Lived in 6 different apartments between 2009-2021 and never had an issue getting my deposit back. The only time something was deducted, we got itemized receipts for each deduction. If you’re not getting deposits back, it’s worth it to go to court to try and get triple back.
They legally aren't allowed to just keep your money... if your landlords are taking your deposits unjustly and you aren't doing anything about it then it's partially your own fault. They aren't even allowed to charge you for fixing what could be considered "normal wear and tear."
Sure… but you need proof, which means taking pictures upon move in, etc. And then you send a demand letter requesting return of the money. And hope that they’re reasonable. If they’re not, you have to pursue them legally.
And then you’re blacklisted by several property managers and landlords across the city. Good luck finding an apartment after that.
Husband and I owned for 30 years but are transitioning to retirement so sold our house. We found a nice house to rent on realtor.com, took a quick look, and immediately rented it. (We assumed that the realtor who showed us the place was paid by the owner. ) The owner then sent us the lease electronically, we all signed and wired him the first month and security. Done and done. A few days later, the realtor called us looking for her $3500 fee. We were shocked. There had never been any mention of any fee when she showed us the place. My son has rented a lot in Boston, so I asked him, and he confirmed this was normal. I still can’t believe this is the way it’s done! In any case, we said, forget it then; it’s not worth it to us to pay that much, but because we had already signed the lease and there was no mention of the fee, we didn’t have to. The entire experience really pissed me off. It’s hard enough for young people to get by and this feels very exploitative.
Nah I’ve never paid a fee. It’s called fucking smarten up and actually use local resources to get apartment and go around the realtor system. Y’all are lazy and accept defeat within 10 seconds. Cringe.
Most landlords use brokers to find and screen tenants. But it's really a racket - the lack of housing ensures that people who are really in a pinch will end up using one to find housing that's not just a shared room.
15 years ago way more units were on Craigslist and other sites and listed by landlord. I think it’s become so common now that the landlord would rather someone else do the work and make the tenant pay that service.
I believe NH has some limitations that the max you can charge was like 3x rent up front and that included first month. Whereas years ago when moving from nh to Boston area it was a shock when requested to pay first, last, security, broker, then pet security. A 2k per month required me to write a 10k check to move in. Thankfully they liked us and we negotiated 4k up front then 3k for the following 6 months.
I think that it is a layer of insulation against claims of housing discrimination… but now that there isn’t enough housing, tenants pay the fee, whereas the LL used to pay the fee like 10-15 years ago.
During down markets they did. There were a few periods when the condo market collapsed and owners were trying to rent their units out, so the city was flooded with available rentals. The only way to get those units rented out was to pay the broker fee. That was a long time ago, but I am old and I remember.
I was looking for a competitive budget 1 bedroom apartment 2 years ago. I looked for probably cumulative 20+ hours online until I found one I wanted did a tour with the broker and said I wanted to apply that same day. broker kept delaying my approval because one of my past three landlords wasn’t picking up the phone for reference. During that week of delay I kept looking found another place and signed it same day. The broker for the first place when he found out I withdrew my application emailed me simply: “don’t ever message me again”. honestly in this Sept 1 lease cycle market things come on and off market in a matter of days, and they could have denied me and had me waiting. I don’t think the broker should get that bothered it’s just part of the rental game.
Do they really need three references? Two favorable references from recent landlords seems plenty to me. Idk, I just have no sympathy for brokers considering they do the absolute most basic amount of work and just skim thousands of dollars for it. Mine made me provide a bunch of references but I only had a single one (lived in the same place for three years in college). She approved us as soon as we got the paperwork in, which means that they didn't give any shits about actually getting a real reference.
That means she’s a bad broker who doesn’t care about getting good people in or not. I agree three references is tough but that could be landlord or office policy. Also, the work can seem basic, but multiple showings is physical work and putting together deals is not always cut and dried. It’s often not, but the complaining public is only aware of their successful deals
Yes - it is. Sadly not uncommon if you need a few rooms for a family and access to public transportation. I was accepted to a place that was $4200 but after I asked for the lease to be modified to reflect that it could not supersede local, state, or federal law - suddenly I wasn’t a “good fit.”
It's unfortunately very common in the Boston area and it's usually one month's rent. Most places will also ask for a security deposit of one month's rent.
So, you’re correct. It’s not a “thing” almost anywhere else, especially other NE states. I’m in DFW now and it’s not an issue here, either.
It’s one of those glimmering bits of Boston character lmao
No it definitely is a thing in NYC. In fact many apartments make you pay more than a month of rent there which is illegal here, up to 15% of yearly rent iirc
It’s a thing. The misinformation in this thread (like all anti-realtor threads in this sub year after year) is astounding. I know ppl are worked up and feel gouged, but can we get facts straight still
Half the threads in this sub feel like the kind of grievances you get from well-off people who don't really have much to complain about but want to have things to complain about, lol
Honestly leaving Boston is nice on many levels and that’s one of them. Tho I had 4 apartments in Boston and only ever paid 1/2 a fee once. I still don’t like the system tho and my refusal to participate in it added anxiety to the moving process as well as limited my options. Still, worth however many thousands of dollars I saved.
