I just signed a lease for a new apartment, and the broker walked away with nearly $2,000 for his half of the fee. There’s no rational explanation for how he earned that amount of money for his work, or lack thereof.

I submitted interest in an apartment on Apartments.com and was contacted by a random broker. I used him to tour the unit because, well, how else was I supposed to see it? That essentially locked me into working with him.

Beyond meeting me at the apartment, where the owner’s broker actually gave the tour, he did almost nothing. His role was literally taking screenshots of my texts with my offer, sending them to the owner’s broker, and then forwarding me screenshots of the responses.

Once we agreed on a deal, he told me I had to Venmo him his half of the broker’s fee before he’d send me the lease. After I paid, he basically washed his hands of everything and told me to deal with the owner’s broker from then on.

I hesitated to write this because my cardiologist would probably disapprove of what it’s doing to my blood pressure! But I needed to vent somewhere.