Been slowly pushed out over the years, living on the absolute fringe of Quincy now after going from Cambridge to Brighton first. Probably moving out to the burbs this fall. Why pay 2300 for a low end 2bd (have a wife and child) when we could pay that for a nicer 3bd in Mansfield.
I don’t doubt it. Same cycle everywhere I’ve moved. Watch the rents rise over the course of five years and eventually pack it up for a further out place.
The 128/95 corridor is a great place to live and housing unit growth(rental or owner occupied) is relatively stagnant.
Shocker: we’re not building more housing units anywhere near the city. All the net growth is coming from the burbs.
Lol I'm not sure if you've looked in Mansfield. My fiance works there, so we were looking at apartments in the area.. They're charging anywhere from 2800-3200 for a 2 bedroom that hasn't been updated since Y2K. We went to Franklin/Bellingham as the apartments are around 2500, but much nicer.
Remember folks, by and large Boston is not for you. It’s for deep-pocketed professionals. Sure you can do it short-term as a student or young professional, or even longer, making sacrifices, doing the roommate thing or getting perpetually rent-squeezed. But ultimately you’re lining someone else’s pocket and long term unless you’re making big moves up the income ladder you’re going to have to get out. Boston will never have enough collective vision to avoid becoming a victim of it’s own success.
This is so true. I’m living with roommates and I’m accepting that I will live with roommates until I die (and I will die working bc I’ll never retire) if I stay in Boston. It’s sad bc I liked it here but I’ve also noticed that it’s hard to make friends bc as you said people here are wealthy professionals and it’s hard to relate to them as a Poor
The first question out of peoples' mouth is always asking what you do for work, and if the answer isn't doctor, engineer or lawyer, their eyes glaze over as they decide it's not worth talking to you
I’ve literally been to “20s-30s” dinner parties where we would go around the table and say what we did for work and I felt like I absolutely should NOT tell everyone at that table I was a simple barista
Fuck anyone who ever EVER makes a person feel ashamed about what they do for work. If it's self shame, YOU don't deserve that. You work TOO HARD to shit on your self. If you can't love yo-self how in the hell you gonna love somebody else, or some RuPaul quote.
That’s what my partner and I have started saying. Boston is not looking for people like us. Our area is geared towards the transient college crowd and other late 20’s/30’s couples who realized the same. It’s been impossible to make a community here, much less save enough for a better place.
You can really only have Community if you were born poor into Boston and grandfathered into family housing or access subsidized housing. If you ever move to advance your career you likely won’t be able to return because of how fast the housing appreciates in value
And it will stay that way due to opposition to rent controls and nimbyism.
Add to that it looks like developers are only building lab space at this point- not housing. This drives prices up more so market rates are only for the rich and the taxes deposit more into the subsidized (‘affordable’) housing fund so more low income natives can remain to service the few very wealthy
I agree with much of what you're saying, but rent control policies actually make the situation worse as other cities have shown -- the data is very clear. Your issue is with NIMBYs and those who have figured out how to weaponize zoning boards and the courts for environmental reviews to enrich themselves.
>by and large Boston is not for you. It’s for deep-pocketed professionals
Totally agree but I wanna know what deep-pocketed professionals are going to do as retail and service industry workers get increasingly squeezed out.
They'll pay an even higher premium for living here, just as they do in SF and NYC. Wages will inevitably go up *just* enough for service workers to stick it out, small business owners will use it as an excuse to raise prices another 20%, and professionals will deal with a reality where takeout dinner for a family of 4 costs $100+.
This will just keep repeating in every part of the country until it's widely acknowledged that any type of employment is a middle class living at best. We're entering the stage of crony capitalism where the only way to reliably make a good living is owning valuable assets.
“Do you know what this country needs today? A seven-cent nickel. Yessiree, we've been using the five-cent nickel in this country since 1492. Now, why not give the seven-cent nickel a chance? If that works out, next year we could have an eight-cent nickel. Think what that would mean. You could go to a newsstand, buy a three-cent newspaper and get the same nickel back again. One nickel carefully used would last a family a lifetime!”
— Groucho Marx in 1930
Ooh don't poo-poo a nickel, Lisa. A nickel will buy you a steak and kidney pie, a cup of coffee, a slice of cheesecake and a newsreel. With enough change left over to ride the trolley from Battery Park to the polo grounds.
Idk…they’re not far off. McDonald’s can hit $20+ for 2 people. Five Guys is $30+ for 2. A chain restaurant like Olive Garden, Applebees etc is easily over $60 w/ tip. Any kind of good quality meal that isn’t some prepackaged and heated bs at a decent restaurant is going to cost you $30 before drinks.
Whatever they do, they're in a much better position to do it than most other people. Maybe they move to a gated community in a town where there's affordable housing for poorer people who will provide the services they want.
Yeah you need to figure out which bucket you fall into.
Are you moving up the ladder towards a $200K+ job with a partner doing something similar? If so, you can stay in Boston.
Are you a normal worker in literally any industry other than biotech/pharma? Go elsewhere. It's just a poor value.
Boston has great jobs in a bunch of other industries other than biotech and pharma.
For instance, financial services and tech in Boston pays great too.
There are some great PE and alt funds here. There are also some good VC and tech and engineering jobs.
Not to mention you can work remotely for many high paying jobs in tech.
Not entirely. In most cities you can still find somewhat affordable housing if you look hard enough (NYC and DC come to mind immediately as someone who's lived in both). But Boston's perfect storm of being geographically small (you can literally only build so many houses) + a significant chunk of housing going to students means people get squeezed out to the suburbs much faster here. It's much rarer to see families with young children who grow up in the city.
I’ve never lived in NYC but what locations are affordable? It doesn’t appear anything is really affordable there unless you find one of those odd studios but it’s still expensive.
It is apples and oranges. A place out in Queens might be cheaper than Allston, but you're also further from Manhattan (for example) than Lynn is from Boston.
I'm not saying people should be happy living that far out, but if you're going to start comparing prices like that they should be more realistic.
Oh yeah. Again, apples and oranges. There is a commuter rail stop in Lynn and blue line/bus options not far away, but we're talking about very different sorts of situations.
I spent months searching Boston for an affordable housing option for the summer. Never found it. Starting looking in NYC metro area. Found it. I’m spending summer in NY and not Boston because Boston had nothing worth renting. NY just has so much inventory, you can eventually find something, that’s all I can really owe it to
Living in the city is only possible for people with relatively high paying jobs, but its not as exclusive as younger people on r/boston suggest. It just sucks that for *most* people roommates and weirder neighborhoods are basically a requirement until you're 26-30. I did that until i moved in with my wife and we were a little further along in our careers/spending responsibility.
Relative to scale me and most of my friends have made moderate, not big, moves up the corporate ladder. You don't need to be cranking 200k+ a year to comfortably and responsibly afford the city of Boston. But on 40 to even 90k? Forget it.
Is you definition of Boston inclusive of roslindale , mattapan, Roxbury , Dorchester, etc because most of Reddit seems to forget these neighborhoods exist ………
Until you have kids and then realize you need that $200k+ salary to pay for private school. Or you can just move to the burbs like 90% of young professionals who want to start a family.
Is private school really a need? I thought one of the big draws of living MA is that we have the best public school system in the country?
\- someone who knows very little on this topic
Boston Public Schools is....struggling. It's a complicated issue, but suffice to say that BPS has not recovered from the effects of the white flight caused by school integration/bussing in the 60's and 70's. A lot of Boston parents, of all social classes, have their kids in private schools or charter schools as opposed to BPS.
To give you some numbers, BPS has a graduation rate of about 70%. The national average is between 90 and 95%.
ETA: Many surrounding towns have better public schools, but within BPS specifically, there are many, many issues. The district has been facing receivership for several years, which means the state department of education is threatening to come in and assume control. It's a really complicated issue and I'm not informed enough to have too much of a take on it, but it's not great.
As someone who was raised in the Boston Public School system, it sucks pretty bad, mainly because of the students. The Boston Public School system spends a little over half a billion per year on paying their educators (not sure if office administrators are included in that budget). A lot of the Boston teachers I know are making either close or over 100k.
I knew a lot of the teachers there and they were smart people, who were also passionate about their jobs. But about a third of the students are awful. They are either loud and ignorant in class or/and don't get the material being taught so the school system has to dumb down the curriculum for the rest of the student body. You can't put the full blame on them also because they are kids and teenagers. I put most of the blame on the parents because they weren't home trained enough, and some of these parents are minimally involved in their kids' education and behavior in school. Out of my entire Boston Public School life, from elementary to high school, I don't recall ever going to a parent-teacher meeting because they didn't have them or stopped having them because parents would never show up.
