Lucy Cohen Blatter

Conventional wisdom says that buyers don't respond well to listings without photos, but we're thinking in the case of these sellers, it might have been better to leave them out altogether.

This particular batch of questionable listings, as always, comes courtesy of Andy Donaldson, the man behind the Terrible Real Estate Agent Photographs blog and book, complete with Donaldson's oh-so-apt commentary.

For those of you in the market to buy a two-bedroom, here's some good news: Now's the time of year that NYC sellers seriously want to offload their apartments—they're the so-called "motivated sellers"—before the holiday slump starts. Sometimes that means they'll even offer discounts, especially if the apartment's been on the market for a while. Below, five two-bedroom apartments across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx that have seen serious discounts in the last few weeks.

In NYC, plenty of rental buildings are so big you'll never meet your "landlord" (a.k.a. large management company that cashes your check). But in the case of renting from a small landlord, things can be a little trickier.

Is it just us or does this $2,500 Upper West Side brownstone apartment have a "You've Got Mail" kind of feel? We could see Meg Ryan's character living in this sweet second floor walk-up, typing away to Tom Hanks from the bed in that tiny bedroom.

The apartment, which has been on the market throughout the entire summer, is a co-op, which might explain the hold-up. The co-op board likely has to approve all tenants, and since this is a small building, we'd imagine they're picky about who lives there.

Craigslist's real estate section gets a bad rap, albeit somewhat deservedly, for being full of rental scams and bait-and-switches, but unfortunately bad listings are not confined to one website. Last week, an NYC broker—we'll call her G.—reached out to us to report suspicious activity she and her colleagues have allegedly seen on StreetEasy.