Our pals at Trulia are out with a new report that's delightful for landlords and grim for tenants, especially those fated to apartment-hunt this summer (God bless and keep you). Greater Boston saw its apartment asking rents increase 10.3 percent annually in June, according to the report; that was not only a hefty increase in and of itself, but crested the annual increase netted in March (8.6 percent). The Hub, in fact, rivaled spots like the Bay Area in annual increases.
These jumps in asking rents gel with other trends we've noted in the rental market: the uptick in trading of triple-deckers; sellers keen on holding out by renting out; and the just plain ghastly rents recorded in various neighborhoods, whether toward downtown Boston or farther away. Worse (again, for tenants, not landlords) is that all the new apartment construction is either years from being completed and/or will not do much to bring rents down. The only silver lining for existing tenants might be that it back-of-the-envelop seems cheaper to stay put and pay 10 percent more than to pay moving costs plus new rent. It's the prospective tenants that these increases fall heaviest on.
· Rent Increases Outpace Modest Home Price Rises [Trulia]
· The Cheapest, Priciest Areas to Rent an Apartment in the Hub [Curbed Boston]
· Rent Effect: Triple-Decker Trading Heats Up [Curbed Boston]
· Boston's 5,000 New Apartments Won't Mean Lower Rents [Curbed Boston]