Even my friends living in cities known for high rents – New York, say, or Washington – shudder when I describe the housing search in Boston.
While this new hometown of mine might be famed for the stately brownstones of Beacon Hill, or the Victorian-era mansions of Jamaica Plain, most apartments here offer little beauty for eye-popping rent.
During my three years as a Bostonian, I’ve lived in a room without a closet, faced down a property manager refusing to fix a broken garbage disposal, and been yelled at by real estate agents. And now, with my roommate set to move abroad this summer, I’ve reentered the arena of Greater Boston’s housing search.
Why We Wrote This
Our reporter jumps into a housing search in one of the most expensive rental markets in the country. He learns that staying on budget is no easy feat.
Yes, I said, “roommate.”
Zumper, a real estate platform, ranked Boston as having the third-highest rent for one and two bedrooms in the U.S. this year, behind only San Francisco and New York. (Apartments.com puts the average rent for Boston two-bedrooms at $4,500.) Most people I know who live in the city can afford rent only by splitting it between multiple people. When I realized in April that I had to move again, I briefly entertained the idea of renting a studio so I could finally have a bathroom all to myself. But after crunching numbers, I quickly discarded that musing as a pipe dream.
Renters living elsewhere also face unforgiving markets, I realize. Almost half of U.S. renters in 2024 qualified as “cost burdened” – meaning they spent more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities – according to a report by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. In the last five years, those burdens have increased in 88 of the country’s 100 largest metro areas, where prices were already high.
Yet Boston presents several unique challenges. Between 60% and 80% of leases here, including my current one, turn over on Sept. 1, according to The Boston Globe. That’s largely because some 160,000 college students study here each year, and about 40% live in off-campus housing. As a result, leases tend to correspond to the academic term, and prospective tenants often begin looking for a September apartment in early spring.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
(Everyone packing up and moving in on the same day also means that Sept. 1 is among the most hectic times in the city – even compared to those days the Red Sox play the Yankees.)
The first apartment I toured, with my future roommate, Nick, intrigued me because of its exposed-brick walls and its location in the vibrant North End, where I currently live happily.
But it also stretched our budget. And it would mean sharing one washer and one dryer with about 20 other people. The current tenants were home when we toured – a boon, because I’ve learned no one will be more honest about a place than the person moving out of it.
“The only downside is the bathroom,” the tenant said.
Indeed. The bathroom was so narrow that I could hardly extend my arms on either side. Another downside: The laundry room was in the building next door, so washing clothes would require going outside and then descending into a small, dank basement.
As I entered the room, I shouted, “Duck!” so that Nick, who stands at 6-foot-5, wouldn’t hit his head on the sloping ceiling.
We decided to keep looking.
Real estate brokers and agents have an iron grip on Boston’s rental market. Many landlords hire these professionals to market their properties and handle paperwork, meaning prospective tenants often have to work with one, or several, during their search. I’ve had mixed experiences. Some have been consummate professionals, working to get me the best deals for the least amount of money. Others have been more difficult. More than one agent has tried to sell a one bedroom apartment as a two bedroom after the unit’s living room was converted into sleeping space.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Greater Boston was one of the last major metros to allow landlords to pass along the broker fee to new tenants. That cost typically totaled a month’s rent. In those not-so-distant days – when new tenants could be required to pay first and last month’s rent, a security deposit, and a broker fee – moving into a place often cost more than $10,000. Move-in fees for my first apartment ran my two roommates and me almost $12,000.
Even though the Massachusetts state legislature passed a law last year that prohibits landlords from requiring tenants to pay that broker fee, one leasing agent nevertheless proposed that Nick and I pay half of it. I raised an eyebrow; he backtracked.
Even without paying the broker, move-in costs can still total three months’ rent. Then add in the costs of a new lock and key, plus renting a U-Haul or hiring movers, and the money adds up. In a survey of Bostonians between the ages of 20 and 30 by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce this year, 26% of respondents said they might leave the area in the next five years, and 78% said that rent prices were a main consideration in their decision-making. In response, Boston City Council passed a resolution to “support the creation of a committee … dedicated to maintaining and attracting young adults to the City of Boston.”
Nevertheless, almost a third of Bostonians are between ages 20 and 34, according to census data, and we young people are trying to make it work. Having already found a roommate I like – we’re friends from college – I’ve won half the battle.
As this story went to press, Nick and I were still looking for our next place. While I was drafting this article, a broker texted me that an apartment we’d applied for did not, as we had believed, have a working laundry machine.
“You’re kidding,” Nick said via text, after I told him. Ever an optimist, he still saw a silver lining.
“This’ll be great for your story,” he added.