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The first payment is not one month's rent. Enter the rent, the deposit, whether the lease asks for last month, and any fees; this move-in cost calculator adds up the lines that land on signing day, then prices a free month as net effective rent across the term. No city averages and no state caps — every figure comes from the numbers you enter.
Cash due at signing on a $1,850.00 rent
first month $1,850.00 + last month $1,850.00 + deposit $1,850.00
Enter the deposit the lease names. This page does not quote deposit caps by state — the security deposit calculator keeps the rules for caps, interest and deductions.
Does the lease ask for last month's rent too?Application, administrative, cleaning or pet fees, as the lease names them. A monthly pet rent is not a one-time fee — put it in the rent line instead.
Lease termAmounts are held in cents and the net effective rent is rounded once, at the end: a third decimal of 5 to 9 rounds up, 0 to 4 rounds down. The cash at signing is a sum of whole lines, so it never drifts.
Two bars for one lease: the same $1,850.00 rent, once with the free month applied at signing and once with it applied later in the term.
The rent is the number people budget for, and the first payment is a different number. Four lines usually land on it — the first month, last month if the lease asks, the deposit, and whatever fees the application carried — and one line can come off it, a concession. This page adds and subtracts those lines and nothing else: it does not report what move-in costs in a city, a state or a given apartment size, and it does not quote statutory deposit caps.
The first month's rent is exactly the monthly rent named in the lease, due before the keys change hands. It is not a deposit and no part of it comes back at the end of the lease — the month is spent the moment you live in it. On a rent of $1,850.00 that line is $1,850.00, and it is the one line on the first payment that a landlord cannot hold on to after you leave.
When a lease asks for first, last and deposit, the "last" is prepaid rent held for the final month rather than a refundable sum. It costs the same cash as a second deposit on day one, but it is spent at the end instead of returned — which is why the total at signing can reach three times the rent while only one of those three months is refundable. The rent calculator shows first and deposit and tells you to add a month by hand for this case; this page does the addition, itemises the fees and prices a free month on top.
Application, administrative, cleaning and pet fees are named in the lease or the application, and most of them are not refundable. Two things are worth separating: a pet deposit is normally held and returned like a deposit, while a monthly pet rent is a recurring charge and belongs in the rent line, not here. Enter the fees your paperwork names, one total is enough — this page does not say what a fee should be, because that is set by the landlord and, in some places, by law this page does not quote.
A free month is a concession, and where it sits in the lease decides what it does to you. Applied to the first month, it removes one month's rent from the cash at signing: on $1,850.00 with a same-size deposit and last month, the first payment falls from $5,550.00 to $3,700.00. Applied to a later month, the first payment is untouched and the benefit arrives after you have moved in.
Either way the concession is worth the same over the term, and the figure that lets you compare two apartments is the net effective rent: (months in the term − free months) × rent ÷ months in the term. One free month on a twelve-month lease at $1,850.00 gives 11 × $1,850.00 ÷ 12 = $1,695.83 a month. A landlord advertising "one month free" on a thirteen-month lease is spreading twelve payments over thirteen months, which works out lower — so enter the term the lease actually names, or the effective rent will flatter the deal.
The gap is usually timing rather than affordability, and it is worth asking about before you sign rather than after. What can be asked for, in writing: the deposit split into two or three instalments; a move-in date that lines up with a payday; a smaller deposit against a guarantor or a co-signer; or a deposit alternative the property itself offers, which is a fee rather than a deposit and is not returned the same way. Get whatever is agreed into the lease, because a verbal arrangement is not one.
This page does not list assistance programmes. It cannot verify which ones operate in your area, what they pay or whether you qualify, and a list invented here would be worse than no list — so it names none. Ask the property, your local housing authority or a housing counsellor.
A landlord can sweeten a lease two ways: erase one month's rent, or cut the monthly rent by a percentage. The table below compares the two on one example lease. Both figures are example values set by this page, not a market average.
| Concession | Monthly rent | 12-month total | Source of the figure |
|---|---|---|---|
| First month free | $2,000 | $22,000 | Example values set by this page; cite no source |
| 5% rent reduction | $1,900 | $22,800 | Example values set by this page; cite no source |
On a $2,000 lease, the free month saves $2,000 up front; the 5% cut saves $100 a month, or $1,200 over the year. The free month wins by $800 here, but only if you stay the full twelve months — leave at month six and the prorated value of the free month shrinks. The columns trace to sources as follows:
The free month is a front-loaded saving; the percentage cut pays every month you stay. If you plan to live there two years, the 5% cut returns $2,400 while the free month is still $2,000 — so the longer the stay, the more the cut catches up. Run the numbers on your own rent with the calculator above rather than trusting either label; this page sets the example, it cites no source.
It does not prorate a partial first month (the prorated rent calculator does that by the day), it does not work out a deposit refund after deductions (the security deposit calculator does), it does not decide whether a fee is lawful, and it does not report averages of any kind.
