Because of some circumstances, one of my siblings and I are looking at investment properties, forming an LLC and possibly buying a studio or Jr. 1BR /alcove 1BR unit that must be in an elevator + doorman building.
Because of the target rent on the unit, this places us in a limited number of midcentury, luxury
apartment buildings in the two most expensive neighborhoods in the city. (In the neighborhoods we live in you can get more space for the money but no doorman or no elevator, and the newer construction is too expensive for the rental price point.
Anyway this means looking at the smallest, least expensive units in expensive buildings. In this category there are 300sq-600sq units in the same building as a lot of 1-2 bedroom and some very large units--there are full-floor units in some of these buildings.
Two interesting things, most of the small units are rented to Ivy League grad students, and you can do a deep dive and find a lot of comments about how terrible the building (any of the buildings are), because they are small, they do not have washers and dryers in the units, the pool costs extra, the doorpersons are rude, and [their] dorms were nicer in college.
Meanwhile many full adult career people love the buildings and apparently have no problem using a building laundry room.
Second: We have repeatedly been in the situation where we want to look at multiple units in the same building, we make the appointment for the showing time, the tenant is notified, says okay and when we get there they either do not answer the call from the front desk or they say I changed my mind, they can't come in.
Today we were at 50% and the two we looked at were empty, so we were at 100% at not being able to look because the tenant changed their mind. And one of the units it happened more than once. One of the units has been on the market for almost 600 days, probably because no one has ever been allowed in to see it.
This is completely new behavior, it never even would have occurred to me to not let a potential buyer look at a place I rented but did not own, because it is generally in the lease that you agree to this if you are on a month to month lease basis.
