Many people feel that renting in the Boston area is expensive. However, according to some researchers, Boston is not the most competitive rental market in Massachusetts.
Forbes website’s consulting column released a survey report this month, analyzing the rental markets of the 75 most populous urban areas in the United States, ranking Worcester, Massachusetts as the 3rd most competitive rental market.
“With extremely low vacancy rates and some of the hardest-to-find rental units, tenants in the Worcester urban area are facing a difficult rental market,” the report said.
The Worcester urban area mentioned in the report includes Worcester County in Massachusetts and Windham County in northeastern Connecticut. The vacancy rate for rental properties in this area is less than 2%, the second lowest in the region studied. Meanwhile, there are only 94 available rental units per 100,000 housing units in the area, far below the regional average of 240 units.
The report states that the median rent in the Worcester urban area is $1995, lower than the overall median of $1804 for the region studied.
The Boston-Cambridge-Newton urban area ranks 14th in this rental market competitiveness report.
At the bottom of the rankings in this report is the Baltimore urban area, with a median rent of $1500.
Factors considered in the report include: number of available rental properties, rental vacancy rates, one-year change in rental vacancy rates, number of new housing permits, rental changes from 2023 to 2024, median rent, percentage of expected renters, and the ratio of renter-occupied housing units to owner-occupied housing units.