Citizens planning to rent housing do not always have the desire or opportunity to search for it on their own and therefore often resort to the help of real estate agencies.
Their work is efficient, but their services are not free, and their commission depends on the value and liquidity of the rental apartment.
What does it mean?
A commission for renting an apartment is payment for the agency’s services in selecting an option that suits the client, including completing a rental transaction between the tenant of the living space and the landlord.
The agency services provided include:
- selection of apartments that best meet the conditions set by the client in terms of location, type and quality of housing, rental cost;
- providing the customer with the maximum possible information about the apartment, its advantages and disadvantages;
- establishing contact with home owners and agreeing to show residential properties to the client;
- preparation of an agreement between the apartment owner and the tenant, presence at its conclusion.
Important! Commissions to the agency are paid once immediately after the conclusion of the rental agreement. In the future, the tenant pays only rent to the owner of the property.
Types of agency fees for rental
The process most often involves three parties:
- tenant;
- apartment owner;
- agent providing intermediary services.
Depending on the type of property being rented out, there are two types of commission fees :
- Commission for renting an apartment, paid to a realtor by a potential tenant for services in searching, selecting and presenting suitable housing options.
- Commission for renting out an apartment, paid to a realtor by the owner of the property for entering into the real estate agency’s database, searching for, selecting a suitable tenant, and conducting negotiations with him.
How to understand the numbers 50-100?
For reference: The average fee for agency intermediary services is 50-100% of the rent for one month.
Its size is influenced by the number of agents searching for a suitable apartment. If two agents work, the commission is equal to a month's rent. If the agent works alone, then the remuneration may be equal to half of this amount.
There is another important factor that determines the size of the commission - the value of the property itself.
Depending on it, the commission can be:
- Downward.
This type occurs if a potential tenant has modest demands on living conditions, and the main thing for him is to quickly move into an apartment, usually a secondary one.Since such tenants do not have a large amount of money, and when concluding a rental agreement, they will have to immediately pay both the monthly fee and the commission.
The latter may not be so great.
- Increasing.
This type of commission is used if the client is very demanding about housing, about the ratio of high quality, good location, and the cost of renting an object.In addition, an increased commission for renting out an apartment will have to be paid by the owner of luxury real estate who wants to rent it out at a high price to a suitable tenant.
Signing a rental agreement and paying for services
When concluding a contract, three persons must be present - the realtor, the owner and the tenant..
The following points must be specified in the contract:
- Passport details;
- Characteristics of the rented housing - total area, address;
- Amount of monthly rent;
- Obligations and rights of the parties;
- Contract time;
- Procedure for paying rent;
- Procedure for payment of housing and communal services.
Pay attention to the title of the document. This should be a tenancy agreement, not a rental agreement.
According to Russian legislation, a citizen can rent a place to live only on the basis of a rental agreement.
At the request of interested parties, the realtor can include additional items.
For example, an inventory of property or an agreement on a constant rental amount during the term of the contract.
When concluding an agreement, the tenant should pay attention to the owner’s documents - passport and certificate of ownership of real estate.
In the certificate of ownership, in the section “type of ownership”, the type of right should ideally be indicated - individual property.
This means that the owner is the only owner of this property, and only he has the right to dispose of it.
This is interesting: Tax exemption when selling an apartment
If this section indicates the type of right “common share”, then the owner of this apartment is someone else. This means that the other owner can challenge the concluded rental agreement in court and evict the tenant .
To be on the safe side, it is advisable to sign an agreement with all legal owners of the property.
If for some reason the shareholders cannot appear at the transaction, one of the owners must present a power of attorney to conclude an agreement on their behalf.
Please read the payment clause carefully. If it indicates a fixed amount, then you are not required to pay beyond it, for example, for utilities .
In addition to the rental amount, the agreement may stipulate the tenant’s obligation to bear the costs of housing and communal services.
You need to pay a commission for the provision of real estate services only after signing the contract and receiving the keys to the apartment..
It is not recommended to sign documents with those realtors who ask for their fee in advance.
