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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. If you took a news holiday this weekend and missed these couple of days of President-Elect Trump's nomination palooza, you may have missed this, his choice for energy secretary is a guy named Chris Wright, CEO of one of the country's biggest fracking companies. Drill, drill, drill was one of the items in Trump's famous dictator on day one quote. Remember that? Chris Wright is known for saying things like this.

Chris Wright: There is no climate crisis and we're not in the midst of an energy transition either.

Brian Lehrer: Get ready for that debate if they actually deign to hold confirmation hearings in the Senate. Then there's Texas Congressman Troy Nehls, who's putting his stake in the ground to protect Congress's right to have checks and balances on the executive branch. Well, not really. I made that up. In fact, the opposite. As explicitly as you've ever heard anyone say the quiet part out loud.

Troy Nehls: There's no question he's the leader of our party. Now he's got a mission statement, his mission and his goals and objectives, whatever that is, we need to embrace it, all of it, every single word. If Donald Trump says, "Jump 3 feet high and scratch your head," we all jump 3 feet high and scratch our heads. That's it.

Brian Lehrer: Let's hope Trump doesn't ask the congressman to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge because I guess he'd have to do it. Congressman Troy Nehls of Texas. We'll get a reaction to that Texas congressman from our guest later this hour. The Brooklyn congressman and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will see how he plans to lead the Democrats in the new era and compliant Congress era as well. Hakeem Jeffries in about a half hour.

We'll start local today on a big New York City pocketbook item that's about to undergo a major change, and no, it's not congestion pricing. What we will talk about first today is the bill that New York City Council passed last week that would eliminate those budget-busting brokers fees for so many people signing up to rent apartments. Mayor Adams, however, is not a fan and may yet veto it. We'll open up the phones on this for renters on how big your last broker's fee was, for landlords with your point of view, and for brokers who will now get paid differently than before.

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Renters who paid brokers fees, landlords, brokers yourselves. We're very happy to have the sponsor of the bill, Brooklyn Councilmember Chi Ossé. Councilmember, welcome to WNYC. Thank you for coming on.

Councilmember Chi Ossé: Good morning, Brian. Thank you so much for having me back on.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with the basics for the uninitiated and for those who've never paid one, what is a broker's fee, how much is it usually, and how does the system work in our city?

Councilmember Chi Ossé: Sure. A broker's fee is a fee that is usually paid by the tenant to a broker when they are looking for an apartment in New York City. 9 times out of 10, when you're a prospective tenant in New York, you find an apartment through word of mouth, from a friend, on StreetEasy, or online service, sometimes a neighbor. You show up to tour the apartment and there's a broker that your landlord hired to show you the apartment, maybe do a background check, but this is an individual that you, as a prospective tenant, didn't hire.

You then go to your lease signing and you find that you're paying for this broker fee that's ranging from 15% to 20% of the annual rent. The average cost of moving into an apartment these days as a tenant in New York is over $12,000, and sometimes nearly half of that is the broker fee. What this bill would do is that it would require that now whoever hires a broker within the city of New York will pay a broker fee, just like the broker fee system is set up in every other city in this country, except for Boston.

Brian Lehrer: Whoever hires the broker will pay the broker's fee. In many cases, that's going to be the landlord. Very often people looking to rent apartments see ads, but then even though the broker is hired by the landlord, in those cases the renter, as they sign the lease, in addition to the first month's rent and the last month's rent as a security deposit, has to pay this broker's fee, which as you say, can be 15% or 20%. How often do tenants hire brokers? That's an exception in the law. If the prospective renter hires the broker to help find them an apartment, then that renter pays.

Councilmember Chi Ossé: Absolutely. That still happens. I think there are plenty of brokers out there who are professional, who have wonderful listings, who have great clients. When I was looking for an apartment a year and a half ago within my own district, I was having a hard time. I was looking within a confined space. I did not want to pull a Eric Adams and live outside of where I represented, so I decided to hire a broker myself.

Brian Lehrer: [unintelligible 00:05:22] on Erick Adams, all right.

Councilmember Chi Ossé: After having some trouble finding apartment, I chose to hire a broker who found me the perfect apartment. Prior to hiring that broker, I was finding that I was showing up to listings where there was no broker present and the landlord was still charging a broker fee. I was going to listings where the broker was distracted or not engaged, sometimes rude. I think brokers do provide a great service when someone is consenting to hire them like I did, but just because I was able to hire a broker, I still don't believe anyone should be forced to pay a broker fee.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, again, will repeat the call in invitation. Renters, how big was your last broker's fee? 212-433-WNYC. Landlords, is this going to be a problem for you? Is it going to lead to higher rents in your point of view or the way you argue it? We'll play a clip of Mayor Adams in a couple of minutes where he argues that. For brokers who will now get paid differently than before, will this affect your living if the landlord, rather than the prospective renter, pays your fee? 212-433-WNYC. What effects do you think it will have on any parties? 212-433-WNY, call or text. 212-433-969.