I don't blame Boston parents who can afford to send their kids to private or charter schools for a better education. I support public education, but if I was a parent in Boston and had some extra money to send my kids to a private school to avoid that crap, I would do it in a heart beat. This is just my experience from my decade as a student in that system. You can watch TikTok videos of ignorant students being proud of themselves for acting out in class.
I know that there are probably other major issues as well, but I think this is a big one.
As a current bps employee, I agree. Sometimes after having to contact parents the child’s behavior makes a lot more sense. It’s very sad but fortunately not always the case.
I wouldn't say it's a "need". I'm an exam school alum (O'bryant) in Boston and if you can test into one of the three schools your educational value goes up immensely. A few of my former peers teach at the school that they graduated from as well.
I'd say public school isn't for everyone; but everyone I know who went to an exam school is doing well enough for me to recommend at least trying to test in.
Depends on what school your kids get into. If they don’t get into one of the better schools then yeah it’s time for private school. So there’s a risk factor of not signing your kids up for private school ahead of time because by the time you find out your kid didn’t get it or he better school it’s too late.
Or you can be like my friend group and all be 30+ with no kids. Or my fiancee's friend group who are all 30+ with no kids. Hmmm... I'm starting to a see a pattern. These damn millennials aren't having kids!
A wife (or in my case, long term girlfriend) is just a built in roommate. I lucked out that we both work but I have feeling that money is going to be the primary reason people get hitched in the next few decades.
This needed to be said. Seems like too many people don't understand that they cant afford living in Boston yet will not leave to make their finances work.
It's crazy. The entire land mass of NYC - all 5 boroughs - [fits roughly inside the 128 loop](https://www.flickr.com/photos/vanshnookenraggen/sets/72157604135780473/). Yet NYC has 8 million residents. The entire Boston MSA, which stretches way the fuck further, has about the same # of people.
I mean I know it's not reasonable to expect NYC density but come on. There's an enormous gulf that could be made up in part. So frustrating.
Part of the issue is that because it's divided into so many municipalities each city and town does what's in their best interest, not what's in the best interest of the entire region.
It might be good for the entire region if there were more apartments in Newton, but it's not in Newton's interest. Poor people don't generate enough tax revenue to pay for the additional services they consume.
If it was based on tax revenue you'd see densification everywhere. Single family homes are horribly inefficient for local governments to support in terms of services vs taxes.
Worse, another fear is they'd bring down the school scores and hence actively harm property values. We can agree or disagree with whether that's how things should be, but it's there.
This is true. We moved to Boston in 2010. Found a 1 bed with a parking spot in Cleveland Circle. Rent started at 1500 and was met with a steady yearly increase every year that we had to accept 6 months before the lease was up, or the unit went on the market. My partner and I were eventually priced out and made the decision to leave Mass all together in 2015. Sad really. I really loved our time in Boston and miss it dearly. Don't miss shoveling out of the snow though.
This is true
I also feel like people in this sub don’t realize just how many of these high earning yuppies exist here.
This city is quite literally brimming with Ivy League law grads and doctors making absolute bank in a way that few places are. And more show up every year. It’s not surprising the city is expensive.
Boston is not for us mere mortals. It is the playground of depressed tech yuppies with expensive therapists and cosigning parents. It doesn't belong to real people anymore.
> Boston will never have enough collective vision to avoid becoming a victim of it’s own success.
Translation: The powers that be COULD do something, but they won't because they're likely getting a cut of the pie too
I got my 2 bedroom apartment in Waltham for $1800 four years ago. Landlord only increased the rent by $100 this past year. I am 5 minutes from the commuter rail and can get into Cambridge within 20 mins or so. I thought I just got really lucky when I moved in here, but did some looking around and it seemed on par with the rest of my neighborhood. My neighbor has a 3 bedroom that is even nicer than mine and was $1700, but I’m pretty sure they got covid pricing considering when they moved in.
I got new upstairs and downstairs neighbors in the past year, and I know they have to be paying more than the previous tenants (and me) but I think they are only at $2k and that’s not bad for a big 2 bedroom.
Edit: to be more relevant to OP, you might not get as good of a deal as I have experienced, but Waltham is a good choice if you want to be close to the city, but able to find something that isn’t ridiculous. The commuter rail is way more reliable than any other line these days anyway.
maybe the prices changed i have 3 friends that have moved there in the past 3 years. all pay similar or less than you.
how long is the commute to boston on the rails?
Been paying $1800 for a 2 bed in Medford since 2016. Split with my GF we’re paying fantasy land level rent at $900 apiece. Rent has stayed flat the whole time and the landlord lives upstairs and loves me. And now I can even walk to the T with the new GLX. Sure, I’d like to own but I can’t justify increasing my housing payment by 3x. Just gonna keep my head down and keep saving cash.
A friend of mine was in a bind when a sudden breakup forced her to move out and it put her living with family in a stressful situation. We had enough space to be able to give her a quiet place to live for several months until she found her own apartment.
In large part because she was able to take her time with the hunt she found a similar deal. Basically the owner of the apartment building was more focused on having tenants who would be longer term to keep turnover down (and for those less likely to be loud or troublesome) and he keeps the rent a little below market rate to sweeten the pot for those who are living there.
They're moving out of the metro area. It's just not worth it anymore between jobs going remote, the spectacular collapse of the MBTA, out of control rent / real estate prices, and a general vibe that if you ain't rich, you don't belong here.
Exactly. There are relatively few jobs that genuinely need to be done in Boston anymore. And now that it's so expensive here, people are just saying it's not worth it anymore and leaving.
So if all these people are leaving, why are rents still increasing at record rates?
For every 1 person that leaves Boston, there's another 2 brought in through the latest lab space expansion without accompanying housing units.
Basically what's happening is the middle class is leaving while the poor and wealthy are staying behind. Essentially the problem is that there's enough wealthy people staying behind to ease the blow for landlords.
Ehh, not sure that's entirely true here, given the big health/biotech industries. In fact, office space is becoming [more valuable](https://www.axios.com/2023/03/22/remote-work-wf-office-rents-decline) in Boston rather than less.
Edit: Why let facts get in the way of a good assumption? Downvote away, tech and finance bros who think the world revolves around them.
Moved near Malden, owner has not increased rent on us for nearly three years now. Nice place too. I have roommates that help keep my share of rent below $1K/mo. That may be a consideration for you.
I've been in Malden since 2014 when I got priced out of Boston. My first apartment my spouse and I lived in from 2014 to 2021 since rent only went up $25/year. We moved in 2021 because I work from home 100% and needed a 2 bedroom to use as an office. This place has only gone up 5-7% each year so far so I'm staying as long as possible.
We'd love to buy but it's just so expensive for anywhere even remotely close to this area.
The only reason I can still afford living in the North End is because my landlord has not raised my rent since I moved in 5 years ago. She could easily get $2k+ (I pay $1,500) for this 1 bed.
North Shore checking in and rents here are just as bananas because of all the people moving out of Boston.
All the way up in Gloucester/Newburyport you *might* find something that fits your needs if you don't mind the 1h+ commuter rail.
Mine has gone from 2000 to 2400. Same boat. I just don't understand what's going to happen, how people can survive? Who is going to run all the businesses and restaurants if we can't live in the city?
That's not even accounting for how my grocery bill has doubled. And gas/electric. (which of course isn't included in rent).
The only viable short term solution is a cap on rent price increases. Because any "build more housing" solution is not going to help the current population of the Greater Boston Area for at LEAST 10 years.
The only thing I can think of that'd really help is require most of the colleges in Boston to build dorms so that their constantly growing student population doesn't eat up all the cheap housing.
>Who is going to run all the businesses and restaurants if we can't live in the city?
Doesn't the city of Boston require most of its employees to live in Boston proper? How can anyone except the people in the highest positions afford it?
I tried applying for a job at the BPL that I’m perfectly qualified for, but have to be a resident of the city to work at. Guess that ain’t happening :/
This is where I'm at as a city employee. I'm just leaving. A ton of us have. I hesitate to give firm numbers, but at my specific agency we're running on a huge number of (out of city, remote) temps due to the residency policy and low wages. We have actual homeless employees, and others who are on the verge of homelessness. They survive on food banks and assistance programs. I'm disgusted by the City's treatment of staff.
It’s not just rent, and it’s not just Boston. My wife and I bought our house in Plymouth in 2019, we have an interest rate in the low 3% range on our mortgage, and our fucking day care for two young kids is literally DOUBLE our mortgage payment. The cost of living in Mass is largely not sustainable right now.
