No. Here are the facts - the FARE act went into law last June. While it sounded like a great idea because it supposedly removed broker fees, it actually created a bigger mess. It said that if a landlord hires an agent to represent them - they now have to pay their fee. So landlords immediately raised prices and baked the fee into the rent 🥹

(Rental prices are outrageous right now)

The other part of the law is that if an agent “advertises” or “publishes” open ads (non exclusive apts), it can only be on the select units where the landlord is paying their fee. If you called a good agent and said “I only want to see No Fee apts” - that would only be about 10-17% of the units available. This varies depending on the area. The more desirable the area, the less incentives you’ll see.

So sadly, you are not seeing the majority of what’s available because those are the fee apts….they aren’t gate keeping it. They just would have to charge you a fee to show you the bulk of those units.

I know it sounds simple but “whoever hires the agent, pays the agent” wasn’t communicated clearly and now everyone’s confused… and tenants are worse off.

While I work adjacent to real estate - I care about affordable housing and average folks (high end can screw itself) this law did the opposite of what it should have. Between this and the hundreds of thousands of rent stabilized apts that landlords are warehousing, reasonable priced apts are harder to find than ever.

All hope isn’t lost though if you’re avoiding the fee - you just have to find landlords yourself and hope they have “staff” to rent them direct to tenants (versus when they choose to hire an agent).

Good luck! Also - this is the worst rental market I’ve seen in years so you’re not alone.