Baggage charge too? Landlords on board with airline-style rent pricing

Landlords in the city are increasingly adopting an airline-style pricing system for determining rents.

Companies like Yieldstar adjust rental rates so that they frequently change. Yieldstar has teamed up with large landlords such as Invesco, JPMorgan and LaSalle Investment Management to price units more accurately. Landlords are able to maximize profits by inputting details about the unit as well as the building, and the service provides a number. The system relies on market statistics and specific apartment characteristics to nail down asking rent.

For example, the system could recommend a three-month lease for upcoming prospective tenants in June, if a particular unit is expected to fetch a higher price in September.

“Each unit has a specific price as far as what floor it’s on, what the views are and whether it was recently upgraded,” REIT analyst Alexander Goldfarb of Sander O’Neill + Partners told the New York Daily News. “All the units have upcharges that apply on top of the base price.” [NYDN] — Mark Maurer