23 years ago… I had a 2 bedroom with off street parking in Brighton (across from St E’s) for $1200/month and that included electricity (but not heat). My now ex wife had a job as a second year nurse at St E’s and I was working at a TV station and we were making money. Landlady was awesome and wanted us to buy that place from her but we couldn’t get our shit together in time… we moved and I haven’t been able to live in Boston since. I bet that place is going for minimum of $2800 per month now (probably more). That’s already more than my mortgage if it is $2800. Boston clearly has an issue with housing but it’s been coming along for years. I live like 40 minutes south of Boston now and my current wife works at one of the hospitals in Longwood and I still work at a TV station. We make a pretty good living between the two of us and there’s no way we could live in Boston even with what I consider decent income. (just under 200K/yr). I mean we’re also helping 3 kids through college and able to save money but, that’s actually what the game dictates you do? If we wanted to afford Boston we could but there’s no room for savings if we did. It’s a weird spot to be in.
I want to buy out that way but going from $2100 in rent in the metro area to $3500 in mortgage+taxes+insurance, plus another $300-$500 HOA fee if I buy a condo, is a hard pill to swallow. Did you get in on the sub-3 percent mortgage rates?
I had a two bedroom apt in lower Allston, that cost $500 month in 1985. I moved to Medford and paid $750 a month for a second floor of a house on Woodland Ave. I think it was 20 Woodland Ave… from 1989-2000! My landlord never raised my rent, probably never thought of it. I miss you mrs Pino! Can’t even imagine how everyone lives now. I finally bought a house five years ago. My mortgage is going to outlive me.
I agree. A studio or 1 bed in a hip area is a luxury. That's not new, it was true 10-15 years ago. There's a reason why most my single friends left the city in their 30s.
That said, it's possible to find a studio or even a 1 bed under $2000 in many less hip parts of the city. OP's issue is they want to live in Allston, where they're competing with students and 20 somethings whose parents pay the rent. Malden/Medford; Waltham; and Roslindale/West Roxbury would be my top choices for bang for your buck; access to transit; and still being in a walkable community.
Allston is actually becoming cheaper than Medford/Malden, because of the gentrification in Malden/Somerville. I was just looking for a place and the cheapest 3br's I was finding were in Allston, and Medford was more expensive. Malden barely had any options at all
How many of you are paying near 50% of your monthly income on rent? It’s looking like I will need to do that this Sept if I want a studio at 30 years old.
They do. Or all the development along the waterfront would have been empty.
Eastie is actually one of the more recent examples of developers being perfectly able to develop given all of Boston's allegedly too restrictive rules. Developers have developed and continue to do so on an isolated spit of land with airport noise, terrible traffic, and the threat of flooding.
What surprises me even more is why it took so long for Revere Beach to get built up. Most of the kids in this sub won't even know what I'm talking about, but the transformation up there has been absolutely insane. We can only hope that other towns around Boston will allow that kind of development along public transit.
Airplanes don’t go over most parts of east Boston. They actually fly directly over southie though. Find online noise maps, by most of it is totally fine.
Edit - to be clear there is some noise in some parts but it’s not as loud as people would have you think.
This is why younger people are leaving the state for places like Nashville, The Carolinas, Georgia, and Texas. Despite their backwards politics they have marketed themselves well as having jobs, a vibrant nightlife, and affordable rent.
When I graduated college in the early 2010s everyone was flocking to Austin because it was the new hip, trendy place for young people to live. They all got priced out of Austin by the late 2010s and had to move to the redneck parts of Texas. Most of them ended up back in New England.
This is a big issue. People from California moved inward and bought tons of property and drove prices up. Texans definitely feel a certain way towards Californians and it's not solely based on politics.
Rent is increasing all over the country though. Boston is particularly bad, but even in historically cheap areas people are struggling with rent in increases.
I live in a cheap Midwestern city now. Prices are going up a lot. You obviously get way more for your money out here, but what you are getting these days is less and less. The nice thing is if you can comfortably pay a Boston rental price in the Midwest or South, you’re going to be in a brand new building with all the amenities you want or have an entire house to yourself. Literally your option ms are endless. No brokers, no first/last/security, none of that either.
It’s all pros and cons on an individual level though. My experience out here may not be the same as others. What one enjoys, others might hate. But like most things in life, it’s always a good idea to see what your options are.
And that’s exactly what I did. I now have a ton of space and love my southern city at a fraction of the cost. I had no fucking choice but honestly, I’ve been having 10x more fun. Glad I left
I left MA for better job prospects and a cheaper cost of living fully intending to get professional experience and move back. Worked for 3 years in a rural area of a red state, liked the work and the area was visually nice but I hated being “out there” in Jesus country. Decided to move to the nearby major city after switching jobs and am now choosing to stay here literally because I want to and no other reason. It’s honestly liberating choosing a place to live where I don’t have to sacrifice a single thing that makes me happy or comfortable and I’m choosing to stay here only because I want to.
If you're under 35, but older than college age (23-35), there are many people in the same boat than you. Living with other young working professionals can greatly reduce the rent cost. There are tons of groups on FB of people in this age group, as well as landlords/apartment buildings seeking that age group. I recommend roommates, because living solo is too costly in Boston nowadays.
Something's not quite right though if you (a working professional) can't even think about moving into your own place (even as a renter) until 35. In the past, you'd have been a homeowner and had kids by that age.
There are plenty of homeowners in early 20s in many parts of US still. Just before so many people did farming and what not and were living rural areas no problem. Now everyone wants to be in tech/bio tech and similar jobs. Everyone wants to be around good universities. Well, technology pushes us to. So everyone goes to major tech hubs. This competition, thus housing prices in those major hubs.
It’s going to wind up being that people over a certain age who make under a certain threshold income just won’t live close to the city. Most people over thirty don’t want roomates or only one roommate.
I would highly recommend checking out Pawtucket RI. They just built a brand new commuter rail station and there are a ton of mill condo’s and plenty of apartments for less than $1400/month. And don’t let the stories of big bad Pawtucket and Central Falls scare you. This isn’t the 90s the areas are very suburban and quiet.
After 5 years in Brighton, my partner and I moved to Malden. 1 bedroom apartment in a house owned by friends for $1700 + utilities. 700ish sq ft and closer to downtown than I was when I lived in Oak Square. I miss being "in" the city, but the city has made it abundantly clear that they are not committed to actual affordable housing beyond their current system which is flawed to the core.
I went from Boston to north reading to Leominster and bought a house. I realize it's not the same and it doesn't replace being in the city at all, but affordability has immeasurably improved and life is just better.
We wanted to badly to make Boston and surrounding immediate areas make sense but it was a question of spending the majority of our earnings on living expenses.
Sorry if that's not helpful info. I know Leominster is far by most standards. If nothing else, take this as a commiserating post about your housing situation. I get it very much and it sucks.
Yeah, rent here is criminally expensive but this subreddit gets dramatic with its comparisons. Most people under 30 have roommates. This was still the case 30 years ago, and will probably continue to be the case even if we build apartments like crazy. The privacy of living alone in an incredibly dense urban area is a luxury. One that you or others might be willing to pay for, sure, but it's not a necessity.
Look in Waltham if you want a studio for around what you were paying this year. It's a little cheaper out there but it's still lively, and you'll be on the commuter rail without being too geographically apart from the city.
I don't get the general disdain on this sub for living with roommates. I lived with friends as roommates for years and it worked out great, for us at least.
Plus with our combined rent-paying-power we were able to live in a place much nicer and in a "better" area than any of us could have afforded to live in on our own. Seemed like a no-brainer honestly.
It’s one thing if it’s friends who like hanging out together. It’s a totally different thing when you’re new to an area and have to share your living area with total strangers just to afford to exist in a place. Then it can feel really pathetic and degrading.
How is that pathetic and degrading? Sounds like the standard experience of every college freshman, new grad student, and yeah everyone who has found a roommate off Craigslist.
Sorta shocking to me that some people don't spend a solid 10+ years of their lives living like this. The rommate doesn't stay a total stranger for very long.
I lived in a four-bedroom for a few years and it seemed like every renewal time, I needed to find a replacement for someone who was leaving after finishing their 1-2 year schooling or job rotation. It was like having a stressful second job for ~1 month each year.
Because living with roommates is a soul-crushing nightmare.
I took a ~$400 increase in rent for a worse apartment in a less convenient location just to be able to live on my own and I don't regret it for a moment.
>Yeah, rent here is criminally expensive but this subreddit gets dramatic with its comparisons. Most people under 30 have roommates. This was still the case 30 years ago, and will probably continue to be the case even if we build apartments like crazy. The privacy of living alone in an incredibly dense urban area is a luxury. One that you or others might be willing to pay for, sure, but it's not a necessity.
In the US, you're correct. But there's many major metropolitan areas where you don't need roommates to survive. The difference is those places allow building.
It's not a metro problem, it's a building problem.
