Better Living Properties

Reasonable and easy-​to-​deal-​with landlord. The office is right by their apartments, so they are very easy to communicate with. Clean and updated apartments in one of the best areas of Manhattan. Cool low-​rise apartments with standard monthly rents. It is difficult to find a good landlord in New York, so I’m glad to have found them.

I am upset I HAVE to give them a rating.
Never rent an apartment on 17 Stanton Street, where the property owners are two very incompetent people, Ariel Sowry and Johnathan (I do not know his name because he never wished to make an effort).
No one will pick up after hours when there is an urgent matter, such as bed bugs (which I had). They told us (my roommate and me) to throw out the bug-​infested bedding and then took it out of our security deposit. We bought the replacement bedding ourselves.
They charged us for leaving a futon that was not our property, but the broker company’s.
They also charged us for throwing out kitchenware, which we did not.
They also were very rude and yelled at me on the phone when I tried asking questions about the security deposit.
The great thing about the property is Edwin. If Edwin ever leaves, that building will fall to pieces, because no one else does any work ever. If Better Living goes away ever, please someone hire Edwin because he is a sweet man working for idiots.
NEVER EVER RENT AN APARTMENT HERE. YOU WILL BE SORRY.

I wish I could give these people negative stars. TERRIBLE!
My apartment on Orchard St was soooooooo small. It would have been fine, IF management had actually taken care of the property. We had water damage on the ceiling and a wall. The brick wall was literally falling apart. The apartment smelt wet and moldy all the time. We called them for months to come fix it, they would say that they would come… Then never show up. Unless they came when we weren’t there and didn’t even do anything about it. Which wouldn’t surprise me… We’d constantly come home to frightened cats and an unlocked door. Leading me to believe they were always in and out without letting us know.
They finally made an attempt to fix it after having shown the apartment a few times and people being turned off by the disgusting water damage and mold. At that point, we had a month left in our lease… And they tried to send someone over when they thought we wouldn’t be home to TAKE OUT THE ENTIRE WALL!!! WITHOUT TELLING US. Luckily my boyfriend was there to question when the guy pushed all of our furniture to one side of the room and took out a giant saw!
During one of the coldest winters that I have ever experienced, the hot water went out for TWO WEEKS. The entire building was calling continuously, only to be told «Stop running the water so much and you won’t run out of hot water.» After 10 days, they finally came to look… Water heater was broken.
When showing the apartment, they never let us know when people were coming. They would just give keys to realtors and even random people, and tell them to walk right in. We’ve had people walk in while we were sleeping, getting ready for work, in the shower, etc… We contacted the owner many times asking him to let us know at least when people were on the way and he NEVER did. I got used to always making sure the chain was on the door. One time I asked someone to wait a few minutes, as I was only wearing a towel… They said something to Ariel (owner) and we received an extremely rude voicemail and email, yelling at us for «losing them a potential renter».
We got out of that DUMP and a month later… We still had no security deposit back. We called the office and left messages with people there. We left messages on Ariel’s cell. Finally he responded to a strongly worded email. It took another couple weeks to actually get the money back. No doubt in my mind… If I had not sent that email… He would have just kept it.
I recently looked the owner up on Google… I would suggest doing that before you even consider leasing from him. You will not be happy with what you see. Really bad person. He will nickel and dime you the entire time you live there (afterwards too) and not make any effort to maintain your insanely expensive closet apartment.

We had lived on Chrystie St for 1.5 years, and we had enough of it! I would give zero star if I could because they:
1) Have pest problems
2) Never takes care of noise complain, damages in the property, etc
3) Let people inside the apartment (my room) without my permission, just because they wanted to find the next tenant.
First, the apartment is old, and Better Living just does not do enough work to take care of it. We had bed bugs (once), roaches (about 10 times) and we had to stack up Raids and roach traps, aside from relying on the exterminators that come once a month.
Second, we understand that we live in the area where there are a lot of bars — but we hope that our next door neighbor does not blast music really loud at 4am. She did, during the week. We complained millions of times to Joe who works at Better Living, and he didn’t do anything. Useless guy who takes all of our rents up front, and after collecting the money, he doesn’t really care if we can’t sleep all night during the week.
Towards the end of our lease, Joe started letting people into our apartment WITHOUT EVEN ASKING US. One morning I was sleeping alone, and all the sudden a real estate broker and two other individuals unlocked the our door, and I ended up screaming as I felt very unsafe. Later the broker revealed that she obtained the key to my apartment from Joe. When I called, he said «I thought you guys were out of town,» because we were not in the apartment 2 weeks ago. Yeahh, right. Isn’t that common sense to ask? Later he mentioned that it was part of the lease contract that they have the right to let anyone in to show your rooms, without your consent. But from my experience most apartments I lived in either did ask me, or simply waited until I moved out.
Oh, last thing to mention, we also got locked out of our apartment by the management. Our apartment door had 2 locks. Joe gave us keys only for the first lock, but not the 2^nd one because he «didn’t have it.» A maintenance guy came once and locked the 2^nd lock, using the key given by Joe. We had to wait outside the apartment for 2 – 3 hours for the maintenance guy to come back to unlock the door for us.
Do not move if you have other alternatives, and I am sure you do. Because most likely, Joe would say «I trust who you are more than the credit report. You guys seem trust-​able, and that’s enough. You can pay all the rent up front, and we don’t need to see your credit background» — tempting I know, but it’s just their strategy to keep their cash flow going and without checking the quality of your neighbors.

NEVER RENT FROM THIS COMPANY. EVER.
My apartment on Orchard street has been a nightmare. MICE EVERYWHERE.
THE HEAT IS ALWAYS BROKEN. They don’t treat or pay their supers right. They also hire supers without the proper training/​licenses to save money.
My heater that has broken FOUR TIMES this winter dates back to the 70s/​80s.
They refuse to replace it and keep fixing it cheaply. And then it breaks again.
The owners are not only cheap, but disrespectful.
If you don’t want a mice infester, cold apartment where the workers aren’t payed well and are injured on the job and not compensated… then don’t live in one of their buildings.

I love my little shoebox on Orchard Street — every morning I hear the leather barkers getting crazy outside, there’s exposed brick, wood flooring, good light and a modern bath. And the super is always available for little problems that come up.
I found Better Living Properties through Craigslist while I was utilizing the free wireless at Sugar Café on Allen and Houston, my go-​to spot for internet and fuel before I moved here. Joe said to come on over to Chrystie and the rest is history… sort of.
I guess the biggest plus about Better Living is that they charge a flat $ 500 broker’s fee when you rent the apartment (not just for access to listings like some real estate hounds). This is much better for a Manhattan apartment compared to the average $ 2500 – 3000 you’d pay having to give 15% annual rent to an agency like Mark David NYC etc. Keep this in mind when renting — if you amortize the broker’s fee over 12 months you’ll find that your monthly rent is a lot higher than you thought it was. If you amortize $ 500, well, it’s just $ 41 a month, not $ 250. Yes, I would have rather found an apartment by owner, but after an exhaustive search, they just don’t have the variety a broker can offer.
The only weird thing about Better Living (which I found out down the line) is that the brokerage is actually run by the property owner — so this guy (not Joe, a different guy) owns a lot of flats all over Manhattan, and then has Better Living as a front to get a bit of extra money. I guess as I said before, the price tag is much cheaper than your average broker. Good luck searching.