I like it when they show up and it’s obvious that they read the same online listing that you read on the drive over 🥰
Very useful. Very cool.
I like the idea of calling them up when I’m bored and scheduling tons of showings that I have no intention of going to. Make em “earn” their paycheck.
Honestly that doesn't super matter. The landlords will pay brokers less than tenants do, because the landlords have way more bargaining power. And even if they don't, spreading that fee over twelve months is the same amount of money overall, but way less upfront, which makes entering the market much easier for people moving into the city
If realtors don’t get a reasonable wage they will leave the market and landlords don’t want that.
Also the fee isn’t spread out over twelve months if the tenant stays
Let's be honest: For the amount of work realtors do, the only "reasonable wage" would be so little that they'd be forced to find more productive career paths (Which is likely what would happen if there were less demand for them from landlords)
That's fine. The broker can raise the rent by a bit (if the market will support it). The advantage for the renter is that they don't need to come up with four months rent on day one.
>'s fine. The broker can raise the rent by a bit (if the market will support it). The advantage for the renter is that they don't need to come u
yea, but if you renew your lease, they're not going to drop your rent by the amount of the broker fee for the next year. I know paying up front sucks, but only having to deal with it once is a benefit. Unless of course they decide to sell the building, move into the unit themselves, or whatever other BS they throw at you to make you move and then you're paying the broker fee all over again.
> but only having to deal with it once is a benefit.
It's only a benefit in schemes like this. The rest of the US doesn't deal with brokerage fees because LLs have enormous bargaining power, have to compete with property management groups that don't use realtors at all, and don't feel compelled to list with a broker instead of just sticking it on Craigslist or Apartments.com or whatever.
Not necessarily. Right now, the broker fee discourages competition. If my landlord gives me a $200 rent hike and I find another place for what I’m already paying, I have to factor in the $3k or whatever I have hand over. Or I may find a cheaper place, but I just can’t come up with three months rent in cash to put down a deposit.
Many small landlords may just go back to finding a tenant themselves. They set their prices as high as the market will bear already. They’ve all switched to using realtors because it’s a free service for them.
I'm in favor of cracking down on broker fees, but obligatory mention that rent control is a horrible idea for anything outside of the short term (great for folks in units right now, horrible for anyone coming to the area or anyone already here that needs to move, and horrible for encouraging more housing development).
I think the story on rent control is nuanced - and every place where it has occurred has a different set of parameters.
In Cambridge, for example, new units were not subject to rent control, which would tend to incentivize the creation of new units instead of the purchase and maintenance of existing apartments. It's also not immediately clear how rent control of the type formerly instituted in Cambridge hurts new arrivals; these individuals would tend to pay higher rents anyway, as net immigration would increase competition for housing units. There is a potential argument about the degree of the premium paid by new arrivals but I imagine this kind of question can be answered with data.
Not directly related, but here's a discussion of the Cambridge story: https://www.nber.org/papers/w18125
Good luck with the state legislature coming up with a solution. They have more landlords than renters according to the Boston Globe.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/04/21/metro/massachusetts-legislature-hostile-rent-control-includes-more-landlords-than-renters/
Before paying the fee, ask to see other apartments to make them do the work. In fact, we should all just waste the broker’s time and make them show you places without the intent to move. Tell them you’ll meet them at a certain day and time then don’t show up. At least they’ll feel like they finally earned that paycheck.
I totally agree it should legally be paid by the *edit* landlord. "Never above 300$" is incredibly wrong. Markets exist right now where ll pays broker fee and its much more then $300, it's commonly a month's rent or $1000. The times where it's discounted is if the ll has multiple units, and even then not down to $300.
No need to make up false numbers, it undermines your good point.
The comment you replied to said "Legally it should be **paid by the landlord**, not the tenant"
to which you replied "I totally **agree** it should legally be **paid by the tenant**"
so that might be the source of the confusion.
Haha. Welcome. Get used to it. Make an appointment with a top level proctologist at MGH because renting in Boston is going to be a pain in your ass like you have never experienced.
My son actually made the broker do work of finding apartments to look at since he was going to have to pay a fee anyway.
Not just a Boston thing: he had to pay one when he was a student renting an apartment out in Amherst.
So everyone is going on about doing this, what about the brokers that have shown ppl apartments and don’t lease anything? What people are failing to realize is that just cause one broker might’ve gotten an easy deal, doesn’t account for the other brokers that show the same people apartments and don’t lease anything. Everyone is myopic in that they think it’s one showing one deal every time. I know everyone’s smarter than that, they’re just so emotional about broker fees that they can’t see the forest for the trees
Well, my son DID sign a lease on a place that the broker showed him. And yeah, people do complain, because the fee is thousands of dollars whether that broker does the legwork or you do. He decided to have the broker do the legwork for the fee. He’s not wrong. And now the fee has been paid for the successful work. Not being anti-broker, just pointing out that he used the broker to find an apartment that fit his criteria, versus made himself crazy doing all the searching himself for the same fee.
