Boston to consider copying New York by banning apartment broker's fees

It’s pretty customary for most small landlords to split the fee with the renter. Thanks Marty now us little guys will have to pay the entire thing just to rent out our 1-2 units.

I understand what they’re trying to do, but this city’s over regulation of everything hurts small business people more than anything.

For every apartment I've rented in this city, as I'm sure pretty much else can relate to, I've spent weeks weeding through terribly-written craigslists ads, often put up multiple times by the same brokerage, only to call one and be told that they rented it out already two months ago, and that, by the way, they have some other 'great' apartments that they want to show you. If one of those is in fact interesting, the broker will meet you there for about seven to ten minutes. For this privilege, you can pay expect to pay one month's rent. For my last apartment, I was renting off of the September cycle, so I told the broker there was no way I was going to pay a month's rent to him and negotiated most of it away.

Of course, there was a halcyon earlier time in which I just responded directly to a landlord's posting, met him/her at the house, and we finalized the lease, and, yes, that can still be an option for 'small guy' landlords and condo unit owners.

All of this is to say that the potential ban on brokerage fees would eliminate a not-inconsequential cost burden that adds little to no value to renters.

Marty has finally caught onto the Menino move of just co-opting whatever issue is in the news as his own so no one else can. It's good to be the mayor.

I thought we lived in a capitalist country.

Brokers mostly just show up with the key but renters keep forgetting one important piece - it is the broker, not the landlord, who gets sued if some litigious POS decides to make a quick buck and start crying discrimination over some made-up reason. Landlords will not stop using brokers and you’ll still pay the fee, but instead of paying it up-front it will be priced into your monthly rent, most likely with steep interest.

Caveat - we ended up buying with help from family because it turned out to be cheaper than finding a lead-safe apartment.

During our rental search, it would have cost us $10k out of pocket to move in to most places. First, last, security, plus broker fee. That's insane for a family and would have wiped out most of our savings. $7500 to move in is still not great, but it's surely better than $10k.

The brokers don't necessarily "find an apartment for" the renter, you find an apartment yourself online, the landlord has "hired" the broker to show it and handle the paperwork, then the renter is stuck paying the broker's fee.

When I lived in DC, there were no broker fees for renters, and landlords and agencies both used craigslist. I had no idea renters could be so screwed until I moved here.

Since the internet exists, there is no reason why a renter would ever need to use a broker. Therefore, the choice to involve third parties is the landlord's, and so the landlord should pay for the service they are hiring, instead of offloading it onto the people who are lining up to pay them rent. Brokers provide zero added value for renters. Use them if you want, but then own the cost that you incur by doing so.

There is no rule you have to use a RE broker. You pay to play. There is no rule you have to live in Boston.

Just a thought that occurred to me: if we ban broker's fees to tenants, there might be a positive side-effect: Perhaps landlords will be a little less likely to evict current (rent-paying) tenants, if the landlord knows they might have to pay the broker's fee themselves when searching for a new, replacement tenant.

I'm not sure what all the effects (including unintended consequences) of this change might be, but it seems reasonable that if we lower the financial barrier to finding an apartment, the number of homeless might drop at least somewhat. Not every homeless person is penniless, or mentally ill, or addicted -- some of them just have limited funds available.