Only the Strongest Survive [New York City]
Although qualifying to rent an apartment in New York City is not yet as tough as winning admission to Harvard or Yale, it increasingly feels that way to a large contingent of aspiring tenants — even if they actually attended Harvard or Yale and easily passed muster with their previous landlord.
Among the 50,000 background checks run this year on Manhattan tenants by On-Site.com, a national background-checking and leasing service used by some landlords and managing agents, fully 41 percent of applicants garnered a rating of either “reject” or “maybe” (21 and 20 percent respectively).