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Boston Apartment Rents 4th Highest In Nation

BOSTON (CBS) - Many people in Boston have long believed it was expensive to rent an apartment in Greater Boston. But WBZ business reporter Jeff Brown reports it's about the most expensive place in America.

The average rent in Boston for the most recent quarter is $1939 a month.

Commercial real estate research firm REIS conducts the quarterly survey and senior economist Ryan Severino says he hasn't seen anything quite like this market in years.

"This is a very unusual time in terms of how strong the apartment market is, you don't see this very often," Severino says.

Try the "dot-com" years but rents are in fact grabbing a bigger chunk of workers' paychecks, that's good for some.

"It depends on whose perspective," Severino says. "If you're a landlord, it's one of the best performers. If you're a tenant I'm not sure you're thrilled with that outcome."

Boston ranks fourth in the country for most expensive rents. The only other markets in the country which are in that vicinity are New York, San Francisco/San Jose and Fairfield County, Connecticut.

When is it going to stop?

"Rents continue to hit increasingly record high nominal levels," Severino says. "At some point they probably won't continue to keep growing at this pace, they're going to have to slow down. I think it's just a question of when at this point."

Let's drill down on the numbers a bit. So your rent costs about $2000 dollars on average, right?

"That's an effective rent, which means after any sort of concession that the landlord might be giving you," Severino says. "The one caveat is that these are competitive market rate rentals so it doesn't include and rent controlled or rent stabilized."

And while supply is tight, more is being pumped into the market.

"Some of the increase that we've seen has come from new construction," Severino says. "In order to justify the cost of building, the rents tend to be higher than market averages."

But Boston is a hot property these days.

"This is the reality of the situation. It's true in Boston and New York and the big California metros as well it's just there's a demand to be in markets like that and people are willing to pay for it."

Welcome to the big city.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Jeff Brown reports

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