One year after NYC’s FARE Act, asking rents rose 8.0% for apartments that once carried a fee, versus 3.7% for apartments already listed no fee.

Renters benefited from avoiding a huge broker-fee check upfront. But some of the market became harder to see, and apartments that used to carry a fee came back at higher asking rents.”

— Ilias Miraoui, co-founder of RentReboot

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, August 19, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Among 14,764 New York City apartments listed before the FARE Act and again in 2026, median asking rent rose 8.0% for apartments that previously carried a tenant-paid fee, compared with 3.7% for apartments already advertised without one, according to a new RentReboot analysis.

One year after the law took effect, tenant-paid broker-fee demands have nearly disappeared from public listing descriptions. RentReboot also found fewer rent-stabilized buildings advertising publicly, more listings ending without a confirmed close and other mandatory fees appearing in about 1 in 15 listings.

RentReboot analyzed 2.3 million New York City rental listings covering about 805,000 distinct units across more than 20 platforms. It matched the same apartments before and after the law, checked buildings against state rent-stabilization records, reviewed fee language in 183,178 descriptions and tracked how listings left the market.

The data shows:

• Formerly fee-bearing apartments returned at higher asking rents. Among 14,764 five-borough apartments listed before the law and again in 2026, median asking rent rose 8.0% for apartments that previously carried a tenant-paid fee, compared with 3.7% for apartments already advertised as no fee.

• Fewer rent-stabilized buildings advertised publicly. The number of stabilized buildings with any StreetEasy listing fell 8.3% between May-July 2025 and the same period in 2026. Listings in buildings not on the stabilization rolls rose 1.6% in the same platform and calendar window.

• More listings ended without a confirmed close. The share of listings pulled with no close recorded rose from 24.9% in the year before the law to 29.2% in its first year.

• The public market became less negotiable and more expensive. The share of listings taking a price cut fell from 18% in January 2025 to 10% in January 2026 and 9.4% in February 2026. Median June asking rent on StreetEasy rose from $3,700 in 2024 to $3,999 in 2026.

• The broker fee nearly vanished, but other mandatory fees became more visible. Descriptions demanding a broker fee fell from 2.2% in June-July 2024 to 0.06% in June-July 2026. Listings itemizing another required non-rent fee rose from 0.7% to 6.7%, or about 1 in 15 listings.

The FARE Act took effect June 11, 2025. It prohibits brokers representing landlords, including listing agents, from charging broker fees to tenants and requires landlords or their agents to disclose other mandatory tenant fees.

Those other charges included administrative and processing fees, required amenity fees, move-in fees, key fees, guarantor fees and application fees quoted above New York’s $20 cap. The share of descriptions quoting an above-cap application fee rose from 0.2% to 1.2%, with individual listings quoting as much as $1,200. The data does not show that landlords created six times as many “junk fees.” Some of the increase is likely fees that were already charged but are now disclosed because the law requires it.

For context, if a renter avoids an upfront fee of roughly $6,000, the higher monthly rent implied by the measured gap would take about five years to erase that initial saving. The median tenancy in RentReboot’s listing data is about 27 months.

That does not prove landlords moved broker fees into rent. Fee-bearing and no-fee apartments differ, the matched sample includes only apartments that relisted, and the data contains asking rents rather than signed lease prices. The measured gap is a ceiling on possible pass-through, not a causal estimate.

The analysis expands on data RentReboot provided to Bloomberg for its Aug. 12 report on brokers charging renters thousands of dollars to access hidden New York City listings. Bloomberg cited RentReboot data showing that public listings were moving faster after the law took effect.

The full study, methodology and limitations are available in RentReboot’s FARE Act one-year rental analysis. The analysis uses New York City listings through July 31, 2026, computed on the Aug. 6, 2026 snapshot of RentReboot’s archive.

About RentReboot

RentReboot is a renter technology company founded by Ilias Miraoui and Adam Sebti. It monitors more than 20 New York City rental sources, sends real-time matching alerts and combines public listings with official housing records to help renters search more completely and move faster. Learn more at rentreboot.com.

Ilias Miraoui
RentReboot LLC
ilias@rentreboot.com
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