The FARE Act, one year in: what renters actually pay now

On June 11, 2025, the FARE Act changed who pays the broker in New York City rentals. A year later, most renters I meet still get the rules half right — and the half they get wrong costs them money, apartments, or both.

The rule, in one paragraph

If a broker is working for the landlord — listed the unit, marketed it, answers the phone for it — the landlord pays that broker. Full stop. You, the renter, only ever pay a broker you hired yourself, as your own representative. And every fee you could be asked to pay must be disclosed in writing, in the listing and before you sign anything. Violations run up to $2,000 a pop and can mean refunding illegal fees, enforced by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.

What actually happened to prices

The predictable thing: some of the fee moved into the rent. StreetEasy's one-year data put the effect at roughly a 1.1% bump in asking rents on broker-represented listings — call it $46 a month — while the upfront fee renters no longer pay averaged around $5,862. Even on a two-year stay, that trade favors the renter by thousands of dollars. The bigger driver of rent growth this year wasn't the FARE Act at all; it was the same thing it's been for a decade — not enough apartments.

The mistake I see every week

Renters heard "broker fees are over" and concluded brokers are over. Then they walk into the post-FARE market alone: fifteen applications in the same inbox, a listing agent who works for the landlord — because now it's unambiguous that they do — and nobody on the renter's side of the table. The listing agent's legal duty is to their client. Their job is to fill the unit with the cleanest application at the best terms for the landlord. That was always true. The FARE Act just made it official.

The renters who win in this market treat the change as what it is: the first time hiring your own representative has been a clean, transparent decision. You know exactly what my fee is before we tour a single apartment — it's disclosed in writing on our intake call, per the law. What you get for it is speed, an application built the way landlords actually read them, and someone negotiating the things nobody tells you are negotiable: first month free, guarantor waived, move-in flexibility, fee offsets.

One year in, the honest summary

The FARE Act did what it said: it ended the surprise $6,000 check for a broker you never hired. It did not end competition for apartments, it did not make listing agents your friend, and it did not repeal the supply shortage. The renters paying the least in 2026 are the ones who understood all three sentences.