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Who pays the agent fee for finding a rental home, the home owner or the new tenant? How does this work as I do not have experience in working with an agent to find my family a rental. Thanks
It depends. In some areas (NYC), it's the tenant. In much of the country, the owner. But in many areas, there is no agent involved, and you search listings yourself online.
It depends. In some areas (NYC), it's the tenant. In much of the country, the owner. But in many areas, there is no agent involved, and you search listings yourself online.
Like the area I'm looking at is Northern New Jersey and on Zillow many of the homes for rent have an agent representing them. Not sure who pays that fee.
It's real money, one month fee as the homes rent for around 3k to 4k usd in that area.
I used to live in NNJ and back when I was a renter, I would not pay the realtor's fee. If the landlord insisted, I would move on to something else. Best I would do, if I really really liked a place, would be negotiate it to be 50/50 with the owner. I think I did that once.
Its been a long time since I lived in NJ, and even longer since I rented, (last rental in NJ was in the mid 90's) so maybe its changed now, but back then I'd say less than half the places I saw advertised required the renter to pay the fee. But also back then, we still used classified ads in newspapers to find rentals, which a landlord could easily place himself and not use a realtor at all. If the ad was placed by a realtor I'd often not even bother. It may be less like that now as I think landlords are using the MLS more today.
When we moved to AZ 9 years ago, we rented for a while. I did not see a single listing where we had to pay the fee, even though we had a realtor looking for houses for us while we were still back East.
I looked at a house once where the owner was a realtor, and he wanted a fee from the tenant for renting his own house. I walked on that one.
Another thing to watch out for: if the landlord is paying the realtor's fee but asks you to send part of the security deposit to the realtor directly to cover the fee, do NOT agree to that. I had that happen to me several times and I was OK with it until one landlord tried to claim (at the end of the tenancy) that the security deposit he was holding did not include the amount payed to the realtor. Fortunately, I had written proof.
OK Thank you all. I assumed it was owner pays the agent fee for getting tenants, but one Zillow listing for rent threw me off as they mentioned the tenant needed to pay the agent commission.
I wouldn't be surprised if the agent is charging both parties. All you can do is to ask before you make an appointment or allow the agent to show you any units.
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