Boston Rent Report: What Are the Hottest Neighborhoods in Boston?

While rent prices cool across the nation, Boston renters seem to be out of luck. A lack of new residential construction and a high demand for housing — driven by the annual population increase in the city as well as the large number of students that move into town for school each year — have squeezed the rental market, increasing prices across neighborhoods.

In this report, we provide an overview of where renters are most likely to get more space for their money and where costs have increased the most across the city.

Residential living space comes at a premium in Boston, with an overall median rent per square foot of $4.63, and this makes finding an affordable apartment a challenge for many budget-conscious renters.

However, among Boston’s neighborhoods, there is substantial variation in the cost of space, and for renters willing to expand their search, it is possible to find units where you get much more bang for your buck. At $5.85 per square foot, the median cost is most expensive in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood. Meanwhile, less than three miles away in Charlestown (which also sports water views) the cost per square foot runs closer to $3.73. The lowest median cost per square is found in Roslindale, at only $2.52 per square foot.

Over the years, it has become more and more costly for renters to get a one-bedroom apartment in the Boston area. Two years ago, there were nine neighborhoods in Greater Boston where the median monthly rent price was below $2,000 during the peak rental season, which occurs between April and September, according to our data. Last year, this figure decreased to just one neighborhood — Roslindale. This past summer, there were no neighborhoods in Greater Boston where one could rent a one-bedroom apartment for less than $2,000 a month. 

As of the end of November, the monthly rent price of a one-bedroom Boston apartment cooled off in many neighborhoods — but Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Charlestown, East Boston, Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, the North End, and West Roxbury actually saw increases, despite peak rental season ending. Prices rose between the end of August and the end of November in nearby Somerville as well.

Despite this seasonal cooling, there are a few neighborhoods in Boston that stand out for their exponential rent growth year over year.

While nearly every neighborhood that we looked at in Greater Boston experienced significant rent growth between 2021 and 2022 due to pandemic-induced rent inflation, most saw significantly slower growth over the following year. For example, between 2021 and 2022, the median rental price for a one-bedroom apartment in Jamaica Plain grew by 26.8%. However, between 2022 and 2023, it only grew by 3.8%. When looking at the entire city of Boston, rent grew by 13.6% between 2021 and 2022 — and only by 4% the following year.

On the other end of the spectrum are the neighborhoods that saw even greater increases this past year, bucking the citywide trend. Between 2021 and 2022, Dorchester saw a rent hike of 20.5% — then another of 21.4% between 2022 and 2023. Mission Hill also saw a greater rent increase between 2022 and 2023 (19.8%) than it did during the previous period (17.6%). And Roslindale, which has one of the lowest median prices for rent on our list, saw its rent explode between 2022 and 2023, increasing by 17.9%, despite only seeing a small increase of 5.4% between 2021 and 2022. 

It is in these once affordable pockets that rent is increasing the fastest in the city, while historically pricy areas like Kendall Square in Cambridge are seeing much slower rent increases.

For this study, ApartmentAdvisor analyzed listings available on its platform in the Boston neighborhoods for which we had sufficient inventory. Rent prices and cost per square footage calculations were based on median rents. The change in rent price calculations were based on aggerated median rents for one-bedroom apartments during the peak rental season months of April through September in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

For a look at average rent prices at the state level, refer to our Massachusetts Rent Report, published monthly. ApartmentAdvisor also publishes a Boston market report that breaks down rental market trends, which is updated daily.

Press contact: Amy Mueller (pr@apartmentadvisor.com)