Cambridge City Councilors Float Proposal to Force Landlords to Pay Broker Fees

The Cambridge City Council will discuss a proposal to force landlords, rather than tenants, to pay broker fees at its next meeting on Monday, according to the Council’s meeting agenda.

The proposal — sponsored by Councilors Jivan G. Sobrinho-Wheeler, Sumbul Siddiqui, Burhan Azeem, and Vice Mayor Marc C. McGovern — comes after the city released an annual survey of residents, who gave their local government low marks on housing affordability.

It also follows on the heels of the New York City Council, which approved a law earlier this month to shift broker fees to landlords in most cases — to the delight of tenants’ advocates and the dismay of the real estate industry.

With the passage of the New York law, Greater Boston now stands as one of the last major metropolitan areas where tenants have to pay fees for brokers — real estate professionals who act as middlemen between landlords and renters. Those fees often come in addition to a security deposit and the first and last month’s rent, all paid upfront.

The proposed policy order states that the fee “often drives up the move-in cost by at least one-third, further burdening renters for services rendered by agents hired by property owners, prohibiting lower-income residents from finding suitable housing in the City.”

Massachusetts legislators proposed a bill to shift the fee to landlords this summer, although it failed to pass into law. And while local officials in Boston are also eyeing making the shift, both cities would likely need to receive approval from the State House to do so.

Justin N. Saif ’99, a co-chair of the housing advocacy group A Better Cambridge, said he supports the change because it will lower costs, making it easier for renters to move apartments.

“It would lower the upfront cost of obtaining an apartment in Cambridge significantly,” he said, adding that the move would “make it easier for tenants to change apartments.”

Saif also said the shift would lower costs by placing the onus on landlords to minimize cost.

“By having the landlord pay their fee directly, it will likely lead to the landlords making sure they get better value for the service that’s being provided,” he said. “That is consistent what we’ve started to see happening in the real estate market more broadly.”

Councilor Catherine “Cathie” Zusy wrote in an email that she was unsure whether the proposal would pass. But she added that she understand the reasoning behind the proposal.

“With apartments running for about $3000 a unit, who’s got the first month, last month and brokers fee cash to pay out at the beginning,” Zusy wrote.

As in New York, the proposal is likely to face pushback from the real estate industry, although the Greater Boston chapter of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.

But Saif said that the momentum is behind the policy’s proponents.

“The last two dominoes to fall on this are New York and Boston,” Saif said. “New York just fell, so our time is here.”

—Staff writer Benjamin Isaac can be reached at benjamin.isaac@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @benjaminisaac_1.