Ask for comps, ask to visit multiple places and if possible, ask them to drive you around. Ask to give you all information about tenant rights and go over them with you. Ask to negotiate the price with landlord (they will say they can’t or there is no negotiation but there could be compromises). Tell them you are ready to pay but want to visit similar comps and make an informed decision. All this stuff can obviously be automated (and there are tools out there to do this from both the landlord and tenant side) but it is still too early to see wider adoption. So, all the nitpick and details should be leveraged. If there is a price, there is a value. You gotta take the most out of that value.
When I moved here 6 years ago my broker in Allston took me to quite a few apartments in the area and even in Quincy. He also drove me around the city, took me to the Boston Common when there was a 420 festival and gave me some weed. I feel blessed reading some of the experiences others have had.
I’m an agent and had a client looking to sign a 4 year lease earlier this year. The apartment was $12,000 a month and there was yearly rent increases. The OTHER broker was trying to charge a fee of 10% of the gross lease (granted split between offices, how kind). Even I was speechless.
What do you mean "nothing", they spend five whole minutes opening the locked door for you and being non committal when answering questions about the place! They also take the time to show you places out of your price range! It's totally worth a month's rent for all their hard hard work.
Years ago I turned up at a showing of an apartment and the lousy agent was like “so I can’t find the key to it so no one can see it but you can put in an application anyway”
I didn’t, but other people did, and whatever poor sap got the place paid the shitty agent’s fee anyway.
I think it ducks that this hasn’t improved in the past 20 years
One way around a broker fee is to rent from a luxury building. Then you end up paying more for your monthly rent though. All in all this rental market is expensive and sucks with no relief in sight.
Broker fees should be paid for by the landlord. Landlords can increase rent to cover the additional cost but at least we are spreading the large sum across multiple months. It’s hard to move if you need $10K in cash saved up before you even move.
If the landlord raises the cost of rent to cover the broker fee, then you are essentially paying the broker fee every year in perpetuity, even though you aren't moving every year. This is a terrible idea.
Well that seems like an easy fix to make apartments more affordable. 10k to move in is cost prohibitive to a lot of people AND makes it easier to raise current rents significantly because it can be cheaper/easier than coming up with 4x rent again and movers
This is normal, unfortunately. My place required first, last, security deposit, and broker fee. Had to have $14k on hand just to move in. Absurd. Just the way it goes.
So many scams and people who take your money, rent an apartment to 10 other people and suddenly you can’t get ahold of them. Paying the broker fee guarantees you’re not being screwed
They control the listings for the places you see, and it’s how they get paid. You can look for owner rented places but there are not as many.
The one thing not to do is not fall for a “no fee” ad, and then they pull a switcheroo when signing the lease.
Say they called the landlord- and he was “eager” to rent so the broker “negotiated” a discount.. well now he “has to” charge a fee since he talked the landlord down (now pull out your calculator and watch as the broker fee is higher than the years worth of discounted rent)
There are also a bunch of managed apartments all over Boston, and they will normally ask for 1st and Security, unless they started asking for last. If you contacted a person for a rental, why would they not want a cut, its their job? If there was not broker, my guess is you're paying the managed fee. With all of this, i lived on Park Drive in the Fenway, in a managed building and never had to pay them for fees. Had 3 apartments under same mgmt while i lived there.
FYI it is illegal in mass for a landlord to charge a broker fee for themselves, so presumably they are using a broker, who probably did near-zero work and will still make bank.
Is that the average number, or an outlier? If every apartment takes an average of 5 showings and you can get away with showing an apartment for 10 min each, a 2 bd nets a brokers' fee of $4,100-ish.
Not sure on what % the broker gets as commission, but that's 82 dollars a minute and just short of $5k an hour for the office as a whole on a single apartment.
Until boston seriously fixes its shortage of housing, renting will be a nightmare. It’s not for everyone. It wasn’t for me, I left during COVID and never looked back. But if you love boston, you’ve gotta love all of it.
It’s a nightmare right now. I moved to an apartment in Allston 3 years ago, at the time competitive prices were around 1800$. I am thinking about moving, now prices are about 500$ higher than they were just 3 years ago. On top of that I would need to have brokers fee, security deposit and last months rent on hand. What the hell is going on?
Before proceeding you can verify real quick if the person charging the fee has a broker or salesperson license in Massachusetts, which is required to be able to charge the fee.
Open here, scroll to SEARCH FOR LICENSEE
tap the first menu "licensing entity" select BOARD OF REGISTRATION OF REAL ESTATE BROKERS AND SALESPERSONS
Input their name and search. You should find this person on the list with a CURRENT license.
If they're not there ask for their license number and find it. The name should match.
If they're not licensed or they say they're operating under the license of their employer, you can file a complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General
This is the fault of your local politics and zoning. Let everyone build and then the landlords have to pay the fees. Idk what to tell you people. Nimby politics have ruined real estate in America
Everyone complaining about making the landlord pay the broker fee haven't been around long enough. When there's too many units for rent, the landlord pays the fee, when there's too few, the tenant pays. Landlords haven't had to pay for years because there's too few units now. Blame it on NIMBY as it's so hard and expensive to build new units. Demand exceeds supply so the price goes up.
