Landlord representation & rentals
Tenant placement and lease-up across New York City, Long Island and Westchester — qualified applicants, disclosures handled correctly, and a marketing package that most rental listings simply do not get.
The more you know
If you rent out a home in the five boroughs and the building has gas, the City requires a natural gas alarm in the room with each gas appliance. It is a separate device from the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors you already have, and the Department of Buildings has said the date will not be pushed back again.
Who pays: you buy and install the alarm. For a battery-operated alarm, your tenant then reimburses you up to $25 each, or up to $50 or $75 for a combination device, and has a year to pay. Who it covers, where it goes and what to buy.
Watch · 2:12The more you know
In New York City, heat season runs October 1 through May 31. From 6 AM to 10 PM it has to be at least 68°F inside whenever it is below 55°F outside, and at least 62°F overnight in any weather. Outside the city, the state’s property maintenance code has required 68°F since September 15.
Test the system now, and have your plumber lined up before the first cold night. Get the heating season checklist. Or read the heat rules for the city and the suburbs.
Watch · 1:29Two things: get the best prospects to seriously consider your property, and reduce the odds that you end up with a problem eighteen months from now. Those are the same job. The tenant you want is being courted by other listings, and the tenant you don’t want is the one who sails through a careless process.
I represent the owner, the landlord or the investor rather than the tenant, which settles any question about whose interests I am serving. A prospect looking at one of my listings is somebody I am glad to work with on it — they are the reason the unit rents — and the way they are treated while they decide is part of what you are paying for. A well-run showing and a clear, informed answer to a real question is what separates the applicant who signs from the one who keeps looking.
Most of the value here is judgment rather than activity: what the unit should ask, which applicant is a better risk than they look on paper, which one looks fine and isn’t, and when to hold out for a better tenancy instead of filling the vacancy this week.
Look at the rental listings around yours. Most of them are cellphone photographs of an empty room, badly lit, taken in a hurry. That is the standard you are competing against, and it is why a properly presented unit rents faster and higher.
Doing it well costs real money and real time, so I’ll be plain about it rather than pretending everything is free:
My landlords get more than the usual rental listing. What I typically include: pricing judgment built on more than two decades in these markets, professional photography, marketing to the portals and to the tenant-side agents who have applicants for your kind of unit, consistent screening, the required disclosures handled correctly, and a properly run lease signing. That is how you get better candidates and better guidance on which one to choose, from someone who doesn’t disappear once the lease is signed.
This tenancy is the basis of your income and your peace of mind for the next one, two or ten years. The difference between a good tenant and a bad one dwarfs any fee difference on the front end, and it is not close. I would rather start by telling you what the work is worth.
Since June 2025, where a broker is hired by the landlord or publishes the listing with the landlord’s permission, the tenant cannot be charged the broker’s fee — the owner pays it. Publishing the listing is itself treated as evidence of the owner’s authorization, and the owner is presumed liable for the agent’s violation. There are penalties, restitution, and a private right of action attached.
What that means in practice: my fee is owner-paid on city rentals, it’s stated that way in our agreement, and I do not collect from tenants. Where a tenant brings their own agent, that agent collects from their own client — not from me and not out of your unit. Every tenant-payable cost gets itemized in the advertisement and in a signed disclosure before the lease. If someone is telling you there’s a workaround, be careful — the enforcement is real and it lands on the owner.
Outside the city — Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester — the FARE Act does not apply and the customary tenant-paid structure remains lawful. There is a bill that would extend it statewide; it has not passed.
A rental listing is not a smaller version of a sale listing, and treating it like one is why so many units sit. What actually shortens vacancy is a unit that photographs well, a floor plan, an honest description of what the tenant is getting, and a price set against what is renting rather than the optimistic asks still sitting on the portals.
For owners of small buildings who don’t need — and don’t want to pay for — full custodial property management, I run a deliberately narrow operations arrangement: tenant point of contact, repair coordination with your approved vendors, routine notices, documented move-ins and move-outs, an annual inspection, and a compliance calendar so nothing lapses.
I don’t collect, hold or disburse rent or security deposits. Your vendors invoice you and you pay them directly. You stay the managing agent of record. That keeps the cost down and keeps me out of holding your money, which is better for both of us.
It is not for everyone and I take on very few. Who it fits, what it covers, and who I turn down.
Two short videos on what owners in New York need to have handled this fall and winter.
We just wanted to thank you for all your hard work and effort selling our various homes. As real estate speculators and mortgage professionals we have quite a bit of knowledge in regards to the real estate market.
My brother in-law recommended Mr. Stevens to me when I was desperate for a tenant; he got me a perfect tenant within 3 weeks through the use of various social media and flyers. He thoroughly and patiently explained the rules and regulations regarding rental properties to me. He did not relent in his efforts to show the apartment to different individuals at different times. Mr. Diallo Stevens is a truly dedicated and enthusiastic broker.
Diallo is a detail orientated professional in the real estate industry. I have seen Diallo work with many referrals, always displaying professional energies and fulfilling the clients needs.
Call me before the unit is empty. The best time to start marketing is the day the current tenant gives notice — every week of overlap is a week you don’t carry an empty apartment.
Where it is, what it is, and when it’s available. I’ll give you my read on the rent and what I’d do to fill it.
Would you rather just talk? Call 929-400-7653.
