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chrisarg72 t1_ish40qu wrote

Reply to comment by BringMeInfo in June Homes ‘Reinvents’ Having a Roommate and it Sounds Less Than Ideal by ME_Press

They say it at the top, this is a solution for international students/recent immigrants with no credit score that do not qualify for traditional apartments.

They were able to rent directly after a year because they had paperwork in the US.

The real solution needed here is an improved way of measuring credit

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BringMeInfo t1_ish4wfp wrote

Right, but you don’t need credit to move in to an apartment as a roommate. That’s why I find acting like there’s no other solution weird.

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chrisarg72 t1_ishbw1c wrote

You need a roommate who’s willing to sign for you and bear the credit risk, difficult if you have no friends in a foreign country or just moved with awful credit.

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Quirky_Movie t1_ishmrco wrote

No. I have the lease and rented to people who had an agreement with me. That's what roommates used to mean.

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CactusBoyScout t1_isjnqt1 wrote

Yeah I’ve had tons of international roommates who weren’t on the lease over the years but landlords have gotten more strict about everyone being on the lease and those international roommates were always pretty grateful that I trusted them. That indicated to me that they’d had a hard time finding a place.

Some of the best roommates though because they feel lucky just to have found a place. And they never have lots of stuff or pets, lol.

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Quirky_Movie t1_iskb6ps wrote

Landlords got more strict because they can charge more for the apartment.

That's all.

Also, this is very neighborhood to neighborhood. My landlord doesn't because she doesn't want to deal with roommates individually. Small landlords often don't want to.

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samtresler t1_iskp8i4 wrote

No. Owners got tired of getting "half rent" when roommate-not-on-the-lease stopped paying.

There is no recourse on that. The person on the lease should pay, but can't, so the only recourse is to not get paid or eviction - a multi-year process in NYC.

Had multiple landlords who kept my rent low, because I paid on time and told them if I ever couldn't.

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Quirky_Movie t1_iskswy7 wrote

>No. Owners got tired of getting "half rent" when roommate-not-on-the-lease stopped paying.

There is no such legal thing as half rent. My lease is for the total rent and I'm on the hook for it. Legally, a landlord can continue to seek past due rent after I'm out.

And getting an eviction will prevent you from renting elsewhere. It shows on credit ratings, so it can even impact on getting hired for a job.

I don't know who sold you the line of shit about half rent, but it's a line of shit.

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samtresler t1_isktavt wrote

Can you describe the eviction process in New York City? I can.

Edit: From the post you responded to, but forgot to quote:

"The person on the lease should pay, but can't, so the only recourse is to not get paid or eviction - a multi-year process in NYC."

Edit: I love when asshats want to get the last word so they comment then block me.

You're not the only one who has lived in this city for 20+ years. But my name is right there. Where is yours?

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Quirky_Movie t1_iskysnp wrote

I have rented here for 20 years.

When I arrived, a single leaseholder for a shared apartment was normal and had been for decades. With the same rules on eviction. It worked because the LL didn't want an eviction and neither did the tenant. A whole apartment could be placed quickly and did/does, when you aren't charging 4500/month.

Someone sold you a bill of goods or you're lying about being a renter.

Small landlords aren't doing this because they'd have to pay someone to act as a leasing agent for each room. This is time consuming and expensive to find many people for one apartment. To take on the additional responsibility of managing the interrelationships within an apartment? A tenant with a lease has obvious rights and they can exercise those even more so when they live with the person. It's only become popular as building have been bought up by hedge funds and have property management companies to handle this.

Please stop with your "think of the poor hedgefunds argument." The only thing multiple leases did was drive up the rents in various popular neighborhoods.

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jadedaid t1_isiu5nc wrote

This. When I moved to the US it was all shitty options. Regardless of salary you didn’t have the option to get your own place (unless you paid something like 6 months upfront or used one of those eye-wateringly expensive guarantor options), so it was roommates. And Craigslist is a damn weird place to be meeting people. I looked at many of these types of places before getting lucky with a roommate but they all had sketchy reviews and were expensive.

Hopefully Facebook groups have made this a whole lot easier and these quasi tech solutions can die.

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Kuntry_Roadz t1_isp2ek6 wrote

And this is one of the caveats of the poorly written Tenant Protection Act of 2019.

International folks or those with bad credit used to be able to prepay rent or offer a larger security deposit. That is now illegal, which is why June Homes and all these other predatory companies are thriving.

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BiblioPhil t1_isjefxp wrote

>They say it at the top, this is a solution for international students/recent immigrants with no credit score that do not qualify for traditional apartments.

And who have enough of a financial cushion from their rich parents to take risks on obviously slimy PropTech apps

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Imagine357 t1_ishvo4v wrote

We just can’t give credit to every immigrant that comes over. That’s basically free money for terrorist financing. Have to have some rules. It’s complicated.

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IvanIsOnReddit t1_ishxxsa wrote

They’re not giving credit, they’re just checking credit scores. That being said you can’t give a credit score without a credit history. I think there is a niche to be explored in translating foreign credit scores for a fee.

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jadedaid t1_isiu7jz wrote

The niche is services like paid for guarantors. Works already in most of the nice buildings but it costs a fortune.

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