Boston to Pass San Francisco as a more expensive city for rentals?

According to business insider Boston is getting close to overtaking San Francisco for apartment rentals

• Boston Median 1-bedroom rents in Boston boomed 5% in January to $2,720, according to a new Zumper report.
• Boston rent is now just $130 below San Francisco’s, and recent months suggest the gap will close soon.
• Zumper’s national rent index hit a record-high $1,374, hinting last year’s rally will continue through 2022.

It is possible that Boston takes over the title that San Francisco held for so long in just a few months. Rents in Boston increased by 5% in January, nearly five fold San Francisco’s 1.4% gain. Boston rents are also up 26.5% year-over-year, outpacing the majority of other USA cities and surpassing its California peer’s 6.3% growth.

Apartment rental-market shakeup COVID effect

The US rental-market pandemic shakeup underscores just how differently each coast is recovering from the covid and the shift to remote working.

Residential apartment rentals in East Coast metro areas rebounded in the summer, especially in New York, as the country’s financial sector ordered employees back to their offices.

Remote workers quickly returned to city centers, office spaces were filled again, and rents went up higher. While the covid variant has reversed some of that progress, it hasn’t fueled the same emigration cities faced at the start of the pandemic.