Rentals in burbs grow faster than in Boston
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Boston is one of five U.S. metro areas where the suburbs are gaining renters faster than the city itself is.
Why it matters: The increase in suburban renters is the latest sign that it has gotten harder to find affordable housing in Boston, per a new report from rental listings website Point2Homes.
State of play: Suburban rental households near Boston rose by nearly 26,000 between 2018 and 2023, a 7% increase, per the report.
- The number of urban renter households increased by 12,000, or 5%, during that time.
- In the Dallas, Minneapolis, Tampa and Baltimore areas, the growth of the rental markets in the suburbs also outpaced that of the cities'.
Yes, but: Multifamily housing construction is at a 10-year low across the Boston region, per a market report analyzing multifamily rentals from real estate brokerage Colliers.
- The region had just 11,000 units underway at the end of the first quarter of 2025, including 2,493 in Boston.
- The share of units available for rent dropped to 4.4%, about half of the share that was available at the start of 2020.
Zoom in: Other factors contributing to suburban renting are remote work and the high cost of homeownership.
- Young professionals with lower incomes have given up on buying due to cost, especially in the city, where median home sale prices are inching closer to seven figures.
Reality check: Boston workers who move farther away face their own set of challenges, depending on their distance from the city and access to reliable public transit options.
- While other regions, like North Jersey, have built consistent transit networks outside city centers, Greater Boston "struggles with limited service frequency and fragmented development," a report from Boston Indicators published in March states.
- For many, the alternative is to sit in highway traffic and then fight through city traffic two or three days a week.