City rents show signs of stabilizing
Rental prices are still on the rise in Boston but are slowing — “good news” for tenants and a sign that efforts to ramp up building “is starting to satiate some of the demand” for housing, officials and experts said.
“It’s really because of all the development. We’re adding to the (housing) supply and starting to satiate some of the demand,” said Jason Gell, president of the Greater Boston Association of Realtors.
Last year marked the lowest year-over-year increase in housing rental prices since 2014. Rental prices increased an average of 1.3% citywide in 2019 — less than half as much as the year before — an “encouraging milestone” Mayor Martin Walsh said indicates housing prices are stabilizing in neighborhoods across Boston.
“The stabilization of rents across our neighborhoods demonstrates our housing plan in action,” Walsh said. “We know housing is the cornerstone of creating more opportunities for all, and we will continue our work producing and preserving housing for our residents.” The city has permitted over 23,000 new rental units throughout the city — 24 percent of which are affordable to low- and middle-income households since Walsh took office and embarked on an aggressive plan to increase housing production in Boston. His administration aims to create 69,000 new homes by 2030 and has pledged $500 million over the next five years to create and preserve thousands of rental units across Boston that are affordable to households with low- and middle-incomes.
“Boston appears to be bucking the national trend with slowing increases in rents that seems clearly linked to the substantial increase in the City’s supply of new apartments in recent years,” Chris Herbert, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, said in a statement.
Across U.S. rental markets and in greater Boston as a whole, rents are rising faster than inflation, market data shows.
“This report shows that building more homes helps to stabilize prices, and that’s good news,” said Marc Draisen, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the regional planning agency for Greater Boston, noting the region still has “a long way to go.”
Gell of the Greater Boston
Real Estate Board said other metro-area communities need to “rethink their density and zoning” to allow for more units to keep up with housing demand.
Gov. Charlie Baker’s housing solutions package includes a bill that would make it easier for communities around Boston to open up local zoning to allow for the kind of high-density housing Gell said the region needs to keep up with demand.
The Legislature is considering a handful of other bills — ranging from rent control measures to levying taxes on real estate sales — that would give local communities more tools to raise money to build affordable housing.