Greater Boston fifth most expensive market - for renters
Now how's that for a double whammy?
Despite the housing downturn, the Boston area still has some of the highest home prices in the country.
Now, with the exodus of homeowners into the rental market, we have some of highest apartment rents as well.
Greater Boston is No. 5 in the country, behind only New York and its suburbs and San Francisco, the Globe reports, citing a new survey by Somerville-based RentalBeast.com.
The median price of an apartment within the I-495 beltway hit $1,665 in the second quarter, setting a new record.
The rental market, until recently, had been a fairly safe place to wait out the turmoil in home sales and prices.
But now it looks less than ideal.
Of course, leave it to the housing experts to try and find some sort of silver lining to this mess.
One suggests that at least it shows life in the economy. For landlords, yes, this has to be a field day.
But for the rest of us, it's the same old story. Years of underbuilding here in Greater
Boston has created an artificial floor that has kept real estate prices high, whether it's homes for sale or apartments for rent.
Unless you get a kick out of paying an outsized portion of your income on a mortgage or rent, it's hard to see how this is particularly good news.