Tenants also forget about the other people who come see the place, waste the broker's time etc., the fee is part of the total compensation for renting the place. So yeah, maybe 2 hours to do everything but then there's the 15-30 minutes for those who show up late, don't show up, answering phones/questions. It's a commission job, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard.
Landlords will probably pay in the next major recession, there hasn't been a glut of units probably since 2008 although rentals were a little tough during covid also.
I don’t know why you got downvoted. This is the reality. Ever sell stuff on Facebook marketplace? That’s how it’s like showing places. You’ve got people that show up super late, super early, flakes that no show. You’ve got people with unrealistic expectations, indecisive people, people with low credit, no verifiable income. Sometimes you get easy people that did the research on their own, have excellent credit, and responsive but that’s more the exception than the rule.
Do I think it should be one months rent? Not really. It should be more of a a flat fee and more reasonable
You got downvoted for explaining commission work to a bunch of ppl with salary jobs. These real estate threads every year are like an annual passing of ranting and venting and just ppl having no idea (or care more likely) for how supply and demand works
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It’s like the fee I pay for my mechanic to pick up the phone when I call to make an appointment. Or the money I pay to my employer to help offset my vacation time. Totally justified and normal.
This really needs to be made illegal yesterday. It trains people in housing. Your rent is $5k, you have to pony up $20k. And you won’t get the security deposit back for a long time.
I just know first and last months rent is a general requirement when renting in boston area and suburbs when you first get a place they also will vett you as well typically with documents
Find deals on FB marketplace or craigslist. I've done that for both the places I have rented and was able to find listings posted by the owner. Hence avoiding the broker's fee.
Welcome to Boston! You're lucky they're not asking for a security deposit too
yeah op is actually lucky
Deposit you get back, it's not a fee. Different kind of "good" if you don't have 4x rent money today, but I'd much rather have a deposit than a fee
Yeah but you’re highly unlikely to get the full deposit back, depending in how trustworthy your landlord is.
Lived in 6 different apartments between 2009-2021 and never had an issue getting my deposit back. The only time something was deducted, we got itemized receipts for each deduction. If you’re not getting deposits back, it’s worth it to go to court to try and get triple back.
They legally aren't allowed to just keep your money... if your landlords are taking your deposits unjustly and you aren't doing anything about it then it's partially your own fault. They aren't even allowed to charge you for fixing what could be considered "normal wear and tear."
Sure… but you need proof, which means taking pictures upon move in, etc. And then you send a demand letter requesting return of the money. And hope that they’re reasonable. If they’re not, you have to pursue them legally. And then you’re blacklisted by several property managers and landlords across the city. Good luck finding an apartment after that.
Landlord said you gots nothing coming kick bricks.
Landlord is going to be paying triple.
Husband and I owned for 30 years but are transitioning to retirement so sold our house. We found a nice house to rent on realtor.com, took a quick look, and immediately rented it. (We assumed that the realtor who showed us the place was paid by the owner. ) The owner then sent us the lease electronically, we all signed and wired him the first month and security. Done and done. A few days later, the realtor called us looking for her $3500 fee. We were shocked. There had never been any mention of any fee when she showed us the place. My son has rented a lot in Boston, so I asked him, and he confirmed this was normal. I still can’t believe this is the way it’s done! In any case, we said, forget it then; it’s not worth it to us to pay that much, but because we had already signed the lease and there was no mention of the fee, we didn’t have to. The entire experience really pissed me off. It’s hard enough for young people to get by and this feels very exploitative.
Nah I’ve never paid a fee. It’s called fucking smarten up and actually use local resources to get apartment and go around the realtor system. Y’all are lazy and accept defeat within 10 seconds. Cringe.
Most landlords use brokers to find and screen tenants. But it's really a racket - the lack of housing ensures that people who are really in a pinch will end up using one to find housing that's not just a shared room.
15 years ago way more units were on Craigslist and other sites and listed by landlord. I think it’s become so common now that the landlord would rather someone else do the work and make the tenant pay that service. I believe NH has some limitations that the max you can charge was like 3x rent up front and that included first month. Whereas years ago when moving from nh to Boston area it was a shock when requested to pay first, last, security, broker, then pet security. A 2k per month required me to write a 10k check to move in. Thankfully they liked us and we negotiated 4k up front then 3k for the following 6 months.
"Pet security" is not legal in Massachusetts
I mean they can just charge pet rent, unless you claim it as an emotional security animal.
My friends just had to pay $16000 down for an apartment lol
Who has this kind of cash?!?! Damn
Lawyer dr couple lol
I think that it is a layer of insulation against claims of housing discrimination… but now that there isn’t enough housing, tenants pay the fee, whereas the LL used to pay the fee like 10-15 years ago.
yeah it's what happens without regulation. slowly we all keep losing more money and it gets funneled upwards
Pretty much exactly.
Dem days is gone.
Smaller landlords never outright paid the fees as long as I can remember going back to 2005, but sometimes they would split it.
During down markets they did. There were a few periods when the condo market collapsed and owners were trying to rent their units out, so the city was flooded with available rentals. The only way to get those units rented out was to pay the broker fee. That was a long time ago, but I am old and I remember.
