Affordable housing is not just a good idea. It is essential to a functioning economy. Eastern Massachusetts’s economy runs on hospitals, colleges, and businesses. They employ tech workers, building construction and maintenance workers, and many young professional workers. There is a chronic problem with recruiting nurses and entry level professionals because of the cost of housing here.

There are multiple chronic problems with creating affordable housing for undergraduates, recent grads, and grad students. If there is not enough affordable housing for the emerging technically trained workers, they will decamp to cities that welcome them after graduation.

People who are not in high-paying jobs don’t have a prayer of keeping up with high housing costs. Here is a quick survey of posted average prices for apartments. You can go Google around and see for yourself. The figures here vary a bit.

What is affordable? Someone who is paying 40 percent or less of their monthly income for their rent needs to earn a solid professional-level income to rent in Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Newton, Watertown, and a number of towns and cities not listed. To live there, your household income has to exceed $100,000 a year to not be overburdened. If we are using 40 percent of your income as a guide, $100,000 a year equals a housing cost (including utilities) of no more than $3300 a month. 

  • The first site that popped up had an average rental price list of Boston and surrounding  towns and cities. These, notably, do not include suburban towns like Arlington, Belmont, and such, which have smaller populations:

Boston $3,970

Fall River $1,853

Worcester $1,819

Cambridge $3,658

Somerville $3,504

Quincy $2,772

Lowell $2,124

New Bedford $1,835

Weymouth Town $2,426

Salem $2,793

Waltham $3,095

Brockton $1,861

Medford $3,308

Lynn $2,058

Malden $2,568

Newton $3,520

Chelsea $2,650

Melrose $3,058

Watertown $3,237

Revere $2,662

Woburn $2,650

  • This site had some additional interesting data:

The Boston average there was $3,549.

A total of 17 zip codes have an average rent that is lower than that.

The zip code with the most affordable average rent for apartment listings is 02169, Quincy, MA at $2,599 per month.

In comparison, the zip code with the most expensive average rent of $4,350 per month is 02116, Boston, MA.

Studios in these zip codes have an average rent of $2,465. That’s at least $55 per square foot. Do you need more space than that?

Average rent for one-bedroom rentals for the zip codes in or near Boston, MA is $2,907 per month. Or in other words, $53 per square foot.

Meanwhile, two-bedroom apartments will cost you an average of $3,616 per month. Which comes out to $44 per square foot.

As of February 2023, the average apartment rent in Boston, MA is $2,682 for a studio, $3,215 for one bedroom, $4,105 for two bedrooms, and $5,517 for three bedrooms.

The rental housing and the people in it

New construction:

Unsurprisingly, companies that are building residential housing are doing it to make a profit. They would not do the work unless it was profitable. The housing that is being built is – for the most part – as high end as zoning will allow. Apartments have all the whistles and bells. Houses are as big as the lot allows or holds as many condos as the lot allows.

The rental of these luxury units drives up those averages that you saw above. The more luxury buildings created, the more expensive all rentals in town get.

“I think the evidence is pretty clear that when a neighborhood starts to have luxury housing, that causes the land values to go up around it. And as a result, the rents start to go up,” said Eloise Lawrence, a housing attorney with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.” [WGBH News]

Student and young professionals. Families with children:

Metro Boston is an area with a big student population. Many live off-campus, so they are competing for rentals along with people who are not going to school here. Students and other young adults are more likely to live in larger apartments – with one person per bedroom – so they can share the cost between more people. Each one is spending less than if they were renting a one-bedroom apartment.

These roommates may have a higher collective incomes than some families with children, where there are fewer working adults. This squeezes the inventory for renting families with children as well as for young adults entering the workforce.

See the problem? What is the road to a solution?

Between the overall housing shortage and the chronic competition between working families with children and young adults entering the workforce, there is an enormous need for some sort of change.

Some towns and cities already have requirements that some of the newly built rental units and condos are set aside for affordable housing (either rented at a lower rate or sold at a lower rate). This is called “inclusionary housing.”

Some towns and cities are seeking to create a transfer fee; that is an additional fee for affordable housing collected on real estate sales over a set amount. These funds are typically used for affordable housing.

Some are seeking the right to create rent stabilization (ordinances that govern the rate of rent increases allowed in that municipality).