Before we play that skeptical clip of the mayor, I'm going to play a clip of you before the vote was taken in City Council for your bill. You taking to social media to garner support from the public, many members of whom might not be paying attention to the minutia workings of city government. Here's a short clip of one of your recent short-form videos. This is 17 seconds.

Councilmember Chi Ossé: Here's how we passed the biggest renter's law of the century using social media. I'm New York City Councilmember Chi Ossé, New York's only Gen Z elected official. My bill is called the Fair Act and it ends forced broker fees forever. I started writing the bill over a year ago when I was searching for a new apartment, and I learned how expensive finding a new place can be.

Brian Lehrer: Actually, I said that was before the bill passed, but it sounds like you're taking credit for having passed the bill. Give us the context for that and why you think social media played a role in getting this passed.

Councilmember Chi Ossé: Of course. This bill was definitely not easy to pass. I always say that what the oil lobby is to Texas government, the real estate lobby is to New York City. They were putting a lot of money behind misinformation campaigns about this bill, trying to push other members off of supporting this bill, as well as disillusioning the public. I knew that when pushing this bill, I had to put together a robust strategy. I say that my team and I tapped into old school organizing, which is we galvanized various different nonprofits, organizations, and tenant groups to co-sign this bill and to push their constituencies to support this bill.

We reached out to plenty of labor unions, got the Central Labor Council involved in supporting this bill, as well as several large labor unions within the city, to push members to sign onto this bill. Because this was a hard bill to get past the finish line, I knew that we needed an extra boost. As someone who has grown up using social media, the internet, uses it on my personal time, the power of the people is what makes or breaks a bill like this one.

I made several videos on TikTok and Instagram Reels that reached hundreds of thousands of people. It made people get engaged in a bill like this one. Not only were they reaching out to their Councilmembers, asking them to sign on, we turned out hundreds of people to our hearing. That combated a lot of the narrative that REBNY, the Real Estate Board of New York, was pushing at that hearing. Because of the amount of people that we contacted through our social media presence, through other creators and influencers making videos about this bill, it became a pressing issue within the City Council, which I believe helped us get this bill past the finish line.

Brian Lehrer: I know that in the same video that we played a clip of a minute ago that you had released, you also say the real estate lobby used to be unbeatable when power and money used to be the same, but with these new tools, meaning social media tools, the way you just described them, a new politics as possible. I wonder if you might even have a thought about that in the context of national politics or beyond this issue in New York City and vicinity beyond the issue of just this particular bill.

I think what we've been hearing, especially since the national election turned out the way it did, is that social media is so dominated by voices from the right. I wonder if you see it differently in the New York City context or if you think it can be more competitive out there from left and right.

Councilmember Chi Ossé: No, you hit the nail on the head. That's something that I've been working on changing within my own respective fields for almost two years now. The right, in this past election, has been able to galvanize a lot of young people to lean more conservative. You're seeing podcasters like Joe Rogan who reach a lot more people through his outlet than MSNBC or CNN. I think the right has been able to acclimate to the changing media field, as have I within my office.

This wasn't the first time that we reached people on mass levels to turn out to an issue like this. When I was organizing around the rent guidelines board hearings a couple of years ago, we made a video in my office that reached hundreds of thousands of people that turned out over a thousand people to a simple rent guidelines board hearing. Social media is a great outlet, especially short-form media in getting people involved, educating people, getting them civically engaged, and then also incorporating them within whatever field of politics that you lie in, whether it's the right or the left, where I am.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. I'm not going to let you off the hook without you addressing the dominant worry about this bill, which is that landlords are just going to bake these fees into the rent and then you'll be paying it forever as long as you live in that apartment, rather than just the one time upfront. We're getting so many comments like that in our text message thread already, and I know that's the mayor's position. Before we put you on the spot on that, let's take a couple of phone calls with your broker's fee stories. Adrian in Bed-Stuy, which is your own district, you're on WNYC with Councilman Chi Osséi. Hi, Adrian.

Adrian: Good morning. My story is I had been searching for a couple of months, didn't find anything I liked. When I finally did, I did the typical first, last, and the broker's fee, which was one month's rent. There's so much competition, even though it had only been in the market like three days, that the broker told me people were increasing what they were willing to pay, so it was starting a bidding war. To secure the place, I offered three months cash in advance as well.