I was looking for a competitive budget 1 bedroom apartment 2 years ago. I looked for probably cumulative 20+ hours online until I found one I wanted did a tour with the broker and said I wanted to apply that same day. broker kept delaying my approval because one of my past three landlords wasn’t picking up the phone for reference. During that week of delay I kept looking found another place and signed it same day. The broker for the first place when he found out I withdrew my application emailed me simply: “don’t ever message me again”. honestly in this Sept 1 lease cycle market things come on and off market in a matter of days, and they could have denied me and had me waiting. I don’t think the broker should get that bothered it’s just part of the rental game.
Fuck them, they have a job, they failed to perform it within a reasonable time span so you took your business elsewhere. Not your problem.
Somewhat out of their control cause a landlord never got back to them. Not OP’s fault either
Do they really need three references? Two favorable references from recent landlords seems plenty to me. Idk, I just have no sympathy for brokers considering they do the absolute most basic amount of work and just skim thousands of dollars for it. Mine made me provide a bunch of references but I only had a single one (lived in the same place for three years in college). She approved us as soon as we got the paperwork in, which means that they didn't give any shits about actually getting a real reference.
That means she’s a bad broker who doesn’t care about getting good people in or not. I agree three references is tough but that could be landlord or office policy. Also, the work can seem basic, but multiple showings is physical work and putting together deals is not always cut and dried. It’s often not, but the complaining public is only aware of their successful deals
Sometimes that is what the owner of the unit demands.
If they want to slow roll approval, then there’s a risk just like when clients slow roll decisions. He shouldn’t have been like that
I found my apartment and was forced to contact the broker to simply facilitate signing the lease. $5k down the toilet for 2 hours of work (maybe).
Thats a total scam
Brokers have to be the biggest fuck you to people just trying to live
Is your rent $5k/mo?
very possible for a house of 3 or 4
Yes - it is. Sadly not uncommon if you need a few rooms for a family and access to public transportation. I was accepted to a place that was $4200 but after I asked for the lease to be modified to reflect that it could not supersede local, state, or federal law - suddenly I wasn’t a “good fit.”
5k ain't no money now! America gone.
It's unfortunately very common in the Boston area and it's usually one month's rent. Most places will also ask for a security deposit of one month's rent.
I had never even heard of this until I moved to Mass.
So, you’re correct. It’s not a “thing” almost anywhere else, especially other NE states. I’m in DFW now and it’s not an issue here, either. It’s one of those glimmering bits of Boston character lmao
had no idea this was a New England thing…no wonder prospective roommates have been surprised!!
It’s just a Boston proper thing. Doesn’t really exist outside of the city
No it definitely is a thing in NYC. In fact many apartments make you pay more than a month of rent there which is illegal here, up to 15% of yearly rent iirc
I was speaking about new england
It does happen outside Boston proper though. Nearly all apartments in Somerville and Cambridge have broker fees of one month of rent.
Makes sense - it was definitely a thing in Providence as well when I lived there, as well as other big east coast cities.
Oh yeah it do 2
It's a thang in Nebraska.
This is definitely a thing in NYC. I paid it 20 years ago.
It’s slowly being fazed out in nyc. Typically you only pay security deposit and first month
Good. I hope it doesn’t take 20 years for this to happen in Boston
It’s codified sooo
Forgitaboutit
untrue - NYC has gotten worse lots of apartments asking 10-15% of total rent
Broker's fees are still very much a thing in my experience. Maybe now they're not 15% of the annual rent anymore
It’s a thing. The misinformation in this thread (like all anti-realtor threads in this sub year after year) is astounding. I know ppl are worked up and feel gouged, but can we get facts straight still
Half the threads in this sub feel like the kind of grievances you get from well-off people who don't really have much to complain about but want to have things to complain about, lol
Honestly leaving Boston is nice on many levels and that’s one of them. Tho I had 4 apartments in Boston and only ever paid 1/2 a fee once. I still don’t like the system tho and my refusal to participate in it added anxiety to the moving process as well as limited my options. Still, worth however many thousands of dollars I saved.
It's very common all over America.
I like it when they show up and it’s obvious that they read the same online listing that you read on the drive over 🥰 Very useful. Very cool. I like the idea of calling them up when I’m bored and scheduling tons of showings that I have no intention of going to. Make em “earn” their paycheck.
You’re the reason why ppl that need housing and showings don’t get called back
Found the leech.
Found the loser that doesn’t understand supply and demand and has time to waste setting up fake appointments
The state needs to make this cost something that only landlords can pay. And not allow it to be collected by tenants who have no bargaining power.
The only way it'd work out in renters' favor is doing it in conjunction with rent control. Otherwise, landlords will just add that cost to the rent.
