Frequently Asked Questions

Our home base is Brooklyn, and our office is in Bedford-Stuyvesant at 1100 Bedford Avenue. We manage residential buildings across Brooklyn — Crown Heights, Bushwick, Williamsburg, Park Slope, Flatbush and beyond — and we also serve Manhattan, Harlem, and Queens. If you're not sure whether we cover your building, reach out and ask.

We specialize in residential multifamily buildings, from 2-unit homes up to roughly 60-unit apartment buildings. Our portfolio has grown to nearly 400 units. What sets us apart is deep expertise in rent-stabilized and subsidized housing — HPD compliance, subsidy programs, and inspections — which many generic property managers avoid. See everything we handle on our services page.

Fees depend on your building — its size, condition, unit count, and the scope of work involved — so the honest answer is that we quote each property individually. Rather than a one-size-fits-all number, we'll walk you through exactly what's included. The best starting point is a property consultation, or you can read how NYC pricing generally works in our guide to property management costs and our pricing FAQs.

Everything it takes to run your building well: marketing and leasing, rigorous tenant screening and placement, rent collection and financial reporting, maintenance and repairs, inspections, lease renewals, and ongoing NYC compliance. You get transparent monthly-style reporting through a secure AppFolio owner portal, and you deal with the principals who actually run the properties — not a call center.

We're a boutique, highly responsive team, and it's the thing clients praise most. We aim to respond to owners same-day whenever possible and to tenants within 24 hours. Maintenance is triaged by urgency, and genuine emergencies — a burst pipe, no heat in winter — get an immediate response. During one extended winter freeze we coordinated multiple simultaneous emergency leaks while keeping every owner and tenant informed the whole way through.

Yak grew out of a residential brokerage, Pear NYC, so leasing is in our DNA. We routinely lease apartments in under seven days and maintain a very low vacancy, high-occupancy track record. We market the unit, field and screen inquiries, and place a qualified tenant fast — because every day vacant is money you don't get back. Learn more about our leasing service.

Thoroughly and legally. We run credit checks, verify income, review rental history, perform a background review, and do a financial analysis using professional screening software. We apply the same objective standards to every applicant and stay fully compliant with Fair Housing and NYC's source-of-income protections — meaning we don't reject applicants simply for using a voucher or subsidy. More on our tenant placement and screening service.

Yes — this is our core specialty and where we add the most value. NYC rent stabilization, HPD compliance, DHCR filings, subsidy programs, and inspections are complex, and mistakes are costly. We keep buildings compliant while maximizing owner returns. In one case we rebuilt trust with a bedridden tenant who had refused access under prior management, completed the needed repairs, and kept her subsidy intact. Read more in our rent stabilization guide.

Absolutely — many of our owners came to us from another manager, and they consistently report better communication, faster maintenance, and stronger tenant relationships. We manage the transition so it's smooth for you and your tenants. Start with a property consultation, or see how getting started works.

Tenants pay rent and submit maintenance requests through the AppFolio tenant portal at passport.appf.io. It's the fastest way to reach us, track a request, and keep a record. If you have a genuine emergency — no heat or hot water, flooding, no power — flag it as urgent so we can respond right away. More help on our tenant resources page.

Real people who run the properties. Yak is principal-involved by design: our founders and operations team — led by Jordan and Justin, who are frequently praised by name in tenant reviews — stay directly involved in day-to-day operations. Our founding team brings 40+ years of combined NYC real estate experience. Meet the people behind the company about us.

It's simple. Request a property consultation or contact us with a few details about your building, and we'll give you a candid assessment of what it needs and what we'd recommend. From there, our onboarding process gets your property set up on AppFolio and brings you into a single, transparent system. You can also email us at [email protected].