It's a $ 2,300-a-month apartment. To get in was first, last, brokers. Clearly though, my choice, the three months in advance was $15,000 to move in. I felt like I needed to because the places I was seeing were not great. What I found interesting when I spoke to the broker securing everything that had been in the market three days, I remember complimenting her on the photos, and she said, "Oh, I just took those with my iPhone," which made us laugh, but she did no work. Thankfully, I'm not paying extra per month, and I had the cash in hand, but yes, six months, $15,000 just to move in.

Councilmember Chi Ossé: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: I'm sure there are a lot of people who maybe could afford the $2,300 rent but wouldn't have the $15,000 to lay out up front who couldn't have competed with you for that same apartment. Right, Adrian?

Adrian: Yes. That's why I'm here, I'm assuming. I was living in a little hovel, so I did manage to save up. I'm sure a lot of people weren't in that situation.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Comment on that first call, Councilmember?

Councilmember Chi Ossé: That's not a unique story that I've heard in this campaign in pushing this bill. Even the fact that the broker said that she took the photos on her iPhone. I think that when this bill is implemented, a lot of landlords, a lot of homeowners will realize, and they have already in the current market, that they can just upload some of these apartments themselves, they can show these apartments themselves, and that they might find that some of these services that a broker promises to deliver can be done themselves because of that. I think that's one of the many reasons why it won't be baked into the rent.

Brian Lehrer: Listener writes in a text message, "I'm renting an apartment. That's $2,850 a month. Had to pay broker's fee that was 15% of the annual rent. That's $5,800. My realtor and the landlord's realtor says seller's realtor, but this isn't about buying apartment. This is about renting. My realtor and the landlord's realtor split it. I didn't mind paying my brokers half of it, but not fair that I had to pay for the landlord's realtor, who had been trying to rent it for eight months." There's another story.

Another one, "We paid $3,000 for our broker's fee. The worst part was the broker didn't show up to the apartment viewing. The people who were living in the apartment at the time were not warned we were coming, but gracious enough to show us around." I'm going to take a couple of calls from brokers here who have, I think, different perspectives on this. One is Gwen in East Harlem. Gwen, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in today.

Gwen: Hi. I just wanted to say that not only have I been a salesperson, but I've also run for city council and I've been very, very active in the community of renters' rights. I am very worried that it's going to be baked into the rent like other people are. I'd be really careful that-- because I remember laws in city council like the anti-tenant harassment bill, which were exactly the opposite of that. I'd be careful of that.

I also want to just tell people that I have gotten two apartments in New York, and I haven't paid a fee for either one. You don't have to pay a fee, but you are going to do some leg work. Most of the agents, when I was working, were getting their listings the exact same way as pedestrians are. They're just going to the New York Times at that time. If you just do your basic work online, I also recommend walking around and talking to people in your neighborhood. That is how I got my apartment. I just didn't get it once, I got it twice. I have two rent-stabilized apartments.

Brian Lehrer: Gwen, thank you very much. Here's another broker, Mina in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi, Mina.

Mina: Hi. I wanted to just quickly say first off, I'm a principal broker of a boutique firm in the city. First off, it is illegal for landlords to ask you for last month's rent. If landlords are doing that, it was prohibited from the Tenant Protection Act in 2019. Having a broker on your side probably would be helpful for that. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Can I follow up on that on that aspect?

Mina: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Can they ask you for a security deposit that's not defined as the last month's rent?

Mina: Yes. It's one month's rent which would be applied to your first month and one-month security deposit, but I think a previous caller stated that they offered three months' rent upfront. There's a loophole in this law that says if the tenant offers additional funds, then the landlord may be able to accept it but really you're not supposed to. Landlords are not supposed to take more than two months total and one month should be sitting in an interest-bearing escrow. That's a security deposit. The other month can be applied and should be applied to first month's rent.

Last month's rent was eradicated in 2019. Not all landlords stand by that and some tenants. Usually, it's international folks that are affected by this when they want to offer tons of funds upfront to get approved because they don't have credit or what have you. With that said, the broker fee issue I see as a liquidity issue. If you don't have liquidity, it is really tough to get the door open for you. I understand how this law being passed might be helpful for those folks.

Although there are alternatives, there are other companies that might help with that. The guarantor companies where you can pay a small fee like $10 a month and then forego a security deposit or et cetera, or even bake in the broker fee sometimes. I do agree that landlords aren't just going to take this. They're not going to just say, "Okay, now we're just going to pay these folks." They are going to charge tenants.

