Hello,
My son recently got a job in Manhattan and living in a temporary shared apt. in West Village which seems to be a very nice area. This is his first job out of college - he makes a good amt. of money. He's paying $1500 per month where he is but needs to get another place by Aug. 1st. Having difficulty finding apts. without broker fees which are way too high. Any other nice areas like West Village that you can suggest that are around $1200 plus Util. or even a little less. He has a least one roomate that will go with him.
Thanks.
Elaine

How many people are looking for this apartment, what size apartment are they looking for, and what is their total rent budget?

The rent budget I can infer from your post seems low for the Village, but there may be other areas in Manhattan that could work. Frankly, if you don't know the city and the rental market, a broker's expertise may be well worth the fee.

$1200 per roommate is very low for the West Village. For his price I would recommend that he look at the East Village. I have a friend that lives in Stuyvesant Town (23rd-14th and 1st ave) with two other roommates and he pays less than $1000 for a good sized three bedroom, you can google their website. Another option is searching realty companies' web sites. I just recently found a new place using the Halstead website and they have a section of no fee apartments. Just realize that if you don't want to pay a fee, you're going to have to spend more time looking and hustling for a deal. In my NY realtor experience, I would rather worker harder for a deal that pay someone thousands of dollars to basically open doors for me.