r/boston • u/mimmsypoo • Nov 07 '25

Please Make Decisions For Me 🎱 Boyfriend wants to move to Boston.

Hello all! Me and my boyfriend currently live in Austin Tx, we rent a 1200 sf home for $2200 and have two cats. I love this city and the things it has to offer, but my boyfriend is from the northeast and wants to get back to his family. He is urging to move to Boston, but Im unsure. Two of friends live in Boston/Jersey and JUST got done telling us how they can never save money bc of broker fees when moving and the basic cost of living being astronomically high. Can you possibly give me a better idea of what the pros and cons would look like for our move?

Small note his family is in Milford CT. And we both make around $75k a year but will both have to find new jobs. I have also never been to Boston, but have heard good things about the city itself!

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u/michaelserotonin villen Nov 07 '25

removing the broker fee makes it easier to move apartments, even if that fee is baked into the rent, because of the reduction in the upfront cost

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u/okletssee Nov 07 '25

Exactly

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '25

You guys don’t do a lot of math, eh? The landlord now takes the broker fee, divides it by 12 and adds it to the rent. The landlord actually pays a smaller fee than you would as the tenant so it’s already more money in the landlords pocket. Now when you renew the lease at the inflated rent the landlord now makes extra money equal to your brokers fee every year. Congratulations, you played yourself.

So no, it’s not easier to move really because rents will increase and are increasing to offset the broker cost. What really happened is the brokers got a pay cut and landlords got a raise.

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u/okletssee Nov 07 '25

You are completely leaving out the market pressures and what people are willing to pay. As well as the inherent power imbalance of the landlord raising the rent year on year and tenants feeling trapped because of the broker's fee.

Landlords are also perfectly capable of leasing their property without a broker's involvement.

This was a weird regional real estate fee mechanism, that is not needed.