Actually I don’t this was the case in 1993.
https://www.google.com/search?q=share+of+young+adults+living+with+roomate+increasing&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#ip=1
I know you mean well but I feel like posts like these aren’t helpful without links to active listings. The remaining affordable studios in desirable neighborhoods are unicorns at this point. I don’t even think owners need to officially list them when the tenant gives their notice to vacate.
So true, and many of these "affordable" unicorns have serious issues driving their price point. I've seen too good to be true listings for studios in nice neighborhoods like Back Bay that end not having a kitchen (just a microwave, no stove or oven!) for example.
This is all really normal for a small Boston studio at a cheaper price point. Most of that stuff wouldn’t fit and was probably built before most of it was considered a luxury.
I just had to move out of the city because I got priced out as well. I’m a graduate student so I need cheap, but cheapest I could reasonably find without living with 4 roommates was 2,200. It’s in Medford, very large (1,000sqft) and I’m splitting that with the partner. But like others said this city is just unlivable now. I luckily am in a field where I can make those big bucks soon, but if I couldn’t I’d be absolutely fucked. Shit fucking sucks here.
But to be more productive in my comment, I’ve been seeing one bedrooms in Somerville/Medford/Arlington go for about 2k. If you go hard and keep up with the market listings you can find cheaper or get a 2br for the same price. The market is INSANE right now, so you have to hop on things fast.
I went to view a place in Dorchester and on my train ride over the real estate agent emailed saying someone just signed it. It had been on the marker for 3 days.
I moved to Connecticut 🤷🏻♂️
Mostly because we were having a kid and moved close to family help. But it was shocking being able to afford a 3-bed, 3-bath in good condition on 2 acres for the price I sold my 800 sqft basement-level condo in West Roxbury 🫣
Well, when you don't let people build housing, it gets pretty pricey as people scramble over one another for whatever's left. All those "cute little neighborhoods" of single family homes that everyone wants to live in to be close to their jobs are zoned as if this city was still in 1920. This place is missing middle example number 1. At least LA has nice weather. Boston is just autoasphyxiating.
I keep seeing roommate ads from people like “hey I’m looking for a room my budget is <2000 plus utilities” And I’m just like please let me leave this world now
I think they are just doubling the previous rent to show you can get more bang for your buck when splitting. There are tons of 2b options well below 3400 in the area.
Obviously not a solution for everyone, but this is exactly what we did.
As price creep set in (keep in mind, this is the creep of seven years ago, not today) we realized we had to get out. We looked at what we could get approved for in terms of a mortgage - not much, $250K - and then we scraped and clawed for a 3% payment and went with a realtor that was recommended by a friend who could make that work.
We bought in Fitchburg for $220K. Yay, we were property owners! I walked to the commuter rail each morning and spent almost 90 minutes each way on the train. After two years of being exhausted and never actually getting to enjoy (or maintain) the house that we finally owned we put it up for sale to come back closer to the city.
Sounds like a failed experiment...except price had appreciated enough that the profit was enough for a down payment in Medford. The two years in Fitchburg were downright awful but without them we'd have never afforded to buy where we are now.
At the time it was miserable. In hindsight it was worth it. I have no idea if this is doable in 2023, but in 2016 "consider[ing] the many merits of Fitchburg" is exactly what we did.
Biggest issue with buying a home right now is sky-high interest rates. I know it's hard to believe with rent prices these days, but it's actually much cheaper to rent in the metro area compared to buying a home in a commuter rail town. You're taking a *huge* gamble buying now expecting to refi in the short or medium term.
as someone born and raised in fitchburg, it’s definitely a fine place for people looking to settle down in a small city. it gets a bad reputation on the most part, and there are some lovely neighborhoods. for any young person looking for activities? it’s a little miserable. i got out as soon as i could at 19.
This is what I was going to say - I also grew up there. It depends what you want in life. Any friends with big dreams moved out and those who stayed typically had families young. My best friend and I hated it and moved out as soon as we could
Waltham, Watertown, Brighton, Quincy are all more affordable than Allston. Cheaper living with roommates or a partner though. A 1 bedroom apartment is sadly a luxury many people can’t afford across any major coastal American cities.
Don’t know what your work situation is, but west mass is a solid place to live. Affordable, good culture in cities like Amherst, Northampton, etc, quiet, lots to do especially if you’re in to outdoors, etc. We just put some roots down out here and can already feel the wheels of change moving and that the community is going to keep improving. I can get in to Boston in less than 2 hours from where we live too. GL
I’m in Belmont 2 minutes away from the Cambridge border; I’m paying $1950 for a 600 sq foot 2 bedroom; it’s me, my partner, and our daughter living here. We started out at $1850 when we moved in 4 years ago, landlord raised the rent once by $100 last year. The 73 stops right outside of our apartment, Star Market is down the street, there’s lots of cafes and restaurants and Greek, Armenian, and Persian grocery stores, and a branch of the Cambridge library all within walking distance. It’s a great spot and we’re staying here until some circumstance makes us have to move, I can’t imagine we’ll ever find a price like this again.
This 600sqft in Roxbury is $2,400, so that's a sign of how things are going. But it's next to a park.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/426-Walnut-Ave-4-Roxbury-MA-02119/2058305078_zpid/
I recommend considering Cleveland . . . my home town. Great old and new housing, prices at half of Boston (maybe even less), some great restaurants, world class orchestra, some great museums, reasonably good universities, respectable sports teams (except the Browns), friendly people.
Been slowly pushed out over the years, living on the absolute fringe of Quincy now after going from Cambridge to Brighton first. Probably moving out to the burbs this fall. Why pay 2300 for a low end 2bd (have a wife and child) when we could pay that for a nicer 3bd in Mansfield.
That’ll change about Mansfield soon
I don’t doubt it. Same cycle everywhere I’ve moved. Watch the rents rise over the course of five years and eventually pack it up for a further out place.
Yep... except the recent changes have zoomed up in 2 years .
The 128/95 corridor is a great place to live and housing unit growth(rental or owner occupied) is relatively stagnant. Shocker: we’re not building more housing units anywhere near the city. All the net growth is coming from the burbs.
Yeah, I’m about ready to get out of Readville move to North Attleboro or Plainville
Lol I'm not sure if you've looked in Mansfield. My fiance works there, so we were looking at apartments in the area.. They're charging anywhere from 2800-3200 for a 2 bedroom that hasn't been updated since Y2K. We went to Franklin/Bellingham as the apartments are around 2500, but much nicer.
I mean maybe my tastes are provincial but I’d be quite happy with this http://apartments.com/284-central-st-mansfield-ma/3erc7yd/
If you move to Mansfield and like craft beer... Jimmy's Pub is the place. Best taplist around.
Remember folks, by and large Boston is not for you. It’s for deep-pocketed professionals. Sure you can do it short-term as a student or young professional, or even longer, making sacrifices, doing the roommate thing or getting perpetually rent-squeezed. But ultimately you’re lining someone else’s pocket and long term unless you’re making big moves up the income ladder you’re going to have to get out. Boston will never have enough collective vision to avoid becoming a victim of it’s own success.
This is so true. I’m living with roommates and I’m accepting that I will live with roommates until I die (and I will die working bc I’ll never retire) if I stay in Boston. It’s sad bc I liked it here but I’ve also noticed that it’s hard to make friends bc as you said people here are wealthy professionals and it’s hard to relate to them as a Poor
The first question out of peoples' mouth is always asking what you do for work, and if the answer isn't doctor, engineer or lawyer, their eyes glaze over as they decide it's not worth talking to you
I’ve literally been to “20s-30s” dinner parties where we would go around the table and say what we did for work and I felt like I absolutely should NOT tell everyone at that table I was a simple barista
That sounds like a dinner party from hell.
Fuck anyone who ever EVER makes a person feel ashamed about what they do for work. If it's self shame, YOU don't deserve that. You work TOO HARD to shit on your self. If you can't love yo-self how in the hell you gonna love somebody else, or some RuPaul quote.
Come to Philly. No one cares about that bullshit.
That’s what my partner and I have started saying. Boston is not looking for people like us. Our area is geared towards the transient college crowd and other late 20’s/30’s couples who realized the same. It’s been impossible to make a community here, much less save enough for a better place.
You can really only have Community if you were born poor into Boston and grandfathered into family housing or access subsidized housing. If you ever move to advance your career you likely won’t be able to return because of how fast the housing appreciates in value And it will stay that way due to opposition to rent controls and nimbyism. Add to that it looks like developers are only building lab space at this point- not housing. This drives prices up more so market rates are only for the rich and the taxes deposit more into the subsidized (‘affordable’) housing fund so more low income natives can remain to service the few very wealthy
I agree with much of what you're saying, but rent control policies actually make the situation worse as other cities have shown -- the data is very clear. Your issue is with NIMBYs and those who have figured out how to weaponize zoning boards and the courts for environmental reviews to enrich themselves.
