Leigh Kamping-Carder

In the local landscape of New York City rental listings, two national giants are battling to gain a foothold in New York City—and competing against a host of native players also catering to the city’s frustrated renters. In August, Seattle-based Zillow made a splash when it bought StreetEasy, the popular Manhattan-based listings and data site. Now, Zillow's main national competitor, San Francisco-based Trulia, is hoping to appeal to New York renters with a feature that it says will eliminate the problem of duplicate listings--in which the same apartment is listed ad nauseum by multiple brokers, the listings seeming to breed while the number of available apartments stays the same. Trulia aims to make it easier on renters by compiling all the listing descriptions, photos and contact information from brokers on a single page, and clearly marking fee and no-fee rentals.

Q. I'm in the market for an apartment on the top floor of a building--no stomping neighbors above my head, thank you very much! But it seems like every listing advertises these units as "penthouses" even when there's nothing special about them. How do I figure out if an apartment truly is a penthouse? Will I wind up paying a premium for what's basically just marketing? A. It's an unfortunate reality of the New York City market that brokers and developers throw around the word "penthouse" willy-nilly, not only for a building's top-floor units but even for the ones near the top. “Since the term ‘penthouse’ still carries a cachet, some marketers will admittedly burnish the allure and exclusivity of a high-floor unit by deeming it a ‘penthouse,’” says real estate broker Gordon Roberts of Warburg Realty. “Puffery in real estate marketing is not a new thing.” But there are several attributes that distinguish penthouses from other apartments beyond their lofty locations, our experts say.

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