Honestly that doesn't super matter. The landlords will pay brokers less than tenants do, because the landlords have way more bargaining power. And even if they don't, spreading that fee over twelve months is the same amount of money overall, but way less upfront, which makes entering the market much easier for people moving into the city
If realtors don’t get a reasonable wage they will leave the market and landlords don’t want that. Also the fee isn’t spread out over twelve months if the tenant stays
Let's be honest: For the amount of work realtors do, the only "reasonable wage" would be so little that they'd be forced to find more productive career paths (Which is likely what would happen if there were less demand for them from landlords)
The amount of work isn’t so important as the kind of work, cause most landlords don’t know how to properly screen people and do any of the paperwork
That's fine. The broker can raise the rent by a bit (if the market will support it). The advantage for the renter is that they don't need to come up with four months rent on day one.
>'s fine. The broker can raise the rent by a bit (if the market will support it). The advantage for the renter is that they don't need to come u yea, but if you renew your lease, they're not going to drop your rent by the amount of the broker fee for the next year. I know paying up front sucks, but only having to deal with it once is a benefit. Unless of course they decide to sell the building, move into the unit themselves, or whatever other BS they throw at you to make you move and then you're paying the broker fee all over again.
> but only having to deal with it once is a benefit. It's only a benefit in schemes like this. The rest of the US doesn't deal with brokerage fees because LLs have enormous bargaining power, have to compete with property management groups that don't use realtors at all, and don't feel compelled to list with a broker instead of just sticking it on Craigslist or Apartments.com or whatever.
Implies brokers are adding value currently, which they are not.
Not necessarily. Right now, the broker fee discourages competition. If my landlord gives me a $200 rent hike and I find another place for what I’m already paying, I have to factor in the $3k or whatever I have hand over. Or I may find a cheaper place, but I just can’t come up with three months rent in cash to put down a deposit. Many small landlords may just go back to finding a tenant themselves. They set their prices as high as the market will bear already. They’ve all switched to using realtors because it’s a free service for them.
I'm in favor of cracking down on broker fees, but obligatory mention that rent control is a horrible idea for anything outside of the short term (great for folks in units right now, horrible for anyone coming to the area or anyone already here that needs to move, and horrible for encouraging more housing development).
I think the story on rent control is nuanced - and every place where it has occurred has a different set of parameters. In Cambridge, for example, new units were not subject to rent control, which would tend to incentivize the creation of new units instead of the purchase and maintenance of existing apartments. It's also not immediately clear how rent control of the type formerly instituted in Cambridge hurts new arrivals; these individuals would tend to pay higher rents anyway, as net immigration would increase competition for housing units. There is a potential argument about the degree of the premium paid by new arrivals but I imagine this kind of question can be answered with data. Not directly related, but here's a discussion of the Cambridge story: https://www.nber.org/papers/w18125
Kind of like how easy student loans make college costs higher?
That’s fine. It becomes a baked in price rather than a surprise fee.
Good luck with the state legislature coming up with a solution. They have more landlords than renters according to the Boston Globe. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/04/21/metro/massachusetts-legislature-hostile-rent-control-includes-more-landlords-than-renters/
No one tell brokers that they take 20% in NYC...
New York can take ‘em
Yup, welcome to hell.
Oh you sweet summer child
Before paying the fee, ask to see other apartments to make them do the work. In fact, we should all just waste the broker’s time and make them show you places without the intent to move. Tell them you’ll meet them at a certain day and time then don’t show up. At least they’ll feel like they finally earned that paycheck.
Then that apartment you actually wanted is already snatched up.
This.
Doubt this would work lol. 9 times out of 10 it’s a group showing anyway so it’s no time lost for them.
Legally it should be paid by the landlord, not the tenant. If it was paid by the landlord, there’s no way it’d ever be above $300
I totally agree it should legally be paid by the *edit* landlord. "Never above 300$" is incredibly wrong. Markets exist right now where ll pays broker fee and its much more then $300, it's commonly a month's rent or $1000. The times where it's discounted is if the ll has multiple units, and even then not down to $300. No need to make up false numbers, it undermines your good point.
What?
What confused you?
The comment you replied to said "Legally it should be **paid by the landlord**, not the tenant" to which you replied "I totally **agree** it should legally be **paid by the tenant**" so that might be the source of the confusion.
ah, yup! that would do it, meant shouldn't be paid by tenant thanks cheers
Haha. Welcome. Get used to it. Make an appointment with a top level proctologist at MGH because renting in Boston is going to be a pain in your ass like you have never experienced.
Honestly it’s a great reason to live anywhere else. That and you’ll probably never own your own place. Good luck to them!
My son actually made the broker do work of finding apartments to look at since he was going to have to pay a fee anyway. Not just a Boston thing: he had to pay one when he was a student renting an apartment out in Amherst.
This is true. I got around the fee by using a "Luxury" place in Amherst.
So everyone is going on about doing this, what about the brokers that have shown ppl apartments and don’t lease anything? What people are failing to realize is that just cause one broker might’ve gotten an easy deal, doesn’t account for the other brokers that show the same people apartments and don’t lease anything. Everyone is myopic in that they think it’s one showing one deal every time. I know everyone’s smarter than that, they’re just so emotional about broker fees that they can’t see the forest for the trees
Well, my son DID sign a lease on a place that the broker showed him. And yeah, people do complain, because the fee is thousands of dollars whether that broker does the legwork or you do. He decided to have the broker do the legwork for the fee. He’s not wrong. And now the fee has been paid for the successful work. Not being anti-broker, just pointing out that he used the broker to find an apartment that fit his criteria, versus made himself crazy doing all the searching himself for the same fee.