Before you sign, carefully read all the points of the document. Sometimes it happens that the owner of the apartment turns out to be a figurehead.
Check the owner’s passport, look at the name on utility bills, ask to see a document of ownership.
You may be interested in an article on how to correctly transfer property when renting out an apartment - we draw up an inventory according to the sample, you can read about it here.
When and by whom are funds transferred?
After concluding a rental agreement and receiving the keys to the apartment, the tenant pays a fee to the agent for intermediary services. Sometimes the commission is paid by the landlord if he is the party most interested in the transaction and was the first to contact the agency.
Important! Regardless of who pays the realtor’s remuneration, an agreement on the provision of intermediary services is concluded between the parties, which stipulates all the conditions and features of the transaction, the possibility of its termination, the rights and obligations of its participants.
If a client is looking for housing in a low or mid-price category, he usually pays the realtor. If the owner of luxury real estate wants to rent it out, then he pays for the services of an agent.
In rare cases, the tenant and the apartment owner agree and jointly pay a commission to the agency.
You should not pay a fee to an intermediary before concluding a transaction, therefore, if a realtor insists on paying for his services before the transaction is completed, in order to avoid fraud, you should refuse to cooperate with him and contact another agent.
What documents are required?
According to the rules, the agency's commission for renting an apartment should be provided only if there is a drawn up agreement. The document will help protect against the fact that the owner turns out to be a fake. If the commission is paid, but the owner of the apartment decides to terminate the contract, or it turns out that he is not the owner of the property, it will not be possible to get the money back. However, the contract still protects the client. If the agreement specifies a specific amount and it was signed by a realtor, in the event of force majeure, the citizen may demand the return of commission funds. If the company refuses to pay the tenant, he can go to court.
It is better to contact real estate agencies that have earned positive reviews from clients and have been on the market for a long period of time. It is not profitable for such companies to spoil their reputation. They cooperate with verified owners.
It is better to avoid interacting with private agents. They charge a smaller commission, but cooperation with them significantly increases the risk of fraud.
This is interesting: Extract from the Unified State Register with an apartment plan
Does the law require it to be paid upon withdrawal?
The participation of a realtor is optional and he is involved by agreement of the parties.
However, if the landlord and tenant used the services of a realtor, then in accordance with Russian legislation, Art. 991, clause 1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the agent for his services must receive from the customer the fee specified in the contract.
If it has not been indicated, then, in accordance with Article 424, paragraph 3 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, it should be determined by the average cost of these services.
Attention! If the realtor, for reasons depending on the client, was unable to fulfill the agreement for the provision of mediation services when concluding a housing rental transaction, then he must still receive a commission, as well as compensate at the client’s expense for damages from expenses incurred, which is enshrined in Article 991, paragraph 2 Civil Code of the Russian Federation.
October 7, 2017
To the tenant
13797
Published October 7, 2017
What is CIAN
For those who don’t know, CIAN is the largest online database of real estate advertisements in Russia, where realtors post their advertisements. Here you can rent or buy real estate.
On CIAN there are sometimes apartments without a commission, but, unfortunately, there are very few of them and the prices for such apartments are not very affordable. If you need an apartment strictly without intermediaries, then CIAN is not your option. But on the contrary, there are many offers with a commission, about 90% of all advertisements.
So, to understand how to reduce the commission, you need to understand how CIAN works. Not many people know that most advertisements posted on CIAN have two commission options. A realtor adding his ad to CIAN indicates two commission options.
One ad, two commissions
Next, I will show you two screenshots.
If you go to the cian.ru website without logging in, you will see an ad like this:
Pay attention to the commission, it is 100%, which is 25,000 rubles. This is how much a direct client, that is, an unregistered user, must pay.
Next, we log in as an agent and we already see the same ad with two commission options:
Let me explain, yeah. 50% means that for agents the commission will be 50%, that is, 12,500 rubles, and class. means that for clients (customers mean unregistered users), the commission will be 100%, that is, 25,000 rubles.
