Welcome to skipbrokers.com

Founded in 2005,SkipBrokers.com generates revenue from sponsors and is the only company to provide apartment broker services without charging apartment hunters a single dollar. It is free to obtain a SkipBrokers membership. In addition to searching for no broker fee apartments (no fee apartments) on their website, SkipBrokers.com actually sets appointments with no fee landlords just for their members.

Based on the type of no fee apartment a prospect is looking for, SkipBrokers.com will coordinate a time to view an available no fee apartment with a landlord and even have the leasing agent contact their members directly.

This apartment rental concierge service displayed so much success in Manhattan; SkipBrokers.com has grown into one of the nation's largest online apartment rental companies by having over 5 million available apartments in all major cities within the United States.

Executive Members :

Paul Salamanca
Founder & Board Member

Paul Salamanca, "Chino", is an entrepreneur, professional speaker and consultative sales professional with proven success in managing complex Fortune 1000 sales opportunities with C-Levels. Salamanca has successfully built high-performing sales teams and start-up companies from concept creation, profitability to exit. Chino started two small businesses while attending the University of Arizona and has grown SkipBrokers into a multi-million dollar venture without any seed capital or VC funding. Salamanca is a strategic visionary who knows how to execute and who has been featured multiple times in the New York Post, TimeOut New York, Yahoo! Finance, MSN Real-Estate and BusinessWeek for industry analysis, sales and marketing expertise. With proven expense management sales success acquiring Fortune 500 accounts such as Anadarko Petroleum, York International, BAE Systems, Verizon Wireless, and Hewlett-Packard; Mr. Salamanca also serves as the VP of Regional Sales for Tangoe, Inc, (NASDAQ: TNGO) a publicly traded global expense management software and services firm for Fortune 500 companies. Most importantly, Mr. Salamanca and his wife, Sheri, recently became proud parents to their happy and healthy daughter, Kaylee Giuliana.

Parkson Shih
Board Member

Mr. Shih began his career with a brand development role at Sohu.com, one of China's leading internet service providers. His international exposure working with top level executives at Sohu.com in their Beijing, China office during the early 2000's allowed him to experience the explosive growth of the ISP sector in the world's largest internet market, while providing valuable input from a Western perspective.

Mr. Shih joined Silicon Valley based Sunrise Telecom managing cross functional teams in various product development initiatives through their life-cycle and later joined AMAX Global Services where he headed up the Business Development group of software services to Fortune 500 companies.

Mr. Shih plays a major strategic role for the growth of SkipBrokers in the US and in Asia. He is a Senior Associate based in Korn/Ferry International's San Francisco office where he is a member of the firm's Global Technology Market focusing on senior level technology searches both in the US and in the Asia Pacific Region.

Mr. Shih holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from San Jose State and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Arizona where Mr. Shih and Mr. Salamanca were Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity brothers.

James Millon, Member

Mr. Millon is a Vice President in the securitization team at Societe Generale. Since joining Societe Generale, Mr. Millon has closed over $2Bn of CMBS and ABS related transactions. Prior to joining Societe Generale in 2007, Mr. Millon worked at MMA Realty Capital as an underwriter in the commercial real estate team responsible for mezzanine and preferred equity investments.

Mr. Millon holds an M.B.A. from The Pennsylvania State University and a B.S. in Finance & Economics from The Pennsylvania State University. While at Penn State, Mr. Millon was a scholarship athlete playing free safety on the Outback, Alamo and Capital One bowl teams under Coach Joe Paterno.

Cory Berger, Member

Cory is a co-founder of Berger Shop, an integrated marketing consultancy that injects brands into culture through the power of creative ideas. Currently Berger Shop is doing work for Madison Square Garden (NY Knicks), the LA Times, Jaguar, Hotbox Fantasy Sports, Hornitos Tequila, and several advertising and pr agencies.

Prior to Berger Shop, Cory worked at industry's leading experiential marketing agency, Momentum Worldwide. In his role as Sr. Brand Director / Strategist, Cory was charged with helping the agency adapt to clients demanding solutions beyond traditional mediums, developing experiential and content-based programs for brands such as: American Express, Bacardi, Budweiser, Muze Clothing, YouTube, New Balance, and MTV.

The Full History of How SkipBrokers.com Started :

After years of personally experiencing the hardships of renting an apartment in NYC, the founder of SkipBrokers.com, Paul Chino Salamanca, was 25 years old at the time and spent a great deal of his spare time developing a way for New Yorkers to avoid apartment brokers' expensive fees when looking for no fee and luxury apartments to rent in NYC. Initially, SkipBrokers.com provided New Yorkers with a list of 50 landlords around Manhattan who did not charge a brokers fee and quickly gained notoriety after being featured in the New York Post and TimeOut NY within the first three months of launching. Rather than paying a broker thousands of dollars, NYC apartment hunters were paying SkipBrokers.com a one-time fee of $30 and contacting landlords directly.

This was how SkipBrokers.com was created and later referred to by many as the Zagat of Manhattan management companies. The concept was simple and effective as it helped thousands of New Yorkers find no fee apartments without having to pay a broker by contacting landlords directly. However, although SkipBrokers.com's list proved to be effective, it was also labor intensive since many calls along with visiting many websites were needed in order to determine apartment availabilities. After soliciting for and listening to customer feedback, SkipBrokers.com transformed their manual intensive list into a robust and
automated application allowing apartment hunters to search for the most up-to-date, no fee and luxury apartments in NY. In addition to SkipBrokers.com increasing its capabilities, customers also saw an increase in its fee as it peaked to $120. While other websites claiming to provide similar services were charging upwards of $300, SkipBrokers.com decided to make a turn in the opposite direction by not charging apartment hunters at all to use their service.

In 2008, SkipBrokers.com made its services free of charge to all users looking to find apartments without having to deal with expensive brokers and started to expand nationally. SkipBrokers.com launched no fee apartments and luxury apartments services in Northern California and Texas while maintaining its promise to stay a free online community that continues to staff people keeping their listings updated. Rather then getting caught up in the industry trend and continuing to charge more for their service, SkipBrokers stayed true to their initial vision of making it easier and less expensive to find no broker fee apartments. "The only way to realistically accomplish our goal is to build a community where everyone chips in without putting a price tag on helpful information." a SkipBrokers.com executive noted.

As of February 1, 2009, SkipBrokers.com decided to provide even more value to help make apartment hunting easier for it's members. For the first time ever in the New York residential rental market, people looking to rent apartments in Manhattan had no-fee apartments come to them. This new luxury apartment rental service provided by SkipBrokers.com is great for people who work all day and really do not have time to search for no fee New York City apartments. SkipBrokers.com's staff will do everything a broker does without charging a fee. A SkipBrokers.com executive mentioned they understand the amount of effort that is involved with finding NYC no fee apartments and work everyday to create an easier process. Instead of apartment brokers showing the apartment, SkipBrokers sets up their members with leasing agents who do not charge a broker fee. Once no fee apartment hunters are able to skip the broker and find no fee apartments to view, they can also expect additional incentives given out by apartment owners. Many landlords are now offering incentives such as one month free rent to no security deposit. Asking what type of incentive a landlord is offering should be a standard question. There are plenty of deals on NYC apartment rentals while vacancy rates continue to increase.

Today, SkipBrokers.com has grown into one of the nation's largest online apartment rental companies by having over 5 million available apartments in all major cities in the United States.