> The thing that still bugs me a little though is the fact that move in costs to the average apartment is 6 months rent. first month + 2 months deposit + 2 mont

> The thing that still bugs me a little though is the fact that move in costs to the average apartment is 6 months rent. first month + 2 months deposit + 2 months key money + 1 month to realtor. So, a $2.5k a month apartment costs $15k to get started. Well that's simply the result of having so many middlepeople! :) The middlepeople figuring out that they should charge a multiple of rent rather than a static fee for the actual amount of work that may not keep up with inflation. A truly elegant solution. Another fun bit is the Guarantors that are sometimes required based on just how much the other side thinks they can trust you (or extract from you, since they often require guarantors they know). > You can often get 100% of your deposit back when you leave This I've not seen happen very often, most places will put it right in the contract that they're going to take 0 < x < 5 man out of what you paid just for "cleaning fees" and "AC maintenance" or what not, like an AirBnB would. > You can often get 100% of your deposit back when you leave but still, I know lots of people, especially younger people, that saving up 6 months rent to move is hard which suggests it's a barrier to mobility. I can see this, but a friend and I were discussing this the other day and he brought up an interesting point -- it could be that mobility was so common and bustling (maybe during the bubble?) that these middlepeople sprung up as a sort of natural reaction. I don't know the history but it's an interesting theory -- so maybe it's like a bad feedback loop -- middlemen appeared to facilitate lots and lots of real estate deals during a historic real estate boom, but they never geared back down so the friction persists.