I've seen this happen already, and I think maybe the previous caller might feel the same way, where a lot of apartments that you see "no fee", those are generally higher priced apartments. If you comp them against apartments that are-- they look somewhat similar. The vacancy rate is just so low in the city and something does need to be done to help folks get access, but my concern is if the rents get baked in, it's going to be primarily markets that are already a little bit more affluent.

What's going to happen are these markets-- If you want to live in the West Village, you're going to have to be extremely affluent to live there. The economic diversity is not going to exist if landlords begin to even increase the rent more than they have. Also, what about smaller landlords and how they operate? I think generally speaking, this is coming from a good place, but I don't know if it's going to actually have all of the positive effect that we think it's going to.

Brian Lehrer: Mina, thank you very much. We have at least one text from a listener who writes that they would rather see the cost of the broker baked into the rent because they can't afford the outlay all at once, but they can afford a little more rent. That's one person's perspective. Let me get one more in here, Councilmember, before we come back to you because it's interesting to me that of our 10 lines, we have three landlords on the phone who seem to be saying they're in favor of this law. Let's hear from Adam in Manhattan representing them. Adam, you're on WNYC Hello.

Adam: Good morning, Councilmember. I want to commend you on a very sensible bill. The person who hires the employee should be the one to pay for the employee. It makes complete sense. As the prior caller said as well, since the landlord is more likely to have more cash on hand than a tenant, it also becomes cost-prohibitive to force the tenant to pay. There have been a number of changes, and Brian, I think this would be a great topic for a deep dive by your program, a number of changes in the law in the past five years on the state level that have skewed enormously in favor of tenants.

Many of these new laws don't make sense like you can't do a background check on a tenant, you can't collect the last month's rent anymore. As the previous caller said, many of these, you can't evict the tenant even after the lease expires unless you have very, very good cause. A lot of crazy laws have come into effect, but this one proposed by the councilmember is not crazy.

This one makes perfect sense, and it makes for a more even playing field for a tenant who, like most people, works, gets a paycheck, utilizes that paycheck to pay for housing expenses, but doesn't necessarily have an enormous warehouse of cash available on hand to make an enormous payment. The last point, if I could very quickly, obviously for myself and I would think for the vast majority of landlords, we don't have the time or the wherewithal or the desire to meet one-on-one with prospective tenants.

If you have more than one apartment, if you do this as a business, you are absolutely going to be paying a broker. It is not realistic to say, "Oh, they're just going to show it themselves." Maybe if you own one apartment and you have the time to do so, okay, but that's not true for the vast majority of landlords. I would urge the councilmember, don't be a typical politician. Acknowledge the problem with your bill, which is that landlords will raise the rent as a consequence of this. Don't pretend that that's not going to happen.

Brian Lehrer: Adam, thanks-

Adam: I think it's a good bill, it's a sensible bill. It's a sensible bill, but there is a negative downside. Don't be Pollyanna, shouldn't think that it's not going to cause raises in rent. It will.

Brian Lehrer: Adam, thank you for your call. We really appreciate all those points you made and we're not going to have time to get to all of them. My guest, for those of you just joining us, is New York City Councilmember Chi Ossé of Bed-Stuy and part of Crown Heights, who sponsored the bill that got passed last week. We'll see if Mayor Adams vetoes it. That would make the person who hires the broker in the context of apartment rentals pay that person, meaning the landlords would have to pay much more often than the tenants, which is more common now.

That's quite an array of calls and texts. You were sitting patiently listening, too, there, Councilman. Where do you want to jump in? You hear the common thread there from people who like the bill and people who don't like the bill that yes, the rent's going to go up.

Councilmember Chi Ossé: I've been getting this question since I've been pushing this bill for a year and a half now, and I have a couple of great points that I would use to argue against the increase in rent, and even in the small case that rents would be increased. I don't believe that a landlord can just raise the rent by however much they'd like because they of course would need a paying tenant. This is New York City, the rent is already too damn high. If your landlord could raise rent by a given amount tomorrow, they would have done so yesterday.

Another point, what a lot of people don't address is that nearly half of renters aren't rent-stabilized units where this is legally a non-issue. I think the number is 47% which no one wants to address. It would be illegal for the landlords to bake the broker fee into the rent and nearly half of the housing stock for tenants within this city. Those are the cases where we see some of the most outrageous broker fees because many of these brokers see it as a good investment to be in a rent-stabilized unit within New York City.