In most cases, the difference between these commissions is 20% - 30% and this is not in your favor. In other words, if you go to the CIAN website, but you are not a realtor, then you see a 100% commission. And the realtor at the same apartment sees a commission of 50%. Thus, it turns out that realtors can rent the same apartments for their clients, but with a lower commission.
Why is that…?
This disgrace occurs because CIAN was originally created as a platform exclusively for realtors, in which two agents met, one of them had a tenant who paid a commission, and the other had an owner. And if the deal went through, the agents divided the commission in accordance with the specified percentage.
How to see the hidden agent commission
To be able to see both commission options, you need to create an account on CIAN. But there is an unpleasant nuance: the cost of the account is 10,000 rubles.
How to rent an apartment with a reduced commission
If you don’t want to pay 10,000 rubles, you can write to our administrator on Vkontakte or Facebook, she will tell you how to do it cheaper. As a result, you will be able to log in as an agent and see both commission options.
But seeing a hidden agent commission is not enough. Since, if you come to a transaction without the accompaniment of a realtor, then they will not give you a discount, citing the fact that the discount is possible only for another representative of the real estate agency, according to internal regulations, and they will show you some special agency act in which the calculations are noted between agents. For this reason, you must come to the transaction with your agent.
__________
We recommend that you contact a familiar realtor or friend who could plausibly play the role of an agent in the transaction.
__________
If you don’t have such acquaintances, you can use our service - “Specialist visit for a transaction”
How much can you save?
Let's take a one-room apartment closer to the center. Here is a one-room apartment 10 minutes from the station. m. Akademicheskaya, this is an example of a real advertisement from CIAN, probably many of the readers have looked at similar advertisements more than once and did not realize that the commissions they see can be reduced by 5 times.
The cost of this one-room apartment on Akademicheskaya:
- 45,000 rubles for the first month;
- 30,000 rubles deposit;
- 22,500 rubles commission (50%).
If you rent an apartment yourself, then you will pay for everything: 97,500 rubles.
Now, suppose you rent this apartment with our help. In this case, your costs will be:
- 45,000 rubles for the first month;
- 30,000 rubles deposit;
- 4,500 rubles commission (10%);
- 3,900 rubles.
If you rent an apartment with our specialist, you will pay: 82,500 rubles.
Your benefit
Thus, your savings will be 14,100 rubles.
But you need to understand that this figure is conditional and its value changes depending on the price and the difference between commissions. For this reason, for some the savings can reach 50,000 rubles, but for others it will be completely unprofitable. It all depends on the specific case.
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Remuneration, deposit and advance, what is the difference?
We have already discussed what an agent’s commission means when you rent a room (see above). Now let's figure out what the following terms mean when renting:
The deposit (security deposit) is paid by the tenant to the owner of the property as a guarantee that he will fulfill his obligations, which is enshrined in Article 329, paragraph 1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The cost of the deposit is approximately equal to a month's rent, but there are situations when its amount is more or less than the specified amount.
The deposit is taken by the owners of the apartment to protect themselves from possible material losses.
The deposit in this case becomes some kind of compensation to the owner of the apartment, allowing him to eliminate the consequences of the damage caused: carry out repairs, buy new things, pay debts, etc.
If the tenant has fulfilled all the terms of the contract and has not caused damage to the premises, then at the end of the lease period the landlord must return the full amount of the deposit to him.
An advance is a certain amount of money that a potential tenant pays to the owner of the apartment before the conclusion of the lease agreement in order to further pay for the rental of residential premises.
An advance is a way to prove the seriousness of intentions, but not a way to secure obligations. The concluded advance payment agreement can be terminated and the money returned.
Important! The commission is paid to the realtor for intermediary services, the deposit and advance are paid to the owner of the apartment, the deposit is to ensure the conscientious fulfillment of the obligations undertaken by the tenant, the advance is as part of the future rent as proof of the serious intentions of the tenant. The commission and deposit are paid after the conclusion of the rental agreement, the advance payment is paid before its conclusion.
