Renting

An in-depth look at the Mass. rental market (Feb.)

Where are prices climbing? Where are they falling? Where can you find a deal?

By Eileen Woods

February 8, 2024

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Back in November 2023, The Boston Globe’s Catherine Carlock reported that new housing construction in the region “has fallen considerably this year,” amid a backlog of projects.

Factor in still-high mortgage interest rates, reluctant home sellers, inflation, climbing property prices, and a lack of inventory, and you have a recipe for low apartment vacancy rates, ramped up demand, and higher rental prices.

Well, dinner is served.

Half of all renters are cost-burdened, according to the “America’s Rental Housing 2024” report Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies released on Jan. 25. The report defines “rent-burdened” as spending more than 30% of one’s income on rent and utilities.

Among these rent-burdened tenants, “12.1 million had severe burdens, paying over half of their income for housing” — a record high. The report warns that that United States is continuing to “lose low-rent units, and rents are significantly outpacing incomes.”

“And while rental markets are finally cooling, evictions have risen, the country is seeing the highest homelessness counts on record, and the need for rental assistance is greater than ever.”

We’ve learned during the housing crisis in 2008 and the pandemic that the Greater Boston real estate market doesn’t behave like the rest of the country; price drops aren’t as acute due to the demand created by our educational, tech, and finance sectors. Asking rents in Boston proper, for example, are not on the decline, according to ApartmentAdvisor.

In an interview with Boston.com, Melvin A. Vieira Jr., a RE/Max Destiny realtor and a former president of the Greater Boston Association of Realtors, blamed low housing stock for the region’s high housing costs. Vieira was talking about the availability of homes to buy, but the lack of inventory also affects the rental market. If there are no homes to buy, renters will stay renters, ramping up the demand for apartments.

Boston’s apartment market

Colliers and CoStar are reporting that the multifamily vacancy rate in Boston last quarter was 6.1% and that rent growth has stalled. A look at the available inventory on ApartmentAdvisor, an online rental marketplace, however, paints a difference picture, with asking rents climbing in nearly all apartment sizes:

Zillow’s rental market report for metro Boston, released today, suggested that fewer prospective renters are getting concessions (21%) and that tenants are allocating nearly 33% of their incomes toward their rent alone.

Studio apartments

A look at the studio apartment market in the city finds price drops in highly desirable Jamaica Plain for the second month in a row, with a nearly 23% price difference year over year on Feb. 4. Prices also fell year over year downtown, by 2.73%. Prices have surged by double digits in the Back Bay, Brighton, Fenway, and Mission Hill.

One-bedroom apartments

Apartment hunters looking for deals may want to try Charlestown and Dorchester. Prices have dropped in Charlestown roughly 11% year over year and are down month over month. Asking rents for available properties in Dorchester are what they were last month but down 12.22% year over year. Prospective tenants who are looking for more leafy environs will find prices have climbed in Jamaica Plain and Roslindale.

Two-bedroom apartments

Prices for two-bedroom apartments have continued to skyrocket in Mission Hill, which saw a 21.33% year-over-year increase in asking rents compared with February 2023. Prices have climbed everywhere except for the Back Bay, Roxbury, and South Boston.

Three-bedroom apartments

The asking rents in this segment of the housing market underscores how families are being priced out of the city’s housing market. Rents are up everywhere but South Boston and the South End. (There weren’t enough listings for calculations in Charlestown, the Seaport District, and the West End.) Prices are up by less than 3% in Roxbury and Dorchester for those of you in the hunt.

The Mass. rental market

In a bit of good news, the median asking price for an apartment in the state was $2,495, the same as it was in December and up only 0.4% from last year, according to ApartmentAdvisor’s Massachusetts rent report.

Cambridge remains the most expensive city for renters, with a median asking price of $3,000 for a one-bedroom apartment. Pittsfield is the least expensive: $1,147. Boston landed at No. 3, with a median asking rent of $2,860.

Studios

One-bedrooms

Two-bedrooms

Three-bedrooms

What are the rents in your community and the one you have your eye on?

The national rental market

The Zillow rental report indicates a much more dire situation in the United States, suggesting that “rents have surged nearly 30% since the pandemic began, leaving 50% of renters to be rent burdened.”

In ApartmentAdvisor’s analytics, Boston remained the third-most expensive metro for renters. Five New England cities made the top 20:

The most affordable cities for renters were, in order: Morgantown, W.Va.; Toledo, Ohio; Baton Rouge, La.; Akron, Ohio; and Wichita, Kan.