In addition to that, I do believe that the passing of this bill would put bargaining power in the hands of tenants during these release signings, which would again put a downward pressure on overall rents. If a landlord knows a tenant would face thousands of dollars in upfront fees if they leave for a new unit, the landlord could dramatically increase rent on their captive tenant and the passing of this bill would end that.

Additionally, under the new amendments of this bill, landlords must break down and provide a description of each fee the tenant has to pay. While obviously this is not the absolute solution, it does provide transparency to a prospective tenant on what fees that they would need to pay. I know that there was someone who texted that they rather pay this fee over 12 or 24 months. What we're mainly trying to address in this bill is how so many New Yorkers are living paycheck to paycheck.

Again, the upfront cost of moving into a new apartment in New York City is over $12,000. If you're a single mother, you know, a union worker, someone trying to get out of a domestic violence situation, a family that's trying to grow, and you don't have $10,000 on hand to move into a new apartment, you are trapped within a current apartment that you're in, you're trapped within a current apartment where your landlord's trying to increase your rent. You would rather pay a broker fee in that small case that it's baked into a rent over 12 or 24 months rather than having to save multiple paychecks to move out an apartment immediately.

Now, many people who are listening, many New Yorkers know that when you're looking for an apartment in New York City, you have to act fast, you have to move quickly. It's hard to plan and prepare. Eliminating that upfront cost would make this process a lot more easier for so many people within our city.

Brian Lehrer: I'll read you a supportive text that came in. It says," I love Chi," calling you by your first name. "I love this bill. Super, super supportive. I am a tenure-plus renter in New York City. I want to voice support. This helps poor people." I also want to play the clip of Mayor Adams. We used this on the show last week after his news conference last Tuesday expressing his reservations about the bill. This is about 30 seconds of the mayor.

Mayor Adams: I don't want what we think is a good idea to turn into a long-term course. I was a real estate agent. If you have to pay that fee of $800 one time to get a place and then you change it and the owner of the property, particularly small property owners, decide that they're going to spread it out to $50 a month, now you're paying that for the life of your rental.

Brian Lehrer: Mayor Adams last week. I thought I heard a reporter snicker in there when the mayor said $800.

Councilmember Chi Ossé: That was me.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, that was you?

Councilmember Chi Ossé: That was me.

Brian Lehrer: Because the broker's fee tends to be so much more than that. Where did he come up with $800 lowball figure? You do have what would normally be a veto-proof majority in council for this bill that passed last week, but if the mayor were to veto it, sometimes after a mayoral veto, people who don't want to get on the wrong side of the mayor find their ways to wriggle out of a vote when they have to defend it again. Do you think the mayor will veto this and are you confident in your veto-proof majority if he does?

Councilmember Chi Ossé: I'm not sure if he will veto it or not. We do have 42 people who have voted yes on this bill. The veto override count is 34. The council has overrided every veto of this mayor thus far. There was a poll that came out back in June from Slingshot Strategies that pulled 1,500 Democratic primary voters within New York City. It asked, would you support Mayor Adams for reelection if he Vetoed this bill? 66% said no, and 11% said yes. If he's listening, I hope you heard that, Mayor Adams.

Brian Lehrer: Last question and we have Congressman and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries standing by to talk about all the national politics. Obviously, so many big things going on right now. One last question for you real quick to the concern, the way the mayor put it there, is there any way that you could stop a landlord from baking the broker's fee that they would now have to pay permanently into the rent and having it come out net worse for those renters if they stay long enough?

Councilmember Chi Ossé: No. Rent regulation does happen on the state level. In any case that the landlord would bake the fee into the rent, there's no regulation that I can do within this bill or on the city level for that. Again, I argue, Brian, that that won't happen in many cases with the bill. Again, half are rent stabilized. It would be illegal to bake the rent into that case. Rent is set by market forces. If your landlord could, they would force broker fees.

Force brokers means tenants have no bargaining power. Landlord knows that if a tenant leaves, they would have to pay a fee at their next rental. A landlord has all the power at resigning and can raise rent knowing they have a captive tenant. I'm forever going to argue that ending forced broker fees and a tenant can leave an apartment at the end of any lease. It gives tenants bargaining power and in my opinion, will put a downward pressure on our rents.

Brian Lehrer: I see. You're saying the landlord's already going to charge as much as the market will bear.

Councilmember Chi Ossé: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: The argument is this wouldn't change that. Chi Ossé, councilmember in the New York City Council from Bed-Stuy and part of Crown Heights, sponsor of this broker fee now to be paid by the person who hires the broker, which is usually the landlord. Thank you for coming on and explaining it to us.

Councilmember Chi Ossé: Thank you for having me on.

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