Boston-area rents in December: 16-city survey shows Cambridge, Boston priciest

Cambridge, Boston, and Brookline are the priciest municipalities in the Boston area for renting a one-bedroom apartment as of early December. That is according to an analysis of median asking rents in 16 municipalities from real estate listings site Zumper.

The three are also the most expensive for renting a two-bedroom. Cambridge was the most expensive for both one- and two-bedrooms.

As one might expect in the Thunderdome that is the Boston-area rental market, things get generally less expensive the farther out one gets. The least expensive of the 16 municipalities were Fall River, Brockton, and Lawrence (and Worcester when it comes to two-bedrooms).

Further exacerbating things for tenants, the Zumper analysis also revealed that median rents climbed year-over-year for both apartment types in most of the cities surveyed. Some of the increases were quite dramatic. In Boston, for instance, the median one-bedroom rent was up more than 10 percent annually. See chart below for a bigger breakdown.