We’ve heard that Boston rents are pricey… and figure $500 more if there is offstreet parking.
FaceTiming with ds2 right now. He says a good-sized studio (650-700 sqft) in Nashville can run $1,400-$1,750, depending on the area. He shares a 950 sf duplex with a roommate and takes the smaller room so he pays $900. He is cheap that way.
ETA: They also have an unfinished basement for space and had an intern living down there this summer. lol
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Post COVID Boston and Cambridge, as well as suburbs and exurbs have seen rents skyrocket.
I get listings every morning and am starting to see a few green arrows down, indicating decreases. But the rents for apartments already taken won’t go down.
For years my daughter in LA does that, she’s the smaller room and pays less than the roommate. But the roommate is a buddy from her sorority. They used to room 4x1 at her sorority.
My daughter in Boston moved during the pandemic and got a great deal on her apartment. Early this year when she heard what her new rent might be she started shopping for a new apartment. Well, her current apartment’s new rent (which was about a 10% increase), turned out to still be a bargain. She would have had to pay big moving costs (one month broker fee included) to end up in a not as nice apartment for just a few dollar less a month rent. Boston studios at $2,600 are in those luxury buildings (basically any managed building like AVA, etc.) During the pandemic those were really a steal (giving you 1-2 months free and no broker fee), but they came back even higher once the market turned around.
Many of her friends have saved money on rent by living a little out of the city (Malden, etc.) and by having roommates. Since she lives alone, she was very isolated during the pandemic. But, she had such horrible roommates in college that she never wants to live with others again.
We are renting a 55+ apartment outside of Boston (south shore on the commuter rail). Our rent went up about 15% (really more as our first year lease had a free month).
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If your D was used to sharing a bedroom with three others, then she must be thrilled to have her own room, regardless of size!
My children both live with others, both for the camaraderie and to keep housing costs down. Each person has his/her own bedroom, but they share the rest of the apartment.
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The broker fees in Boston killed me because the broker didn’t do anything other than unlock the door for the viewing and forward the paperwork to the landlord for approval. My son must have viewed a dozen listings with ten brokers, all that he found himself by searching online.
I was amazed that so many of the brokers only seemed to have one apartment to show.
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@CT1417, she only shared for 2 years at sorority. After she graduated she had her own room. Amazingly she’s still friends with all of them. They get together frequently except for the one in London.
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I knew from your comment that the quad was while living in the sorority. I am still friends many decades later with the women I shared a triple with in my house. Lifelong friendships.
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Yea, we were surprised about how things work in Boston. But… if a real estate agent, on average, needs to deal with a dozen potential renters I can see why the landlords don’t want to deal with it. And, ha, why should they when the Boston custom is for the renters to pay the commission.
I don’t seem to currently have all the features at the bottom of each post. Can’t give a thumbs up on posts???
Anyway, my ds shared a apartment in L.A. and then a 4/3 house. He always chose the smaller room to save some money. The four guys living in the 4/3 house were not given an option to renew their lease. I believe the owners were planning to sell it when the lease was up.
Ds is now in grad school and will be until June 2024. I’m kinda glad his on-campus housing is a known quantity this year. We will see about his second year. They have a tradition of pass-down houses for MBA 2’s.
EDIT: He and his friends always had to have their paperwork and proof of salaries ready to go anytime they looked at a property. Always competitive to rent a house in L.A.
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Oh, I completely understand why the landlord would not have any interest in showing the apartments, but I had expected that a broker would have more than one apt to show on a given day. Very fragmented, or so it seemed.
The thumbs up keeps disappearing on me also, replaced by a smiley face. It usually returns when I hit refresh.
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Refreshing doesn’t do it for me??? I’ve tried that.
I think there might be a lag after you post and the like thumb to appear. I can’t even edit mine after I post, I have to wait for a while.
Oh no! That’s my only trick.
My browser is SO out of date that I am amazed I have any functionality. There is a message across the top informing me that CC is going to stop supporting my old version of Safari soon.
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Things in Boston have changed in the past two years. When my daughter found her current apartment she had a broker who set up all the viewing for her and communicated with the listing broker. The deal was that she got half the broker fee and the listing broker got the other half. This year no listing broker wanted to share their fee and would basically ignore calls and texts from another broker. My daughter had to contact every listing broker herself and set up the viewing with them. Almost all of the brokers she contacted would try and show her several apartments in a day (unlike what @CT1417 experienced.) There was also a lot of bait and switch, oh that one you saw online is gone already, fill out my form and I will show you others instead.
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This summer was my son’s first experience with Boston. As you commented above, my son scheduled every appt on his own, and sometimes the brokers ran late, making a showing impossible.
No one tried the bait & switch and he never filled out any paperwork until he applied for the apt he ended up renting. He is hoping the search will be easier for the next apt, as he will be living there and able to run over to see something immediately, assuming he moves out of his current place.
OlderS lived with roommates in SV and lived like a college student. Banked enough to buy a house before his 30th birthday. First apartment in Sunnyvale was 650 sq ft 1BR, $1700/mo split between two people in 2012. He was in apartments with a bedroom and bath for each person, which helped preserve relationships and was more affordable for his non-software engineer apartment mates.
ExpatS is back in the US visiting and is stunned at what’s happened to DC suburb prices over the past four years he’s been overseas. He was paying $400/mo for a nice 2BR in the capital city where he lived earlier this year, and despite evacuating to another city during wartime, rent on his new place is the same. He and GF are here to figure out where to live long-term. Overseas is looking better and better.
Suspect they may wind up doing a hybrid of here and there, and living with us during the US portion. I’m not opposed.
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And now everything is present and working fine for me!
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