The comparison above stops at twelve months and then jumps to two years, which leaves the crossing point unstated. It is one division, and the rent cancels out of it: the free month is worth one month's rent, a cut of c is worth c months of rent every month you stay, so the two draw level at 1 ÷ c months. On a 5% cut that is month twenty, whatever the rent is.
| Monthly cut | Saved each month | Month the two tie | How the figure is obtained |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2% | $40.00 | Month 50 | 1 ÷ 0.02 = 50; $2,000 × 0.02 = $40.00 |
| 5% | $100.00 | Month 20 | 1 ÷ 0.05 = 20; $2,000 × 0.05 = $100.00 |
| 10% | $200.00 | Month 10 | 1 ÷ 0.10 = 10; $2,000 × 0.10 = $200.00 |
Read the tie month the other way and it becomes a test for the offer: a cut beats the free month only if you stay longer than 1 ÷ c months. Five per cent over twelve months returns $1,200 against a free month worth $2,000, so it loses by $800; over twenty months both paths land on $38,000, and past that the cut is ahead by $100 a month. The rent does not enter that test at all — the same 5% loses over twelve months and wins over twenty-four on a $900 lease exactly as it does on a $4,000 one.
A free month can also be written as a rate. Spread over an N-month lease it is worth 100 ÷ N per cent — 8.33% over twelve months, 7.69% over thirteen — and feeding that rate into the tie formula lands exactly on the final month of the term. That is the arithmetic behind the thirteen-month warning above: one free month on a thirteen-month lease is a smaller concession than the same free month on a twelve-month lease, and a cut below 7.69% never draws level inside that term.
Both figures assume one free month, the rest of the term paid in full, the same rent on any renewal and no second concession. A landlord who repeats the free month each year pushes the tie month out again, and a renewal increase changes the rent the cut is measured against. The rates in the table are example values set by this page; they cite no source.
Every row uses a rent of $1,850.00, a deposit of $1,850.00 and no fees, so the only things changing are the last-month line and where the free month sits. Each row can be reproduced on the calculator above.
| Case | Lines on the first payment | Cash at signing | Net effective rent |
|---|---|---|---|
| First, last and deposit | 1,850.00 + 1,850.00 + 1,850.00 | $5,550.00 | $1,850.00 |
| First and deposit, no last month | 1,850.00 + 1,850.00 | $3,700.00 | $1,850.00 |
| First month free, last month and deposit due | 0.00 + 1,850.00 + 1,850.00 | $3,700.00 | $1,695.83 |
| Free month later in a twelve-month term | 1,850.00 + 1,850.00 + 1,850.00 | $5,550.00 | $1,695.83 |
Rows two and three land on the same cash figure by different routes: one drops the last month, the other drops the first month. Rows three and four land on the same effective rent while asking for $1,850.00 more on day one — that difference is timing, not cost.
The rent the lease names for one month, due before you get the keys: on $1,850.00 a month the first month is $1,850.00. On its own that is the whole first payment only if the lease asks for nothing else — with a same-size deposit it is $3,700.00, and with last month as well it is $5,550.00. None of the first month comes back at the end of the lease.
No. The first month buys a month of occupancy and is spent; a deposit is held and normally returned, minus itemised deductions. They sit on the same payment and are easy to blur, which is why the breakdown above keeps them on separate lines and only one of them appears in the refund at the end.
It is a concession written into the lease, not a discount on the rent itself. If it is applied to the first month, the first payment drops by one month's rent and you still owe the deposit, any last month and any fees. If it is applied later, the first payment is unchanged. In both cases the rent you carry across the term is the same, and that is the number to compare.
Take the months in the term, subtract the free months, multiply by the monthly rent, and divide by the months in the term. One free month on a twelve-month lease at $1,850.00: (12 − 1) × $1,850.00 ÷ 12 = $1,695.83 a month. The same concession on a thirteen-month lease gives a different figure, because the payments are spread over thirteen months instead of twelve.
No, deliberately. It reports no city, state or apartment-size averages, and no deposit caps. Every figure on the page is arithmetic on the numbers you enter, so the answer is your lease rather than a regional figure that would be wrong for your block.
Then the first month is a partial month and has to be prorated by the day before it goes on this page — the prorated rent calculator does that from the move-in date and the days in the month. Enter the prorated amount as the monthly rent here if you want the signing-day total to reflect it.
Ask the property first, in writing: instalments for the deposit, a move-in date that follows a payday, a smaller deposit against a guarantor, or a deposit alternative the property offers. Beyond that, ask a local housing authority or a housing counsellor — this page does not list programmes, because it cannot verify which ones exist near you or who qualifies.
Usually not, and it depends on what the lease and the application say. This page does not decide whether a fee is lawful or refundable; it puts the fees you enter on their own line so you can see how much of the first payment is never coming back. Read the fee list before you pay it.