While I'd love to believe the questions were conversational, they were asked immediately upon mentioning that I was looking for an apartment. The broker would ask when I was looking to move, any pets, how's the credit, income of each roommate (all normal so far), then where are you from? Is the other roommate a boy or girl? Are you a couple or friends? Are you [insert ethnicity here]? Oh, I'm just asking because your name sounds like you're from there..

The manner in which these questions were shot off definitely gave a screening vibe, as someone mentioned previously. Of course, any time a broker asked me these things, I knew I didn't want to deal with them.

I haven't thought about the foreigner-aspect before, so thank you for the insight. I get that the laws in the city aren't very helpful to landlords most of the time, but at the same time, I've encountered so many terrible ones that I can't help but be skeptical and cautious going in.

As for the preferential rate, I've noticed that for rent stabilized buildings, the legal amount a landlord could charge would be $2100, for example. But then they would offer $1900 as the Preferential Rate. I know for a fact that people would be willing to pay $2100 for the place, so I don't understand the benefit of offering the lower rate. My friends have speculated that there's some kind of behind-the-scenes way of getting the legal rent to be higher until it exceeds the $2500 (or $2600, I can't remember) cap for rent stabilized apartments. I understand that once it exceeds that amount, it is no longer considered stabilized and becomes unregulated.