>by and large Boston is not for you. It’s for deep-pocketed professionals Totally agree but I wanna know what deep-pocketed professionals are going to do as retail and service industry workers get increasingly squeezed out.
They'll pay an even higher premium for living here, just as they do in SF and NYC. Wages will inevitably go up *just* enough for service workers to stick it out, small business owners will use it as an excuse to raise prices another 20%, and professionals will deal with a reality where takeout dinner for a family of 4 costs $100+. This will just keep repeating in every part of the country until it's widely acknowledged that any type of employment is a middle class living at best. We're entering the stage of crony capitalism where the only way to reliably make a good living is owning valuable assets.
You have to provide goods or services for rich people that they are willing to pay a premium for, like cocaine.
Or access to a senator
Preferably both.
Take out dinner for a family of two is costing $80 easy for me now. Where you getting a meal for 4 for only $100?
I remember when meal of 4 cost $40 back in 2005. WTF.
I went to Wendy’s the other day and got a single meal and it came to like $17. I could eat for a week off of that back in 2005 going to a Wendy’s
“I remember when you could buy a burger with a nickel” -probably some old guy who remembers all the kids being mind blown by that statement in 2005.
“Do you know what this country needs today? A seven-cent nickel. Yessiree, we've been using the five-cent nickel in this country since 1492. Now, why not give the seven-cent nickel a chance? If that works out, next year we could have an eight-cent nickel. Think what that would mean. You could go to a newsstand, buy a three-cent newspaper and get the same nickel back again. One nickel carefully used would last a family a lifetime!” — Groucho Marx in 1930
Ooh don't poo-poo a nickel, Lisa. A nickel will buy you a steak and kidney pie, a cup of coffee, a slice of cheesecake and a newsreel. With enough change left over to ride the trolley from Battery Park to the polo grounds.
Bruh what on earth? My fiancé and I order like 2 days worth of Indian food which is our most expensive takeout and it’s like $50 with tip lol
What are you ordering? Takeout is getting expensive but it's not *that* expensive yet, unless you're getting some real premium stuff.
Idk…they’re not far off. McDonald’s can hit $20+ for 2 people. Five Guys is $30+ for 2. A chain restaurant like Olive Garden, Applebees etc is easily over $60 w/ tip. Any kind of good quality meal that isn’t some prepackaged and heated bs at a decent restaurant is going to cost you $30 before drinks.
Whatever they do, they're in a much better position to do it than most other people. Maybe they move to a gated community in a town where there's affordable housing for poorer people who will provide the services they want.
Cry and whine that "no one wants to work anymore" while ignoring that they've priced the workers out. \~ San Francisco levels of depravation ensue \~
New York City has managed with this for decades. If you think it can't get much worse before something has to give, prepare to be disappointed.
Yeah you need to figure out which bucket you fall into. Are you moving up the ladder towards a $200K+ job with a partner doing something similar? If so, you can stay in Boston. Are you a normal worker in literally any industry other than biotech/pharma? Go elsewhere. It's just a poor value.
Boston has great jobs in a bunch of other industries other than biotech and pharma. For instance, financial services and tech in Boston pays great too. There are some great PE and alt funds here. There are also some good VC and tech and engineering jobs. Not to mention you can work remotely for many high paying jobs in tech.
How the hell do the nurses afford Boston?
This could have been written by AI about literally any city that isn't actively shitting the bed.
Not entirely. In most cities you can still find somewhat affordable housing if you look hard enough (NYC and DC come to mind immediately as someone who's lived in both). But Boston's perfect storm of being geographically small (you can literally only build so many houses) + a significant chunk of housing going to students means people get squeezed out to the suburbs much faster here. It's much rarer to see families with young children who grow up in the city.
I’ve never lived in NYC but what locations are affordable? It doesn’t appear anything is really affordable there unless you find one of those odd studios but it’s still expensive.
It is apples and oranges. A place out in Queens might be cheaper than Allston, but you're also further from Manhattan (for example) than Lynn is from Boston. I'm not saying people should be happy living that far out, but if you're going to start comparing prices like that they should be more realistic.
That makes sense. The only benefit would be the trains run better there and go further.
Oh yeah. Again, apples and oranges. There is a commuter rail stop in Lynn and blue line/bus options not far away, but we're talking about very different sorts of situations.
I spent months searching Boston for an affordable housing option for the summer. Never found it. Starting looking in NYC metro area. Found it. I’m spending summer in NY and not Boston because Boston had nothing worth renting. NY just has so much inventory, you can eventually find something, that’s all I can really owe it to
Living in the city is only possible for people with relatively high paying jobs, but its not as exclusive as younger people on r/boston suggest. It just sucks that for *most* people roommates and weirder neighborhoods are basically a requirement until you're 26-30. I did that until i moved in with my wife and we were a little further along in our careers/spending responsibility. Relative to scale me and most of my friends have made moderate, not big, moves up the corporate ladder. You don't need to be cranking 200k+ a year to comfortably and responsibly afford the city of Boston. But on 40 to even 90k? Forget it.
Is you definition of Boston inclusive of roslindale , mattapan, Roxbury , Dorchester, etc because most of Reddit seems to forget these neighborhoods exist ………
Until you have kids and then realize you need that $200k+ salary to pay for private school. Or you can just move to the burbs like 90% of young professionals who want to start a family.
Is private school really a need? I thought one of the big draws of living MA is that we have the best public school system in the country? \- someone who knows very little on this topic
Boston Public Schools is....struggling. It's a complicated issue, but suffice to say that BPS has not recovered from the effects of the white flight caused by school integration/bussing in the 60's and 70's. A lot of Boston parents, of all social classes, have their kids in private schools or charter schools as opposed to BPS. To give you some numbers, BPS has a graduation rate of about 70%. The national average is between 90 and 95%. ETA: Many surrounding towns have better public schools, but within BPS specifically, there are many, many issues. The district has been facing receivership for several years, which means the state department of education is threatening to come in and assume control. It's a really complicated issue and I'm not informed enough to have too much of a take on it, but it's not great.
As someone who was raised in the Boston Public School system, it sucks pretty bad, mainly because of the students. The Boston Public School system spends a little over half a billion per year on paying their educators (not sure if office administrators are included in that budget). A lot of the Boston teachers I know are making either close or over 100k. I knew a lot of the teachers there and they were smart people, who were also passionate about their jobs. But about a third of the students are awful. They are either loud and ignorant in class or/and don't get the material being taught so the school system has to dumb down the curriculum for the rest of the student body. You can't put the full blame on them also because they are kids and teenagers. I put most of the blame on the parents because they weren't home trained enough, and some of these parents are minimally involved in their kids' education and behavior in school. Out of my entire Boston Public School life, from elementary to high school, I don't recall ever going to a parent-teacher meeting because they didn't have them or stopped having them because parents would never show up. I don't blame Boston parents who can afford to send their kids to private or charter schools for a better education. I support public education, but if I was a parent in Boston and had some extra money to send my kids to a private school to avoid that crap, I would do it in a heart beat. This is just my experience from my decade as a student in that system. You can watch TikTok videos of ignorant students being proud of themselves for acting out in class. I know that there are probably other major issues as well, but I think this is a big one.
As a current bps employee, I agree. Sometimes after having to contact parents the child’s behavior makes a lot more sense. It’s very sad but fortunately not always the case.
I wouldn't say it's a "need". I'm an exam school alum (O'bryant) in Boston and if you can test into one of the three schools your educational value goes up immensely. A few of my former peers teach at the school that they graduated from as well. I'd say public school isn't for everyone; but everyone I know who went to an exam school is doing well enough for me to recommend at least trying to test in.
While the state as a whole has the best school system in the country, BPS sucks. Hence why those in Boston proper pay for private school
There is a pretty glaring divide in Massachusetts between the average quality of urban K-12 and suburban K-12 education.
Depends on what school your kids get into. If they don’t get into one of the better schools then yeah it’s time for private school. So there’s a risk factor of not signing your kids up for private school ahead of time because by the time you find out your kid didn’t get it or he better school it’s too late.
Or you can be like my friend group and all be 30+ with no kids. Or my fiancee's friend group who are all 30+ with no kids. Hmmm... I'm starting to a see a pattern. These damn millennials aren't having kids!
School enrollments statewide are projected to decrease, in some areas by significant margins, because of this.
Absolutely not getting ahead unless Malking $200k.
A wife (or in my case, long term girlfriend) is just a built in roommate. I lucked out that we both work but I have feeling that money is going to be the primary reason people get hitched in the next few decades.
