Boston-area apartment rents: Don't look in Cambridge, Boston, and Brookline for deals

Waltham’s median one- and two-bedroom apartment rents both increased by double-digit percentages from March 2018 to March 2019, according to a new report from real estate listings site Zumper.

That made the western Boston neighbor one of the more expensive of the 16 municipalities in the Boston area that the Zumper report tracked. And that report tracked empty and vacant apartments as of late February, so it’s a pretty solid snapshot of the current market.

As for the most expensive municipalities in terms of median one- and two-bedroom apartments, those were familiar: Cambridge, Boston proper, and Brookline.

But it’s the increases in fourth-place Waltham that really stand out. The one-bedroom median was up 15.8 percent annually to $2,120 a month, and the median two-bedroom was up 11.5 percent to $2,520. Both figures were unchanged month to month.

No. 5 most expensive Somerville—see chart below from Zumper—also saw annual rent increases. Those median rents increased month to month there. Also of note: The median rent for a Quincy one-bedroom was up 12.9 percent year over year to $1,930.