When I moved to New York over seven years ago, it wasn't
easy finding an apartment. Internet rental listings had not yet
caught on; I actually had to pick up the phone and call (gasp!) a
broker or a friend to help locate available apartments. Since then,
there has been a proliferation of web sites and mobile applications
that provide listings of available apartments (see my prior posts
about short-term listings on AirBnB
here and
here).
Some of these sites, such as NYBits, provide listings of only
"no-fee" apartments (i.e., no broker's fee is
required), while other sites, such as NakedApartments, RentHop and
StreetEasy, provide listings of both "fee" and
"no-fee" apartments. What is unclear, however, is how
these sites are obtaining their listings. While property management
companies, brokers and landlords often provide their listings
directly to some of these sites, it is unlikely that all of the
listings are derived from such standard sources. Instead, it