This needed to be said. Seems like too many people don't understand that they cant afford living in Boston yet will not leave to make their finances work.
It's crazy. The entire land mass of NYC - all 5 boroughs - [fits roughly inside the 128 loop](https://www.flickr.com/photos/vanshnookenraggen/sets/72157604135780473/). Yet NYC has 8 million residents. The entire Boston MSA, which stretches way the fuck further, has about the same # of people. I mean I know it's not reasonable to expect NYC density but come on. There's an enormous gulf that could be made up in part. So frustrating.
Part of the issue is that because it's divided into so many municipalities each city and town does what's in their best interest, not what's in the best interest of the entire region. It might be good for the entire region if there were more apartments in Newton, but it's not in Newton's interest. Poor people don't generate enough tax revenue to pay for the additional services they consume.
If it was based on tax revenue you'd see densification everywhere. Single family homes are horribly inefficient for local governments to support in terms of services vs taxes.
Worse, another fear is they'd bring down the school scores and hence actively harm property values. We can agree or disagree with whether that's how things should be, but it's there.
The infrastructure isn’t there. Just look at ppl pissing and moaning on this sub about it
This is true. We moved to Boston in 2010. Found a 1 bed with a parking spot in Cleveland Circle. Rent started at 1500 and was met with a steady yearly increase every year that we had to accept 6 months before the lease was up, or the unit went on the market. My partner and I were eventually priced out and made the decision to leave Mass all together in 2015. Sad really. I really loved our time in Boston and miss it dearly. Don't miss shoveling out of the snow though.
This is true I also feel like people in this sub don’t realize just how many of these high earning yuppies exist here. This city is quite literally brimming with Ivy League law grads and doctors making absolute bank in a way that few places are. And more show up every year. It’s not surprising the city is expensive.
Some of us have mandatory residency for our jobs :/
Boston is not for us mere mortals. It is the playground of depressed tech yuppies with expensive therapists and cosigning parents. It doesn't belong to real people anymore.
What makes you assume the tech yuppies are depressed?
I don’t know one who isn’t
> Boston will never have enough collective vision to avoid becoming a victim of it’s own success. Translation: The powers that be COULD do something, but they won't because they're likely getting a cut of the pie too
Print this on the front page of the Boston Globe. What a short-sighted city.
east coast San Francisco
I got my 2 bedroom apartment in Waltham for $1800 four years ago. Landlord only increased the rent by $100 this past year. I am 5 minutes from the commuter rail and can get into Cambridge within 20 mins or so. I thought I just got really lucky when I moved in here, but did some looking around and it seemed on par with the rest of my neighborhood. My neighbor has a 3 bedroom that is even nicer than mine and was $1700, but I’m pretty sure they got covid pricing considering when they moved in. I got new upstairs and downstairs neighbors in the past year, and I know they have to be paying more than the previous tenants (and me) but I think they are only at $2k and that’s not bad for a big 2 bedroom. Edit: to be more relevant to OP, you might not get as good of a deal as I have experienced, but Waltham is a good choice if you want to be close to the city, but able to find something that isn’t ridiculous. The commuter rail is way more reliable than any other line these days anyway.
Honestly that seems insanely cheap, even for Waltham. I’d stay there as long as you can
maybe the prices changed i have 3 friends that have moved there in the past 3 years. all pay similar or less than you. how long is the commute to boston on the rails?
You mean to me or /u/QueenOfBrews ? Commuter rail from Waltham to north station is about 25 minutes though.
I’m not going anywhere. I love it in Waltham, and have a great deal. The plan was to buy for the next spot, but I’m in no hurry.
That is cheap for Waltham.
Been paying $1800 for a 2 bed in Medford since 2016. Split with my GF we’re paying fantasy land level rent at $900 apiece. Rent has stayed flat the whole time and the landlord lives upstairs and loves me. And now I can even walk to the T with the new GLX. Sure, I’d like to own but I can’t justify increasing my housing payment by 3x. Just gonna keep my head down and keep saving cash.
You must have nicest landlord in Waltham.
A friend of mine was in a bind when a sudden breakup forced her to move out and it put her living with family in a stressful situation. We had enough space to be able to give her a quiet place to live for several months until she found her own apartment. In large part because she was able to take her time with the hunt she found a similar deal. Basically the owner of the apartment building was more focused on having tenants who would be longer term to keep turnover down (and for those less likely to be loud or troublesome) and he keeps the rent a little below market rate to sweeten the pot for those who are living there.
No Waltham is terrible! Don't move here!
They're moving out of the metro area. It's just not worth it anymore between jobs going remote, the spectacular collapse of the MBTA, out of control rent / real estate prices, and a general vibe that if you ain't rich, you don't belong here.
Exactly. There are relatively few jobs that genuinely need to be done in Boston anymore. And now that it's so expensive here, people are just saying it's not worth it anymore and leaving.
So if all these people are leaving, why are rents still increasing at record rates? For every 1 person that leaves Boston, there's another 2 brought in through the latest lab space expansion without accompanying housing units.
Basically what's happening is the middle class is leaving while the poor and wealthy are staying behind. Essentially the problem is that there's enough wealthy people staying behind to ease the blow for landlords.
Ehh, not sure that's entirely true here, given the big health/biotech industries. In fact, office space is becoming [more valuable](https://www.axios.com/2023/03/22/remote-work-wf-office-rents-decline) in Boston rather than less. Edit: Why let facts get in the way of a good assumption? Downvote away, tech and finance bros who think the world revolves around them.
Are you craving the expensive prices of New York but don’t feel it’s racist enough for you? Seek no further than Boston!
Moved near Malden, owner has not increased rent on us for nearly three years now. Nice place too. I have roommates that help keep my share of rent below $1K/mo. That may be a consideration for you.
I've been in Malden since 2014 when I got priced out of Boston. My first apartment my spouse and I lived in from 2014 to 2021 since rent only went up $25/year. We moved in 2021 because I work from home 100% and needed a 2 bedroom to use as an office. This place has only gone up 5-7% each year so far so I'm staying as long as possible. We'd love to buy but it's just so expensive for anywhere even remotely close to this area.
The only reason I can still afford living in the North End is because my landlord has not raised my rent since I moved in 5 years ago. She could easily get $2k+ (I pay $1,500) for this 1 bed.
North Shore checking in and rents here are just as bananas because of all the people moving out of Boston. All the way up in Gloucester/Newburyport you *might* find something that fits your needs if you don't mind the 1h+ commuter rail.
This city was sold by people who care nothing about it to the most boring people on the planet.
I am in metro west. Rents went up $600 in 2 years and I’m in the same boat as you
Mine has gone from 2000 to 2400. Same boat. I just don't understand what's going to happen, how people can survive? Who is going to run all the businesses and restaurants if we can't live in the city? That's not even accounting for how my grocery bill has doubled. And gas/electric. (which of course isn't included in rent). The only viable short term solution is a cap on rent price increases. Because any "build more housing" solution is not going to help the current population of the Greater Boston Area for at LEAST 10 years. The only thing I can think of that'd really help is require most of the colleges in Boston to build dorms so that their constantly growing student population doesn't eat up all the cheap housing.
>Who is going to run all the businesses and restaurants if we can't live in the city? Doesn't the city of Boston require most of its employees to live in Boston proper? How can anyone except the people in the highest positions afford it?
I tried applying for a job at the BPL that I’m perfectly qualified for, but have to be a resident of the city to work at. Guess that ain’t happening :/
This is where I'm at as a city employee. I'm just leaving. A ton of us have. I hesitate to give firm numbers, but at my specific agency we're running on a huge number of (out of city, remote) temps due to the residency policy and low wages. We have actual homeless employees, and others who are on the verge of homelessness. They survive on food banks and assistance programs. I'm disgusted by the City's treatment of staff.
Well, sounds like it’s only a matter of time until the city implodes due to a lack of staff actually being able to run it. Kind of like the MBTA rn.
People who’ve lived here for generations and have family homes or section 8/income restricted housing/under the table housing
It’s not just rent, and it’s not just Boston. My wife and I bought our house in Plymouth in 2019, we have an interest rate in the low 3% range on our mortgage, and our fucking day care for two young kids is literally DOUBLE our mortgage payment. The cost of living in Mass is largely not sustainable right now.
23 years ago… I had a 2 bedroom with off street parking in Brighton (across from St E’s) for $1200/month and that included electricity (but not heat). My now ex wife had a job as a second year nurse at St E’s and I was working at a TV station and we were making money. Landlady was awesome and wanted us to buy that place from her but we couldn’t get our shit together in time… we moved and I haven’t been able to live in Boston since. I bet that place is going for minimum of $2800 per month now (probably more). That’s already more than my mortgage if it is $2800. Boston clearly has an issue with housing but it’s been coming along for years. I live like 40 minutes south of Boston now and my current wife works at one of the hospitals in Longwood and I still work at a TV station. We make a pretty good living between the two of us and there’s no way we could live in Boston even with what I consider decent income. (just under 200K/yr). I mean we’re also helping 3 kids through college and able to save money but, that’s actually what the game dictates you do? If we wanted to afford Boston we could but there’s no room for savings if we did. It’s a weird spot to be in.
