Арендатор в Бруклине заплатил брокеру $4000 за просмотр квартиры, ставшей доступной на 60% дешевле рынка

She scored a two-bedroom apartment in prime Brooklyn at 60% below market — but had to fork over $4,000 just to see it Alexandra Dye just rented a two-bedroom in Brooklyn for 60% below what the market says it's worth. She found it through a broker who wouldn't show her anything until she promised him a fee, which was $4,000 by the time she signed her lease. Must Read - Jeff Bezos backs a platform that lets anyone invest in rental homes for as little as $100 — 6 ways to build wealth like a landlord without actually being one - Dave Ramsey warns nearly 50% of Americans are making 1 big Social Security mistake. Here's what it is and 3 simple steps to fix it ASAP - The tax breaks in Trump's 'big beautiful bill' expire after 2028. Here are 4 moves to make before the window closes Dye, 29, works in advertising, and her deal started with a rejection. She'd asked about an apartment on StreetEasy, Bloomberg reported. That unit was taken, the broker told her, but he had others provided she agreed to a fee: a month's rent or more on any apartment she rented through him. Similar pitches have been making the rounds: Some agents now advertise their off-market inventory on TikTok and Instagram, and one video touring a $6,500-a-month one-bedroom in the Financial District drew 50 inquiries, Bloomberg reported. Behind it all is the city's broker fee ban, which turned a year old in June. Since the law landed, listings have been disappearing from public sites, and some brokers have turned the shortage into a business, selling renters access to apartments that never surface in a search. The broker fee ban pushed listings off public sites The Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act took effect on June 11, 2025, making the party who hires a broker also the party who pays for one. Since the brokers listing those apartments are typically working for the landlords, most renters stopped paying anything at all. Rental platform Openigloo found the share of renters covering a broker fee dropped to 15% from 31% since the law took effect. Available apartments have also trailed year-earlier levels every month since the FARE Act, with this June down 31%, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel and The Real Deal — in a normal year, June inventory rises 5.9%. Brokers have also found business in all those unlisted apartments. Bloomberg reported that Peyton Yen of Charney Brokerage charges one month's rent for what she called a pre-market advantage, and that roughly half of the 15 or so leases she expects to sign this summer involve apartments no major listing site will ever carry. Yen told Moneywise that fee applies only when a renter hires her as their agent and signs a lease through her, that pre-market listings she shares for landlord clients carry no renter fee and that the roughly-half figure referred to leases completed before apartments reached the portals — not renters paying for access.