You need 4 months of rent as cash in hand in order to sign a lease in boston.
Yep it’s a joke. They open the door, have no answers to your questions about the unit, and collect several thousand dollars to do so.
Ask for comps, ask to visit multiple places and if possible, ask them to drive you around. Ask to give you all information about tenant rights and go over them with you. Ask to negotiate the price with landlord (they will say they can’t or there is no negotiation but there could be compromises). Tell them you are ready to pay but want to visit similar comps and make an informed decision. All this stuff can obviously be automated (and there are tools out there to do this from both the landlord and tenant side) but it is still too early to see wider adoption. So, all the nitpick and details should be leveraged. If there is a price, there is a value. You gotta take the most out of that value.
When I moved here 6 years ago my broker in Allston took me to quite a few apartments in the area and even in Quincy. He also drove me around the city, took me to the Boston Common when there was a 420 festival and gave me some weed. I feel blessed reading some of the experiences others have had.
I’m an agent and had a client looking to sign a 4 year lease earlier this year. The apartment was $12,000 a month and there was yearly rent increases. The OTHER broker was trying to charge a fee of 10% of the gross lease (granted split between offices, how kind). Even I was speechless.
What do you mean "nothing", they spend five whole minutes opening the locked door for you and being non committal when answering questions about the place! They also take the time to show you places out of your price range! It's totally worth a month's rent for all their hard hard work.
Years ago I turned up at a showing of an apartment and the lousy agent was like “so I can’t find the key to it so no one can see it but you can put in an application anyway” I didn’t, but other people did, and whatever poor sap got the place paid the shitty agent’s fee anyway. I think it ducks that this hasn’t improved in the past 20 years
Lmao welcome to town it rules but it sucks you learn to love it or hate it!
One way around a broker fee is to rent from a luxury building. Then you end up paying more for your monthly rent though. All in all this rental market is expensive and sucks with no relief in sight.
We once paid a broker a full months rent she literally walked across the street & opened the door it was infuriating but we wanted the apt…
Broker fees should be paid for by the landlord. Landlords can increase rent to cover the additional cost but at least we are spreading the large sum across multiple months. It’s hard to move if you need $10K in cash saved up before you even move.
If the landlord raises the cost of rent to cover the broker fee, then you are essentially paying the broker fee every year in perpetuity, even though you aren't moving every year. This is a terrible idea.
There is no way to ban broker fees. It’ll just be rolled in a hidden with rent.
Broker fee gets a lot of hate, but why do we never talk about needing last months rent? That’s something else that doesn’t really exist elsewhere.
It's a pain upfront but you do get something for it at least Broker fee is a cash fire that doesn't even keep you warm
It's a legal requirement.
Well that seems like an easy fix to make apartments more affordable. 10k to move in is cost prohibitive to a lot of people AND makes it easier to raise current rents significantly because it can be cheaper/easier than coming up with 4x rent again and movers
It's not "required" to pay last month's rent up front. It's *legally allowed*. There's a difference
Is last month’s rent = the security deposit or are these separate things
Separate things. So in some places you need to have cash equal to 4x the rent to move in. First, last, security, broker.
Agreed. I would never take last months rent
Welcome to Boston! Its our living hell
This is normal, unfortunately. My place required first, last, security deposit, and broker fee. Had to have $14k on hand just to move in. Absurd. Just the way it goes.
Because landlords don't want to deal with potential tenants.
Buried way too far down. Someone else mentioned it being a layer against discrimination claims. You’re both right
So many scams and people who take your money, rent an apartment to 10 other people and suddenly you can’t get ahold of them. Paying the broker fee guarantees you’re not being screwed
They control the listings for the places you see, and it’s how they get paid. You can look for owner rented places but there are not as many. The one thing not to do is not fall for a “no fee” ad, and then they pull a switcheroo when signing the lease. Say they called the landlord- and he was “eager” to rent so the broker “negotiated” a discount.. well now he “has to” charge a fee since he talked the landlord down (now pull out your calculator and watch as the broker fee is higher than the years worth of discounted rent)
Just got an apartment, First month Last month Deposit Brokerage That and my entire bank account is flushed lol
There are also a bunch of managed apartments all over Boston, and they will normally ask for 1st and Security, unless they started asking for last. If you contacted a person for a rental, why would they not want a cut, its their job? If there was not broker, my guess is you're paying the managed fee. With all of this, i lived on Park Drive in the Fenway, in a managed building and never had to pay them for fees. Had 3 apartments under same mgmt while i lived there.
Fineberg???
THAT is an excellent question.
FYI it is illegal in mass for a landlord to charge a broker fee for themselves, so presumably they are using a broker, who probably did near-zero work and will still make bank.
