Brokerages Cater To Millennials Renting By The Room With New Tech
Many Millennials have taken to renting single rooms rather than full apartments in some of the country's largest metros due to rising rents, and New York brokerages like Nooklyn and TeacherSpace aim to help.
These brokerages are using landlord information to help renters find apartments in their price range and search for roommates. Nooklyn created an app that allows apartment hunters in need of roommates to sift through possible candidates as though it were an online dating app, the New York Times reports. In New York in particular, the rise in single room occupancy (SRO) demand stems from the city's high rental costs. A Douglas Elliman market report found the average Manhattan studio costs in April were more than $2.6K a month.
While some brokerages are stepping up to help people find rooms for rent rather than whole apartments, there remain some legal hurdles as only buildings zoned for SRO can rent by the room, and the Times reports that the law and landlords as a whole are not warming quickly to the growing trend.
