New York's Largest Source of No Broker Fee Apartments!
New York City Apartments, Brooklyn, Queens, New Jersey, Bronx & Westchester No Fee Apartment Rentals
Crain's New York Business
April 9-15, 2001
SPECIAL REPORT SMALL BUSINESS:
Apartment Site Draws Renters, Skips Brokers
by Lisa Goff
True or false: it's easy to get a terrific apartment in Manhattan without paying a broker's fee. For the answer, visit Rent-Direct.com. For a slim $169, registered users can search a database of up-to-the-minute rental listings from 900 landlords and 2,700 properties in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and parts of northern New Jersey - often before they hit the newspapers.
By offering that service, Rent-Direct.com founder Ralph Barocas reckons that he saved 1,700 New Yorkers about $6.5 million in brokers' fees last year. In the process, he has built a business that now employs 16 people.
Mr. Barocas started Manhattan-based Rent-Direct.com as a fax service in 1995. The next year, he hauled his database onto the Web, then added on-line payment options and an e-mail service that immediately notifies users when new apartments become available in their price range. The service also offers customers on-line glimpses of apartment interiors and their view.
In addition to the electronic bells and whistles, Mr. Barocas says, he has a crucial edge: a far broader geographic range than most brokers can offer. "Most brokers specialize in only one or two neighborhoods," he says.
Mr. Barocas...adds that a major investment in technology later this year will allow Rent-Direct.com to expand the rental services it offers tenants and landlords.
Copyright 2001 Crain's New York Business, Inc. All rights reserved. All information used by permission.