Rents are too damn high — and a scourge of “junk” fees is making it worse, studies say

Even as prices are cooling for gasoline, groceries and online goods, housing remains a major factor in the cost-of-living crisis. Two years after the pandemic-driven rental surge began, rents in many major cities show little sign of easing. 

In February and March, shelter costs were the biggest driver of month-to-month inflation, representing 60% of all inflation. New York City rents recently hit a new record, reaching an average $4,175 a month even before the summer season gets started.

Today, 40% of renters are rent-burdened, with the cost of keeping a roof over their head squeezing more middle- and even high-income renters.

But it’s not just the rent that’s too damn high. It’s the rental application fee, late fee, pet fee, administrative fee and “convenience fee” for the privilege of paying your rent, according to two reports from watchdog groups.

These “junk fees” foisted on tenants have exploded in recent years, the National Consumer Law Center found. Renters “face a dizzying array of unavoidable fees” which, on top of record-high rents, “render safe and decent rental housing even more out of reach,” the NCLC noted in a March report.

Application fees, utility billing fees and more

Take a common fee — the application fee, which can fall anywhere from $25 to $350, NCLC found. The fee is nominally meant to cover the landlord’s costs of running a tenant screening, but many of the fees run well above the actual cost of a credit check. What’s more, landlords often collect application fees liberally, charging many tenants who will never be eligible for the apartment, advocates in Maryland, Georgia and South Carolina told the NCLC. 

Then there are processing and administrative fees, which range from $12 to $25 a month; utility billing fees — which are charged in addition to the actual utility costs — and “insurance fees,” and “high risk” fees, charged to tenants deemed risker because they have lower incomes or credit scores than others. 

Some landlords charge “convenience fees” for renters to pay their monthly rent online, while one Texas property owner imposes a $15 a month in-person payment fee to penalize renters who pay in a form besides an online portal.

More profit from fees than rent

The growing…