A California rental listing went viral in July 2026 after adding an extra $200 per month to any tenant who works from home.
The furnished 535-square-foot accessory dwelling unit in Walnut Creek was advertised at $3,250 per month, with utilities and internet included. Remote workers would be charged $3,450 for the same unit, with no reason given for the surcharge, NBC Palm Springs reported.
Consumer advocate Clark Howard, founder of Clark.com, ClarkDeals.com, and the Consumer Action Center, flagged this listing as part of a much broader pattern that now runs across the entire rental market.
Property managers advertise a low base rent on listing sites, then reveal the actual monthly cost only after a renter pays application fees.
If you are shopping for a new apartment or rental home, the number on the listing may not be the same as your actual monthly payment.
How landlords bundle mandatory surcharges into your lease
Howard outlined several categories of surcharges that have become standard across apartment complexes and single-family rentals in the current market.
Mandatory tech bundles force you to pay for internet or cable through a landlord-selected provider, even if you already stream or prefer another carrier.
Trash pickup fees separate garbage collection from the base rent and bill it as a standalone monthly surcharge, sometimes costing $25 or more.
The work-from-home fee is the newest and most contentious entry on this growing list of charges appearing in leases nationwide.
Howard argued that a standard lease grants 24-hour access for the full term, and charging more for daytime use inverts the basic concept of renting.
The Federal Trade Commission targets deceptive rental pricing
If your lease includes charges like these, federal regulators have taken notice and responded with enforcement actions against major corporate landlords.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Colorado sued Greystar Real Estate Partners in January 2025 for advertising rents that excluded mandatory monthly fees.
Greystar, the nation’s largest multi-family rental property manager, agreed to pay $23 million to the FTC and $1 million to Colorado to settle the case in December 2025, the FTC announced.
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Undisclosed fees imposed by Greystar cost its tenants hundreds of millions of dollars since at least 2019, the complaint in the case alleged.
Many renters did not discover the charges until after signing, a pattern you could face at any complex that buries fees inside lengthy lease documents.
“Greystar misled consumers by advertising low rent prices and then adding mandatory fees at the end of the sales process,” said Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
“At a time when Americans are struggling to find affordable housing, the FTC is focused on monitoring the housing marketplace to ensure that competitors are meaningfully competing on price and that consumers receive transparent pricing,” he added
Invitation Homes, the country’s largest single-family rental landlord, agreed to pay $48 million in September 2024 to settle similar FTC claims that it charged undisclosed junk fees, deceived renters about lease costs, and unfairly withheld security deposits, according to the FTC release.
The FTC began mailing $47.2 million in refund checks to 444,131 eligible renters in March 2026.
Hidden fees inflate monthly costs by up to 30%
Even if your landlord is not a national brand, the financial impact of these surcharges on your monthly budget extends beyond a few dollars.
Nonrent fees added 10% to 30% to tenants’ total monthly costs across a small sample of ledgers from three large housing providers in Denver, an Urban Institute analysis with the Community Economic Defense Project found in a 2025 study.
April Kuehnhoff, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, said in an email to The Philadelphia Citizen that undisclosed rental fees undermine tenants’ ability to budget and can directly lead to housing instability.
Junk fees hide the true cost of rental housing, making it tough to compare prices and leading to difficulty paying for undisclosed housing costs. Ultimately, families might have to move due to deceptive pricing or even face eviction when they fall behind on the rent due to accumulating junk fees
Tenants who fell behind on payments faced further penalties of 5% to 10% of base rent stacked on top of existing surcharges, the Urban Institute report found.
The FTC published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on March 13, 2026, opening a public comment period through April 13, 2026 on whether to extend fee disclosure requirements to long-term rental housing nationwide, part of a broader federal push on affordable housing.
The existing federal junk fee rule, which took effect in May 2025, covers only live-event ticketing and short-term lodging, not rental housing.
How to compare rental properties on total monthly cost
Howard recommended requesting a complete, itemized fee schedule from the leasing office before paying a nonrefundable application fee or emotionally committing to any property.
He also added that the schedule needs to cover every mandatory and optional charge beyond your base rent, from technology packages to parking. Comparing your options based on total monthly cost rather than the listing headline is the clearest way to avoid surprises after signing.
A unit advertised at $1,500 with $300 in mandatory fees costs more each month than a competing listing at $1,650 with no additional charges.
The FTC’s rulemaking process could eventually force landlords to show all-in pricing at the listing level, but no final rule exists yet. Whether federal regulation catches up to these practices before your next lease renewal remains the question for every renter to weigh.
Related: Clark Howard pokes holes in popular retirement tools
