Thats an easy one -NO FEE! Of course, but did you ever consider that when landlords offer to pay the broker the fee, it gets reflected in the price?

Truth be told, landlords that decide to pay the fee do it either because the have too big a portfolio to handle on theor own and they need to motivate the brokers to fill their vacancies, and/or because they would rather have a HIGHER rent roll, in effect by ‘buying up’ their rent by offering the place no fee ( or as brokers call it “Owner Pay” or OP for short).

By offering their vacancies as OP’s they are effectively increasing the rent roll of their portfolio and therefore increasing the equity in their portfolio so they can pull cash out of the properties to rennovate and expand their portfoio…

So yes they are smarter landlords in some ways, but sometimes they are just more about the business of real estate as opposed to someone that my be more hands on, does better work on their properties, is more focused on upkeep and tenant relations, and who would rather offer a cheaper rent to have a choice of tenants and effectively increase their chances of getting better tenants.

Conclusion.
There are pluses and minuses on both sides, but at the end of the day the smartest way to budget your move is to factor everything in to an annual amount, deduct the fixed expenses such as movers, and then divide by 12. That’s the number you have to work with, and if that means you can get a great place and have room to pay a fee on it go for it, or perhaps pay a little more and try to avoid the fee altogether. At the end of the day when you are making decisions about fees it has to be on the basis of how much does the fee add to my rent..

A $2000 place with a one month fee has $166.67/mo effect on your rent. If the place is worth $2350 on the no fee market, then you’re gettinga deal that is worth paying the fee. If it’s worth $1800, well that’s just someone trying to stiff you now isn’t it?