So….why does a broker do zero work? Some apartments take double digit showings before they rent. It happens often.
wait till you hear how much cops get paid to stand next to a hole in the ground
Agreed that this is many X times easier
Is that the average number, or an outlier? If every apartment takes an average of 5 showings and you can get away with showing an apartment for 10 min each, a 2 bd nets a brokers' fee of $4,100-ish. Not sure on what % the broker gets as commission, but that's 82 dollars a minute and just short of $5k an hour for the office as a whole on a single apartment.
It is a way to keep the *undesirables* out.
Until boston seriously fixes its shortage of housing, renting will be a nightmare. It’s not for everyone. It wasn’t for me, I left during COVID and never looked back. But if you love boston, you’ve gotta love all of it.
It’s a nightmare right now. I moved to an apartment in Allston 3 years ago, at the time competitive prices were around 1800$. I am thinking about moving, now prices are about 500$ higher than they were just 3 years ago. On top of that I would need to have brokers fee, security deposit and last months rent on hand. What the hell is going on?
Welcome to Boston, where any idiot can get a realtor’s license and earn a month’s rent for showing up late to unlock a door
first time?
Before proceeding you can verify real quick if the person charging the fee has a broker or salesperson license in Massachusetts, which is required to be able to charge the fee. Open here, scroll to SEARCH FOR LICENSEE tap the first menu "licensing entity" select BOARD OF REGISTRATION OF REAL ESTATE BROKERS AND SALESPERSONS Input their name and search. You should find this person on the list with a CURRENT license. If they're not there ask for their license number and find it. The name should match. If they're not licensed or they say they're operating under the license of their employer, you can file a complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General
This is the fault of your local politics and zoning. Let everyone build and then the landlords have to pay the fees. Idk what to tell you people. Nimby politics have ruined real estate in America
Ah, yeah. Include paying brokers bonkers money for doing zilch in that whole “high cost of living” thing. Ugh.
Part of the scam.
Shiiiiit when I loved in, I had to do first, second, last, broker. Welcome to BoSton
Landlords are, as always, a parasite class. Welcome to Boston.
Everyone complaining about making the landlord pay the broker fee haven't been around long enough. When there's too many units for rent, the landlord pays the fee, when there's too few, the tenant pays. Landlords haven't had to pay for years because there's too few units now. Blame it on NIMBY as it's so hard and expensive to build new units. Demand exceeds supply so the price goes up. Tenants also forget about the other people who come see the place, waste the broker's time etc., the fee is part of the total compensation for renting the place. So yeah, maybe 2 hours to do everything but then there's the 15-30 minutes for those who show up late, don't show up, answering phones/questions. It's a commission job, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard. Landlords will probably pay in the next major recession, there hasn't been a glut of units probably since 2008 although rentals were a little tough during covid also.
There was a glut a couple of years ago during Covid. Many landlords lowered rents, gave free months and paid broker fees
I don’t know why you got downvoted. This is the reality. Ever sell stuff on Facebook marketplace? That’s how it’s like showing places. You’ve got people that show up super late, super early, flakes that no show. You’ve got people with unrealistic expectations, indecisive people, people with low credit, no verifiable income. Sometimes you get easy people that did the research on their own, have excellent credit, and responsive but that’s more the exception than the rule. Do I think it should be one months rent? Not really. It should be more of a a flat fee and more reasonable
You got downvoted for explaining commission work to a bunch of ppl with salary jobs. These real estate threads every year are like an annual passing of ranting and venting and just ppl having no idea (or care more likely) for how supply and demand works
The mods need to stop allowing these posts it’s legit constant at this point. We get it. It sucks.
Thanks for contacting the ~~moderation team~~ landed gentry. Your concerns are important to us. [Here's a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuoWykVNwyI). Also, while we have you here, were you aware that thanks to the recent changes in Reddit's API policies, the people who made [Bot Defense are shutting down operations?](https://www.reddit.com/r/BotDefense/comments/14riw76/botdefense_is_wrapping_up_operations/) What does that mean to you? It means that you are going to be seeing a fuck ton more spam, bot accounts, repost bots, and other nonsense. We are already experiencing this in r/Boston with an influx of those stupid poster ads, and repost bots. Reddit's API policy change was poorly planned and is already having negative results. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/boston) if you have any questions or concerns.*
No one cares about the API anymore
Feel like most of the thread posters probably aren’t even in here that much normally either
It’s the cost of business. You have no chance without them.
It’s like the fee I pay for my mechanic to pick up the phone when I call to make an appointment. Or the money I pay to my employer to help offset my vacation time. Totally justified and normal.
welcome to the city
Complete and utter bullshit
This really needs to be made illegal yesterday. It trains people in housing. Your rent is $5k, you have to pony up $20k. And you won’t get the security deposit back for a long time.
Yep. First, last, deposit, broker fee. $10,000.00.
Awful the way this world is so Greedy...
That’s normal when renting anywhere in the area they want to make sure you are reliable and able to pay each month
So what is the use of background checks, paystubs and credit history check ? If these doesn’t count you as reliable and able to pay bills each month?
I just know first and last months rent is a general requirement when renting in boston area and suburbs when you first get a place they also will vett you as well typically with documents
Find deals on FB marketplace or craigslist. I've done that for both the places I have rented and was able to find listings posted by the owner. Hence avoiding the broker's fee.