BOSTON (WHDH) - Boston has surpassed San Francisco to take the title of the second-most expensive city for renters in the U.S., only topped by New York City, according to real estate platform Zumper.
The median one-bedroom rent in Boston is $3,060, jumping 5.9% month over month. Boston’s two-bedroom median is now $3,500, a 4.2% increase over last month. Zumper pointed out that Boston’s rising rents can be attributed to its housing crisis, in part caused by zoning laws that favor single-family homes, and new inventory skewing toward luxury developments rather than more affordable homes. However, Zumper predicted that Boston’s prices could level out now that the new college school year has begun.
New York’s average one-bedroom rent price is well above Boston’s at $3,860, while third-place San Francisco’s is $3,020. Rounding out the top 10 are San Jose, California; Miami; San Diego; Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; and Oakland and Santa Ana, California. The full list is available here.
Nationally, the rent prices for a one-bedroom apartment dropped an average of 0.8% over last month to $1,491 and prices for a two-bedroom dropped 0.7% to $1,832. Over half the cities on Zumper’s list posted month-over-month declines, 19 cities remained flat, and 20 jumped.
Nationally, Zumper said price drops could be partially attributed to a fear of recession.
“In many metro areas, declining prices are actually a correction to prices that’d become overly inflated,” said Zumper CEO Anthemos Georgiades. “We saw historic levels of migration throughout the pandemic, as people switched to working from home and reimagined their living situations. Now—with a turbulent, unpredictable economy causing fear of recession—migrations are slowing, occupancy rates are falling and rent prices are following suit.”
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