Brooklyn, NY · Member since 2018 · 28 posts · 0 votes
Historically, tenant's always paid broker's fee.
In Feb 2020, however, this practice was banned, and landlords needed to pay.
In Mar 2020, this ruling was blocked, and pushed court date to Jun. The court case pushed again to Sept.
Therefore, if I (the landlord) exclusively list my property with an agent, and a tenant signs a lease, is the tenant responsible for paying my broker? What if my tenant has their own broker, do both brokers split the fee?
Tenant's haven't always historically paid the broker's fee. Some landlords always pay, some don't. When it's a landlord's market more tenant's pay. When it's a tenant's market more landlord's pay. Guess which market we're in now? My system can only return 500 listings max per search and I can see 500 rental listings in Brooklyn where the landlord is paying... same in Manhattan. You decide all the answers to your questions and put them in the exclusive listing agreement. Your broker should be helping you figure out the best strategy in this market, and should be able to explain how the net effective rent stacks up against your comps, etc.
Unless you have a standout property, I’d consider paying the fee. You can Choose pay only your brokers fee As well in which case the tenant will have to lay their agent if they have one. In this market, you’re likely to be up against a lot of “no fee” apartments...so if you sit on the market for two months it may have made sense to just pay the fee.