Question about signed fee agreement

Hi there, My friend and I have lived in NYC for a few years now in our college's residence halls, and are ready to get our first apartment. Deciding on a budget, the two of us went to Naked Apartments and found a listing we liked. We reached out to the agent representing the apartment and we met this week. Upon first meeting, she had my friend sign a fee agreement. We assumed this meant that if we... [more]

Hi there, My friend and I have lived in NYC for a few years now in our college's residence halls, and are ready to get our first apartment. Deciding on a budget, the two of us went to Naked Apartments and found a listing we liked. We reached out to the agent representing the apartment and we met this week. Upon first meeting, she had my friend sign a fee agreement. We assumed this meant that if we signed a lease with her that we would have to pay the 15% and moved on. We saw the apartments and found a lot that we loved. However, the 15% fee is not something we foresaw as first-time apartment hunters, and the idea of paying over $4,000 for her service is out of our price range. Therefore, we went onto Streeteasy and filtered for no-fee listings, and found the SAME exact apartments listed! Therefore, I am inquiring about the implications of the fee agreement she had my friend sign. 1) If we were to attempt to sign the lease directly through the no-fee listing, would there be any consequences? 2) I did not sign any papers, only my friend did. So if we used my name to do the rest of our apartment hunting, what is the likelihood she would find out that my friend's name is also on the lease? Do brokers have a desire or ability to check the names on leases months later? 3) Are we contractually obligated to her for only the units we saw, or the overall building? Because we found many apartments in the same buildings that we like, which are not the actual units she showed us. Overall, we just feel very tricked by the system and hate the fact that we seem to have been tied into a legal constraint that we didn't foresee due to our lack of experience in apartment hunting, and if we had known better ahead of time, I would have first tried to see if we could find a listing without a broker. Thanks for the help! [less]