When Greg Ux found out his rent could go up hundreds of dollars a month above the $3,000 he was already paying for a Jamaica Plain one-bedroom apartment, he decided it was time to move.
He and his girlfriend enlisted a third person as a roommate. They inquired about 100 apartments and looked at over 10, beat out each time by other applicants.
When they found a three-bedroom Roxbury apartment they liked and could afford, they were told by their realtor Brian Allenby that they were highly qualified applicants, but that might not be enough to seal the deal.
“I want to be fully transparent,” Allenby said he told Ux. “I've got three applicants. Two of them are qualified. You're the better qualified of the two. However, the other qualified party is offering $100 more. What do you want to do?”
To boost their chances, Ux’s group offered to pay an extra $100 a month. It worked, and they signed a $3,700 per-month lease.
There’s limited housing stock available in the Boston area, a problem that becomes even more noticeable ahead of Sept. 1, when 70% of the city’s leases begin. This year, desperate renters seeking new homes are doing something unusual — offering more than the listed price for apartments.
“We were going to have to pay nearly $1,000 more [to stay] versus an extra $100 a month to have this place that we absolutely love,” Ux said. He said he still feels “iffy” about it, that it was like being stuck between “a rock and a hard place,” and he acknowledges that he’s privileged to be able to pay above the asking price for rent.
“On the other side, I'm like, ‘What am I? What am I participating in?’” he told GBH News. “It feels dirty almost, to be participating in this, basically, this race to the bottom.”
A widespread fear of losing out
Ux and his roommates are not alone. GBH asked Greater Boston Reddit users whether they’re seeing bidding in the rental market, and over 360 people commented. Ux was one. Alex Hower was another.
Hower’s rent was going up too much, and he checked out a packed open house at a one-bedroom apartment in Somerville for $2,000 a month.
Hower said his broker told him, “If you’re worried about the amount of people that showed up here, I would suggest offering $2,025 instead of $2,000.” He said he’d never heard of that and declined to do so, and offered a check for the original $2,000 asking price. He never heard back. He ended up finding another spot where he was the first applicant, and there was no bidding war.
“Being asked to pay more or offer more than the listing price — it's just ridiculous,” Hower said.
Another couple, Tyler Brennen and his girlfriend, were told his Waltham apartment lease was going to increase $600 after only a year of renting. They looked for spots in Waltham, Belmont, and other suburbs.
“We went to maybe two or three mass showings at the beginning of May, and at all of them we were informed that somebody had offered more than the rent,” he said. “Eventually we just had to bite the bullet and offer more money for a rental that we toured,” he said. “In doing that, I felt bad for the other people looking for units. But at the end of the day, we were really fearing that we weren't going to be able to find an apartment.”
A rental market ‘explosion’
“There is substantially more demand than there is supply, and it seems to be worse than pre-pandemic levels,” said Jason Gell, former president of the Greater Boston Association of Realtors. “I can't remember a time where I'm getting this many applications for apartments in such a short amount of time. There are more people looking.”
Corey Stallings, a realtor in the Boston area, called the current market “an explosion.” It’s competitive for renters seeking homes, even those with high credit scores, thousands in savings, and perfect payment records.
“Everyone’s trying to put their best foot forward. I've been seeing people that have gone over asking and which I have never seen in the history of real estate,” Stallings said. Over the past three months, most of the people he’s talked to are willing to pay more.
“Especially when you're talking about a single-family [home]. That’s a really hot commodity,” Stallings said. “Those are the situations where I'm seeing people who want to bid higher.”
"There is substantially more demand than there is supply, and it seems to be worse than pre-pandemic levels."Jason Gell, former president of the Greater Boston Association of Realtors
Meanwhile, in another sign of the “explosion” of the rental market, the FBI issued a public warning Tuesday of a spike in real estate scams, including cases where fake landlords are demanding upfront payment for properties that don’t exist.
“We have seen a significant increase in the amount of money being lost by people who are desperate for a good deal,” said Joseph R. Bonavolonta, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston Division. “Scammers are cashing in on renters who need to act quickly for fear of missing out, and it’s costing consumers thousands of dollars, and in some cases, leaving them stranded.”
Raising ethical issues
Everyone GBH News talked to expressed some squeamishness about offering above asking price to cut other people out.
Gell said he thinks it’s not unethical for consumers to offer more money for something that is of value to them, but realtors need to tread carefully. He likes to go by the order an application is submitted.
“You should be providing them the facts, the information, the market conditions, and what other comparables are renting for,” Gell said. “If it’s just flat out ‘pay more, then you get the apartment,’ I think you could run into problems ethically,” he said.
Stallings said he presents every application to the landlord, who decides.
‘“I don't really have a say in it either way, or say, ‘Oh, maybe you can get more money from this person.’ Like, that's not my role,” Stallings said. “My role is to present the application as-is and let the landlord decide who they feel most comfortable with.”
He said he has seen a few circumstances where a landlord declines an applicant who offers more money, in favor of one who seems like a better tenant.
The bidding trend is not entirely new this year. Last year, Molly Srour saw several apartments in Brookline and Fenway, but other people offered more, and she lost out. Then she saw a two-bedroom Brookline spot for $2,650, and went home to get her checkbook. When her Metro Realty broker told her someone had just put in an offer above asking price, she bid $200 over and secured it almost immediately.
Srour said she felt guilty but wanted to be done with the search.
“After that I kind of thought, ‘Well, this is probably really rare and a little foolish of me because who bids on an apartment? That's so silly to do for rent.’”
The more she tells others of what she did, the more she hears it’s happening all over Greater Boston.
“It's kind of a wild atmosphere there. Apparently I'm not the only one that does do that,” Srour said.
Allenby, the realtor, said that after Ux’s group offered to pay more, he told the other applicants that the homeowners had chosen someone else — he didn’t encourage a bidding war.
“I don’t want to seem greedy, and I don’t want to chase money,” he said.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
