Interior shots of 145 Sixth Avenue

The folks at Streeteasy.com have created a section on their website where residents displaced by last week’s storm can find short-term rentals. However, some of the available listings are better suited to a more well-heeled crowd, as Curbed noted.

An Upper East Side townhouse at 407 East 75th Street that once belonged to photographer Richard Avedon, and later housed former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s brother, can be rented for three months to the tune of $225,000. If a would-be tenant’s regular home won’t be habitable for some time, the property can be purchased for a cool $12.5 million. [more]

As more New Yorkers try to make an extra buck in the rocky economic environment, private detectives say they’re seeing more work tracking illegal tenants, according to the New York Times. While taking advantage of rent-regulated units has long been a tenant con, detectives say that practice — along with illegal subletting — has spiked in the recession. Joseph Mullen, a private detective for more than 40 years, says that already cash-strapped landlords are now flocking to his eponymous firm to remedy the problem. “The landlords say, ‘I got to get these illegal tenants out and make some money,’” Mullen said. As The Real Deal previously reported, background checks on prospective tenants have also become increasingly common, as landlords grow more cautious in the unstable economy. [NYT]

… [more]

The Caravan homepage

Given the recent bad-news headlines many apartment hunters who enjoy Craiglist may worry that they’ll be the next unwitting victim of a Web-savvy serial murderer every time they look at an apartment. A new short-term sublet and house swap service, Caravan, aims to solve that problem by forcing users to go through a screening process before they can use the service. The concept is predicated on the idea that working through brokers is costly and time-consuming, but that skipping the middleman altogether is risky. The company says it’s geared toward creative professionals — the uber-trendy jet-setting types that travel internationally at the drop of a hat and can’t be bothered to hire a broker. While the service just started, early reports say that Caravan plans to expand its business, offering job and office space listings, in the coming months.

More New Yorkers, both homeowners and renters, are leasing or subletting their apartments as they lose their
jobs or portions of their incomes, even if they have to pick up broker
fees or lease their apartments for less than they need to pay mortgage
and maintenance fees. The number of furnished apartments in Halstead
Property’s database rose more than 50 percent in the first six months
of this year, compared to the same period in 2008. Gary Malin,
president of Citi Habitats, said most brokers spend little time on
sublets because they are not as lucrative and because owners fail to
price their properties well and often want to sublet without the
approval of building boards.