The general rule is your salary should be 40x your max monthly rent. Would a broker consider your 10,000 signing bonus as well? Or do they only consider your base salary?
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To be honest a lot of brokers don't care too much especially if you have a guarantor, which I assume you will. I assume each broker will be individual regarding signing bonus though
anyway to escape the broker fee?
I've generally found they take into account whatever compensation you have in writing. Your offer letter should have your signing bonus, but if it doesn't have a target bonus, they may not include that in your income for 40x.
Most people use brokers because the NY rental market is insane and apartments can move within days of going on the market. NYbits.com has listings of no-fee apartments, you can also try walking around whatever neighborhood you're interested in and landlords will sometimes post a sign if theres a vacancy.
my letter has salary + signing bonus listed. so they'd just add them together? Problem is that bonus gets taxed like crazy
Bonus get taxed at your marginal tax rate. It's the withholding that is high. If they withhold 50% and your marginal tax rate is 30%, you will get that 20% back come tax rebate time. Not sure why this is so hard for people to understand.
You're not understanding the reason why your bonus is withheld at 50%. And it appears you aren't appreciating the difference between marginal tax rates and effective tax rates.
Your base salary is withheld at an effective tax rate that is commensurate with a $70k all-in salary (say ~35% in NYC, which includes federal, state, local, and FICA taxes). But, when you receive a year-end bonus, the bonus is taxed at your marginal rate for income above $70k (much higher at around ~45%, since you're talking about the 28% federal tax bracket, plus state, local, and FICA taxes).
You're not going to get the ~10% difference back, since receiving your bonus (which was taxed at a higher marginal rate) pushed your effective rate up. In short, the first $70k you made was taxed lower than your effective rate and your bonus was taxed higher than your effective rate.
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