NY State passes a law that brokers can no longer collect fees from renters. The assumption is landlords will have to pay commissions on rentals. For reference, a typical NYC renter pays 1 month of rent as commission
[{"id": "fgrtmdn", "text": "I wonder if this will cause rents to go up... \n\nAll kidding aside this is a huge change to the NYC multifamily rental dynamic, although I doubt it will have the intended \u201cconsumer protection\u201d effect they\u2019re going for.\n\nI have a lot of thoughts on this , but curious what others think of this. \n\nMy main prediction: There are about 27,000 brokers in NYC currently. Seeing as most landlords are much tougher negotiators and have more leverage than the average renter... I think this law will deal a heavy blow to that profession, and reduce that number dramatically.\n\nMy other thought on this: It could possibly make markets more efficient. As my other NY colleagues will attest to, dealing with rental brokers is very unpleasant and the whole process usually feels scummy (they post an apt online, show you it to you, and get up to 15% of your rent for minimal effort). This always struck me as a middleman that needs to be squeezed out of the equation, and this law may just do that.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]