.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, renting-to-own works just like leasing a vehicle:it allows potential owners to "test-drive" their New York apartments before committing to buy.If the tenant decides to buy, all or most of the paid rent goes toward the mortgage.

Since the economic downturn, the rent-to-own option has provided a bit of much-needed stability to the New York housing market, filling vacancies in, say, Upper West Side condominiums at a time when many are understandably unwilling to commit to own.And with market rent rates in Manhattan remaining high, renting-to-own can be a great investment towards owning a chunk of prime New York real estate.

Looking for an Apartment in NYC? First, Find the Right Broker

Last spring, my partner Jim and I flew to New York for a week to look for our first apartment in Manhattan. We had come prepared--equipped with all the latest market rent rates for Manhattan neighborhoods. We'd been researching places for months using apartment finders such as rent.com, citi-habitats, and of course good old Craigslist. We both expected to be done with our search by the weekend, after which we were looking forward to a few days of relaxation, bragging about our fabulous new Chelsea apartment over brunch with our friends.

But instead, four days into our NY apartment search, we found ourselves exhausted, depressed and nearly hopeless. The "leads" we had followed turned out to be frauds! "Chelsea" apartments were actually in Hell's Kitchen. Many of the buildings we were shown were in horrible repair, overrun with rodents and roaches! The only decent apartment we saw in all of NYC had a no-pet policy, and Jim would not hear of getting rid of our Maltese dog, Binky. It seemed every broker in New York was against us!

Finally on Friday we met our Mr. Right.His name was Rocco, and we found him through a broker matchmaking service. I'm not sure how, but Rocco knew exactly what we wanted! We found not only a great New York City apartment; we found a friend.