Boston-area apartment rents in May: Cambridge, Boston most expensive

Cambridge, Boston, and Brookline were the most expensive Boston-area municipalities for leasing a one- or a two-bedroom apartment at the start of May, according to a new report from real estate listings site Zumper.

The site tracked its vacant and available apartments as of the end of April, and processed median rents for 16 Boston-area municipalities.

The results were familiar: Cambridge, Boston, and Brookline often top the monthly rankings of the region’s pricier apartment markets. May 2019 was no different. The median one-bedroom rents in each of the three municipalities was at least $2,400 a month, and the median two-bedroom was at least $2,800.

As for some semblances of affordability, that meant going farther out. In Quincy, for instance, the one-bedroom median was more than $600 cheaper than in Cambridge (the Red Line services both cities, each on the other side of Boston).

The good news for tenants in the Zumper report is that the monthly and yearly fluctuations in median rents were not all that significant generally across the board. See the chart from the report below for a sharper breakdown.