Boston
A student city with colonial street geometry and a housing calendar that turns over on September 1.
Greater Boston packs more than fifty colleges into a metro area the size of a mid-sized city. That single fact explains the rent cycle, the shared apartments, the triple-deckers and the famous moving day at the start of September.
- Buildings indexed
- 207,524
- Cities in this metro
- 8
- Back Bay built
- 1857 to 1900
Moving day: September 1
Most leases in the student belt start and end here
Back Bay built: 1857 to 1900
On filled tidal flats, which is why the grid is regular
Triple-decker era: 1880 to 1930
Wood-frame three-family houses across the inner suburbs
Transit: The T
Oldest subway in the United States, opened 1897
Buildings indexed across Boston
History and architecture
Boston grew on a peninsula, so its oldest streets follow colonial paths rather than a plan. Back Bay is the exception: it was built on filled tidal flats from 1857 onward, which is why its grid is dead straight while the North End and Beacon Hill wander.
The defining rental building here is the triple-decker, a wooden three-family house with stacked porches, put up in huge numbers between 1880 and 1930 for mill and dock workers. A century later they are the shared apartments that students and young families rent across Dorchester, Somerville, Medford and Malden.
Colonial core
Narrow irregular streets in the North End, Beacon Hill and Charlestown.
Victorian rowhouse
Brick and brownstone in Back Bay and the South End, built on landfill.
Triple-decker
Wood frame, three flats, porches front and back, inner suburbs.
Triple-deckers near Forest Hills. Three stacked apartments in a wooden frame, built for working families between 1880 and 1930, and still the backbone of rentals in Dorchester, Somerville and Medford.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor · Public domainLiving here as a renter
The academic calendar runs the rental market. Leases cluster on September 1, listings appear in the spring for the autumn, and the best stock is gone months before move-in. Budget for the broker fee, which is still common in this market and often equals one month of rent.
Winter matters more than in most of the country. Heating costs, snow clearance responsibility and whether the apartment is on the top floor of an uninsulated wooden house are real financial questions, not details.
Getting around
The T opened in 1897 and is the oldest subway in the country. Four main lines plus the commuter rail reach most of the inner metro, and in Cambridge and Somerville walking and cycling beat driving on almost every short trip.
Parking is the hidden cost. Much of Boston, Cambridge and Somerville is resident-permit only, and a dedicated space can add a meaningful amount to monthly rent.
Economy and who lives where
Universities, hospitals and biotech drive the economy. Kendall Square in Cambridge is the densest biotech cluster in the world, and the Longwood Medical Area is one of the largest hospital districts in the country.
That shapes the neighborhoods: students and postdocs in Allston, Somerville and parts of Medford, young professionals in Cambridge and the South End, families in Newton, Brookline and Quincy.
Questions people ask about Boston
Why do so many Boston leases start on September 1?
The rental calendar follows the academic year. Most student and young-professional leases begin on September 1, which concentrates moving into a single week and makes earlier searching essential.
What is a triple-decker?
A wooden three-storey house with one apartment per floor and stacked porches, built in large numbers between 1880 and 1930. It is still the most common rental building type across Boston's inner suburbs.
Do I have to pay a broker fee in Boston?
Broker fees are still common in the Boston market and frequently equal one month of rent. Ask who pays the fee before you view an apartment.
Photographs, plans and maps on this page come from public archives and are credited to their authors under the licence shown with each image. Figures are taken from public records and from our own building index, and no image on this page is generated.