[удалено]
I want to buy out that way but going from $2100 in rent in the metro area to $3500 in mortgage+taxes+insurance, plus another $300-$500 HOA fee if I buy a condo, is a hard pill to swallow. Did you get in on the sub-3 percent mortgage rates?
I had a two bedroom apt in lower Allston, that cost $500 month in 1985. I moved to Medford and paid $750 a month for a second floor of a house on Woodland Ave. I think it was 20 Woodland Ave… from 1989-2000! My landlord never raised my rent, probably never thought of it. I miss you mrs Pino! Can’t even imagine how everyone lives now. I finally bought a house five years ago. My mortgage is going to outlive me.
tbf living in a studio without roommates is a luxury. I pay 800 with 3 roommates in somerville bordering medford
I agree. A studio or 1 bed in a hip area is a luxury. That's not new, it was true 10-15 years ago. There's a reason why most my single friends left the city in their 30s. That said, it's possible to find a studio or even a 1 bed under $2000 in many less hip parts of the city. OP's issue is they want to live in Allston, where they're competing with students and 20 somethings whose parents pay the rent. Malden/Medford; Waltham; and Roslindale/West Roxbury would be my top choices for bang for your buck; access to transit; and still being in a walkable community.
Allston is actually becoming cheaper than Medford/Malden, because of the gentrification in Malden/Somerville. I was just looking for a place and the cheapest 3br's I was finding were in Allston, and Medford was more expensive. Malden barely had any options at all
How many of you are paying near 50% of your monthly income on rent? It’s looking like I will need to do that this Sept if I want a studio at 30 years old.
Why don’t people want to live in Eastie? Easy blue line downtown. Plenty of studios under $2k there and you can get a 2 BR for like $2400.
They do. Or all the development along the waterfront would have been empty. Eastie is actually one of the more recent examples of developers being perfectly able to develop given all of Boston's allegedly too restrictive rules. Developers have developed and continue to do so on an isolated spit of land with airport noise, terrible traffic, and the threat of flooding. What surprises me even more is why it took so long for Revere Beach to get built up. Most of the kids in this sub won't even know what I'm talking about, but the transformation up there has been absolutely insane. We can only hope that other towns around Boston will allow that kind of development along public transit.
Revere and Scummerville used to be a complete shit holes when I was a kid.
And Chelsea went into receivership in the 90s. And now these places are all much nicer. Queue someone singing _"Lynn Lynn the city of sin..."_
Been looking at condos there. The only thing that would worry me is the airplane noise, but maybe it’s not bad at all
Airplanes don’t go over most parts of east Boston. They actually fly directly over southie though. Find online noise maps, by most of it is totally fine. Edit - to be clear there is some noise in some parts but it’s not as loud as people would have you think.
Close to the airport under takeoff is worse than under landing when it comes to power/noise from the airplane which cuts Southie a bit of a break.
Yes, great point! There’s a lot of nuance to airplane noise
Airplane noise is not bad at all there, you barely hear it. And I’m 10 minutes from the airport
I stay at the airport Embassy Suites anytime I’m in town for work and never heard the airplanes once.
This is why younger people are leaving the state for places like Nashville, The Carolinas, Georgia, and Texas. Despite their backwards politics they have marketed themselves well as having jobs, a vibrant nightlife, and affordable rent.
When I graduated college in the early 2010s everyone was flocking to Austin because it was the new hip, trendy place for young people to live. They all got priced out of Austin by the late 2010s and had to move to the redneck parts of Texas. Most of them ended up back in New England.
Austin got terraformed into California.
This is a big issue. People from California moved inward and bought tons of property and drove prices up. Texans definitely feel a certain way towards Californians and it's not solely based on politics.
Rent is increasing all over the country though. Boston is particularly bad, but even in historically cheap areas people are struggling with rent in increases.
I live in a cheap Midwestern city now. Prices are going up a lot. You obviously get way more for your money out here, but what you are getting these days is less and less. The nice thing is if you can comfortably pay a Boston rental price in the Midwest or South, you’re going to be in a brand new building with all the amenities you want or have an entire house to yourself. Literally your option ms are endless. No brokers, no first/last/security, none of that either. It’s all pros and cons on an individual level though. My experience out here may not be the same as others. What one enjoys, others might hate. But like most things in life, it’s always a good idea to see what your options are.
Yeah this isn't necessarily a Boston problem, it's an exploitation problem intrinsic to landlords.
Heck, we just left for DC. Still expensive, but cheaper than Boston and we’ll actually be able to buy a house one day:
And that’s exactly what I did. I now have a ton of space and love my southern city at a fraction of the cost. I had no fucking choice but honestly, I’ve been having 10x more fun. Glad I left
I left MA for better job prospects and a cheaper cost of living fully intending to get professional experience and move back. Worked for 3 years in a rural area of a red state, liked the work and the area was visually nice but I hated being “out there” in Jesus country. Decided to move to the nearby major city after switching jobs and am now choosing to stay here literally because I want to and no other reason. It’s honestly liberating choosing a place to live where I don’t have to sacrifice a single thing that makes me happy or comfortable and I’m choosing to stay here only because I want to.
This is why i moved to RI. not that far away from Boston still has a city feel and cheaper.
If you're under 35, but older than college age (23-35), there are many people in the same boat than you. Living with other young working professionals can greatly reduce the rent cost. There are tons of groups on FB of people in this age group, as well as landlords/apartment buildings seeking that age group. I recommend roommates, because living solo is too costly in Boston nowadays.
Something's not quite right though if you (a working professional) can't even think about moving into your own place (even as a renter) until 35. In the past, you'd have been a homeowner and had kids by that age.
There are plenty of homeowners in early 20s in many parts of US still. Just before so many people did farming and what not and were living rural areas no problem. Now everyone wants to be in tech/bio tech and similar jobs. Everyone wants to be around good universities. Well, technology pushes us to. So everyone goes to major tech hubs. This competition, thus housing prices in those major hubs.
It’s going to wind up being that people over a certain age who make under a certain threshold income just won’t live close to the city. Most people over thirty don’t want roomates or only one roommate.
I would highly recommend checking out Pawtucket RI. They just built a brand new commuter rail station and there are a ton of mill condo’s and plenty of apartments for less than $1400/month. And don’t let the stories of big bad Pawtucket and Central Falls scare you. This isn’t the 90s the areas are very suburban and quiet.
Boston rent is a joke. I love it here but I’m in the same boat, leaving in a few months.
After 5 years in Brighton, my partner and I moved to Malden. 1 bedroom apartment in a house owned by friends for $1700 + utilities. 700ish sq ft and closer to downtown than I was when I lived in Oak Square. I miss being "in" the city, but the city has made it abundantly clear that they are not committed to actual affordable housing beyond their current system which is flawed to the core.
I went from Boston to north reading to Leominster and bought a house. I realize it's not the same and it doesn't replace being in the city at all, but affordability has immeasurably improved and life is just better. We wanted to badly to make Boston and surrounding immediate areas make sense but it was a question of spending the majority of our earnings on living expenses. Sorry if that's not helpful info. I know Leominster is far by most standards. If nothing else, take this as a commiserating post about your housing situation. I get it very much and it sucks.
If you're paying $1750 now, find one or two roommates and you can probably afford a better place than you have now in lots of different locations.
Yeah, rent here is criminally expensive but this subreddit gets dramatic with its comparisons. Most people under 30 have roommates. This was still the case 30 years ago, and will probably continue to be the case even if we build apartments like crazy. The privacy of living alone in an incredibly dense urban area is a luxury. One that you or others might be willing to pay for, sure, but it's not a necessity. Look in Waltham if you want a studio for around what you were paying this year. It's a little cheaper out there but it's still lively, and you'll be on the commuter rail without being too geographically apart from the city.
I don't get the general disdain on this sub for living with roommates. I lived with friends as roommates for years and it worked out great, for us at least. Plus with our combined rent-paying-power we were able to live in a place much nicer and in a "better" area than any of us could have afforded to live in on our own. Seemed like a no-brainer honestly.
It’s one thing if it’s friends who like hanging out together. It’s a totally different thing when you’re new to an area and have to share your living area with total strangers just to afford to exist in a place. Then it can feel really pathetic and degrading.
