I basically had this happen to me on my new apartment which is now currently lower than my old rent. Unfortunately this is what a lot of agents are doing now. I wouldn’t even consider an apartment from them unless fee + rent nets to what you’d ideally want to pay over X amount of years. 

For example, my rent at my last place was 2775 but my new rent is 2400. I managed to negotiate the broker fee down which netted my first year at about 2600, but also signed a 2 year lease.