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With the rental market strengthening in Greater Boston, the median monthly rent and the monthly mortgage payment on the median newly-bought home are nearly equal, according to a National Association of Realtors analysis.
NAR calculated the median mortgage payment for the Boston metropolitan statistical area – which includes Rockingham County in New Hampshire plus Massachusetts’ Bristol County – at $2,534.50. At the same time, citing CoStar data, the NAR analysis pegged the region’s median monthly asking rent at $2,494.90.
Elsewhere in Massachusetts, the mortgage-to-rent ratio was similar. For the Worcester metropolitan statistical area – a combination of Worcester County in Massachusetts and Windham County in Connecticut – those figures were $1,442.40 and $1,631.60, respectively, creating a mortgage-to-rent ratio of 0.9 . For the three-county Pioneer Valley area, they were $1,109.60 and $1,224.1, yielding the same ratio. In Berkshire County, however, they were $1,230 and $1,030.50, generating a mortgage-to-rent ratio of 1.2.
In total, NAR’s analysis means it is cheaper to rent than buy in only one part of the state even as home prices sit at record highs, potentially giving those who can still afford to buy a home another reason to do so, for now. Apartment listings portal site Apartment List’s most recent analysis of September asking rents showed the median asking rent on a two-bedroom unit in the city of Boston was up 2 percent from August to September, and up over 14 percent on a year-over-year basis last month. Suburban communities like Marlborough, Quincy, Medford and Waltham saw similar trends, with only Malden (9.1 percent) and Lowell (8.7 percent) posting year-over-year price gains below 10 percent, even if just barely.