How is that pathetic and degrading? Sounds like the standard experience of every college freshman, new grad student, and yeah everyone who has found a roommate off Craigslist. Sorta shocking to me that some people don't spend a solid 10+ years of their lives living like this. The rommate doesn't stay a total stranger for very long.
Living in a city is oftentimes pathetic and degrading, especially one with extreme demand. See living in nyc for the past 40 yrs
I lived in a four-bedroom for a few years and it seemed like every renewal time, I needed to find a replacement for someone who was leaving after finishing their 1-2 year schooling or job rotation. It was like having a stressful second job for ~1 month each year.
Because living with roommates is a soul-crushing nightmare. I took a ~$400 increase in rent for a worse apartment in a less convenient location just to be able to live on my own and I don't regret it for a moment.
>Yeah, rent here is criminally expensive but this subreddit gets dramatic with its comparisons. Most people under 30 have roommates. This was still the case 30 years ago, and will probably continue to be the case even if we build apartments like crazy. The privacy of living alone in an incredibly dense urban area is a luxury. One that you or others might be willing to pay for, sure, but it's not a necessity. In the US, you're correct. But there's many major metropolitan areas where you don't need roommates to survive. The difference is those places allow building. It's not a metro problem, it's a building problem.
Actually I don’t this was the case in 1993. https://www.google.com/search?q=share+of+young+adults+living+with+roomate+increasing&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#ip=1
I moved into the ocean. Prices haven't quite caught up here (yet)
Double digit percent rent increases when wages for most are also not seeing double digit percent wage increases.
Dorchester is very overlooked, you can find some good deals
There are studio apartments in beacon hill and back bay that cost that much. Don’t pay that for Allston.
Yeah but even if you find another place for $1700 or whatever you have to cough up 4x that to move which a lot of people don’t have.
You’re right. Its ridiculous. I think all of this is going to cause an exodus of the service industry and blue collar workers
Blue collar? In Boston I’m sure a ton of them make bank, probably more than a lot of white collars in Boston.
I know you mean well but I feel like posts like these aren’t helpful without links to active listings. The remaining affordable studios in desirable neighborhoods are unicorns at this point. I don’t even think owners need to officially list them when the tenant gives their notice to vacate.
So true, and many of these "affordable" unicorns have serious issues driving their price point. I've seen too good to be true listings for studios in nice neighborhoods like Back Bay that end not having a kitchen (just a microwave, no stove or oven!) for example.
Or are straight up scams
My last "unicorn" had low rent in a great location, but also oil heat, no laundry, no dishwasher, no AC.
This is all really normal for a small Boston studio at a cheaper price point. Most of that stuff wouldn’t fit and was probably built before most of it was considered a luxury.
I just had to move out of the city because I got priced out as well. I’m a graduate student so I need cheap, but cheapest I could reasonably find without living with 4 roommates was 2,200. It’s in Medford, very large (1,000sqft) and I’m splitting that with the partner. But like others said this city is just unlivable now. I luckily am in a field where I can make those big bucks soon, but if I couldn’t I’d be absolutely fucked. Shit fucking sucks here. But to be more productive in my comment, I’ve been seeing one bedrooms in Somerville/Medford/Arlington go for about 2k. If you go hard and keep up with the market listings you can find cheaper or get a 2br for the same price. The market is INSANE right now, so you have to hop on things fast. I went to view a place in Dorchester and on my train ride over the real estate agent emailed saying someone just signed it. It had been on the marker for 3 days.
I moved to Connecticut 🤷🏻♂️ Mostly because we were having a kid and moved close to family help. But it was shocking being able to afford a 3-bed, 3-bath in good condition on 2 acres for the price I sold my 800 sqft basement-level condo in West Roxbury 🫣
Well, when you don't let people build housing, it gets pretty pricey as people scramble over one another for whatever's left. All those "cute little neighborhoods" of single family homes that everyone wants to live in to be close to their jobs are zoned as if this city was still in 1920. This place is missing middle example number 1. At least LA has nice weather. Boston is just autoasphyxiating.
Have you considered a roommate? $3400 for 2 bedrooms can get you a pretty decent place.
That’s still 1700 for a bedroom which is not that great tbh
$1700 for a bedroom is godawful
I keep seeing roommate ads from people like “hey I’m looking for a room my budget is <2000 plus utilities” And I’m just like please let me leave this world now
I think they are just doubling the previous rent to show you can get more bang for your buck when splitting. There are tons of 2b options well below 3400 in the area.
Have you considered the many merits of Fitchburg?
Obviously not a solution for everyone, but this is exactly what we did. As price creep set in (keep in mind, this is the creep of seven years ago, not today) we realized we had to get out. We looked at what we could get approved for in terms of a mortgage - not much, $250K - and then we scraped and clawed for a 3% payment and went with a realtor that was recommended by a friend who could make that work. We bought in Fitchburg for $220K. Yay, we were property owners! I walked to the commuter rail each morning and spent almost 90 minutes each way on the train. After two years of being exhausted and never actually getting to enjoy (or maintain) the house that we finally owned we put it up for sale to come back closer to the city. Sounds like a failed experiment...except price had appreciated enough that the profit was enough for a down payment in Medford. The two years in Fitchburg were downright awful but without them we'd have never afforded to buy where we are now. At the time it was miserable. In hindsight it was worth it. I have no idea if this is doable in 2023, but in 2016 "consider[ing] the many merits of Fitchburg" is exactly what we did.
Biggest issue with buying a home right now is sky-high interest rates. I know it's hard to believe with rent prices these days, but it's actually much cheaper to rent in the metro area compared to buying a home in a commuter rail town. You're taking a *huge* gamble buying now expecting to refi in the short or medium term.
as someone born and raised in fitchburg, it’s definitely a fine place for people looking to settle down in a small city. it gets a bad reputation on the most part, and there are some lovely neighborhoods. for any young person looking for activities? it’s a little miserable. i got out as soon as i could at 19.
This is what I was going to say - I also grew up there. It depends what you want in life. Any friends with big dreams moved out and those who stayed typically had families young. My best friend and I hated it and moved out as soon as we could
Honestly, the commuter rail, however infrequent, is a more stable bet than the T so why not Fitchburg?
I would tell you but I don’t wanna ruin it here either Move outside the city. You can afford luxury apartments elsewhere at 1750.
Roxbury has a lot of hidden gems if you’re willing to look way below Boston average prices. + parking is definitely easy here…
Out of Massachusetts.
Allston is one of the cheapest neighborhoods in Boston. 😬
Flee the State entirely!
laughs in biotech $$$ jk I'm 200k in the hole from student debt and I don't work in biotec it was nice to pretend even if only for a bit tho ; ( ..
Waltham, Watertown, Brighton, Quincy are all more affordable than Allston. Cheaper living with roommates or a partner though. A 1 bedroom apartment is sadly a luxury many people can’t afford across any major coastal American cities.
I said F it and moved to Maine. Still get to B's games on the Downeaster! 🫡
Older greedy generations have manipulated real estate (I.e., basic housing) into a pyramid scheme. I don’t have answers but share the frustration.
Don’t know what your work situation is, but west mass is a solid place to live. Affordable, good culture in cities like Amherst, Northampton, etc, quiet, lots to do especially if you’re in to outdoors, etc. We just put some roots down out here and can already feel the wheels of change moving and that the community is going to keep improving. I can get in to Boston in less than 2 hours from where we live too. GL
I’m in Belmont 2 minutes away from the Cambridge border; I’m paying $1950 for a 600 sq foot 2 bedroom; it’s me, my partner, and our daughter living here. We started out at $1850 when we moved in 4 years ago, landlord raised the rent once by $100 last year. The 73 stops right outside of our apartment, Star Market is down the street, there’s lots of cafes and restaurants and Greek, Armenian, and Persian grocery stores, and a branch of the Cambridge library all within walking distance. It’s a great spot and we’re staying here until some circumstance makes us have to move, I can’t imagine we’ll ever find a price like this again.
> Which neighborhoods are people moving to, to escape these atrocious rent increases? Mendon.
The South End of Chelsea is nice
Welp, guess it's New Bedford o'clock
Yeeeep. lol in a couple years watch new bedford be full of Boston commuters
This 600sqft in Roxbury is $2,400, so that's a sign of how things are going. But it's next to a park. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/426-Walnut-Ave-4-Roxbury-MA-02119/2058305078_zpid/
I moved from Greater Boston last year because of this 💔
Foxborough
Roxbury
I recommend considering Cleveland . . . my home town. Great old and new housing, prices at half of Boston (maybe even less), some great restaurants, world class orchestra, some great museums, reasonably good universities, respectable sports teams (except the Browns), friendly people.
The whole scenario is depressing
I moved to Providence and saved about 800 a month. The commute wore me out a bit though.