Boston Broker-Fee Index — No-Fee Rate by Neighborhood
How many Boston listings charge no broker fee — and which neighborhoods give renters the most choice? We track the share of Spot Easy listings with a stated fee that carry no broker fee, updated every week from verified active listings.
↻ Updated weekly · data as of June 16 - June 22, 2026
As of August 1, 2025, Massachusetts law bars landlords from passing their broker's fee to tenants — making no-fee-to-the-renter increasingly the norm. This index tracks how that shift is showing up in listings advertised across Greater Boston.
When a fee is charged, it's typically about one month's rent — the metro median one-bedroom is $2,750.
About 4 in 10 listings don't specify a fee. We leave those out rather than guess — every figure here is based only on listings that state one. This report covers 6,330 of 10,486 active Spot Easy listings.
What the data shows
- No-fee listings are most common — among Spot Easy listings with a stated fee — in Oak Square (90.6%), Longwood (87.8%), Allston (87.4%).
- Broker fees are most prevalent in East Boston (44.7%) and Coolidge Corner (52.3%), where a smaller share of stated-fee listings carry no fee.
- Greater Boston overall: 78.5% of stated-fee Spot Easy listings have no broker fee, based on 6,330 listings that disclose their fee status.
"Boston's shift toward no-fee rentals is one of the clearest market signals we track. Neighborhood-level data helps renters know exactly where to focus their search."
— Joel Mundele, CEO, Spot Easy · [email protected]No-fee share by neighborhood
Among listings with a stated fee. Sorted by no-fee share. We publish a neighborhood only when at least 50 listings state a fee across at least 8 buildings, so no single building drives the rate.
| Neighborhood | City | Share with no broker fee | Median 1BR rent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oak Square | Boston | — | |
| Longwood | Brookline | $3,000 | |
| Allston | Boston | $2,475 | |
| Brighton | Boston | $2,400 | |
| Boston Downtown | Boston | $3,100 | |
| South Boston | Boston | $3,000 | |
| Back Bay | Boston | $3,250 | |
| Aspinwall Hill | Brookline | — | |
| North Brookline | Brookline | $2,713 | |
| Cambridge | — | $3,000 | |
| Jamaica Plain | Boston | $2,400 | |
| Somerville | — | $2,700 | |
| Dorchester | Boston | $2,503 | |
| Beacon Hill | Boston | $3,000 | |
| North End | Boston | $3,100 | |
| Roxbury | Boston | $2,625 | |
| South End | Boston | $3,350 | |
| Fenway | Boston | $2,800 | |
| Chestnut Hill | Brookline | $3,150 | |
| Brookline | — | $2,500 | |
| Corey Hill | Brookline | $2,675 | |
| Mission Hill | Boston | $2,400 | |
| Coolidge Corner | Brookline | $3,000 | |
| East Boston | Boston | $2,388 |
Methodology
Each listing's broker-fee field is set by the listing agent. Roughly 40% of active listings leave it blank or marked "unknown." We exclude those entirely — we don't assume they do or don't charge a fee — so the Index reflects only the ~60% of listings that state a fee structure. Because the missing data varies by neighborhood but shows no strong correlation with the no-fee rate (r ≈ −0.2), it doesn't distort the neighborhood-to-neighborhood comparison; it only means the headline share should be read as "of listings that disclose a fee," not "of all apartments." As with any self-reported marketplace data, we can't verify every agent entered the field correctly — treat these figures as directional, not exact.
Since August 1, 2025, Massachusetts law prohibits landlords from requiring tenants to pay the landlord's broker fee — a renter pays a fee only if they separately hire their own agent. These figures reflect fee structures as advertised on listings, not a judgment about any individual listing's compliance.
We also exclude drafts, admin-removed listings, and asking rents below $500 or above $20,000, and publish a neighborhood only when at least 50 listings state a fee across at least 8 distinct buildings — so a single building's inventory can't drive a neighborhood's rate. Greater Boston = Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Newton, Everett, Quincy, Watertown, Malden. Updated weekly.
Press or custom data: [email protected].