20 Apartments under $1,600 for rent in Cambridge, MA
January 2020 Cambridge Rent Report
Welcome to the January 2020 Cambridge Rent Report. Cambridge rents remained steady over the past month. In this report, we'll evaluate trends in the Cambridge rental market, including comparisons to cities throughout the metro, state, and nation.
January 2020 Cambridge Rent Report
Welcome to the January 2020 Cambridge Rent Report. Cambridge rents remained steady over the past month. In this report, we'll evaluate trends in the Cambridge rental market, including comparisons to cities throughout the metro, state, and nation.
Cambridge rent trends were flat over the past month
Cambridge rents have remained flat over the past month, however, they have increased moderately by 3.2% year-over-year. Currently, median rents in Cambridge stand at $1,862 for a one-bedroom apartment and $2,309 for a two-bedroom. Cambridge's year-over-year rent growth leads the state average of 2.1%, as well as the national average of 1.4%.
Rents rising across the Boston Metro
Throughout the past year, rent increases have been occurring not just in the city of Cambridge, but across the entire metro. Of the largest 10 cities that we have data for in the Boston metro, 8 of them have seen prices rise. Here's a look at how rents compare across some of the largest cities in the metro.
- Brockton has seen rents fall by 1.4% over the past year, the biggest drop in the metro. It also has the least expensive rents in the Boston metro, with a two-bedroom median of $1,496.
- Somerville has seen the fastest rent growth in the metro, with a year-over-year increase of 4.5%. The median two-bedroom there costs $2,195, while one-bedrooms go for $1,770.
- Cambridge has the most expensive rents of the largest cities in the Boston metro, with a two-bedroom median of $2,309; rents were up 3.2% over the past year but remained flat month-over-month.
Many large cities nationwide show more affordable rents compared to Cambridge
As rents have increased moderately in Cambridge, a few large cities nationwide have also seen rents grow modestly. Compared to most large cities across the country, Cambridge is less affordable for renters.
- Rents increased slightly in other cities across the state, with Massachusetts as a whole logging rent growth of 2.1% over the past year. For example, rents have grown by 1.7% in Worcester.
- Cambridge's median two-bedroom rent of $2,309 is above the national average of $1,192. Nationwide, rents have grown by 1.4% over the past year compared to the 3.2% increase in Cambridge.
- While Cambridge's rents rose moderately over the past year, many cities nationwide also saw increases, including Seattle (+1.8%), DC (+1.6%), and Chicago (+1.4%).
- Renters will generally find more expensive prices in Cambridge than most large cities. For example, Philadelphia has a median 2BR rent of $1,179, where Cambridge is nearly twice that price.
For more information check out our national report. You can also access our full data for cities and counties across the U.S. at this link.
Methodology - Recent Updates:
Data from private listing sites, including our own, tends to skew toward luxury apartments, which introduces sample bias when estimates are calculated directly from these listings. To address these limitations, we’ve recently made major updates to our methodology, which we believe have greatly improved the accuracy and reliability of our estimates.
Read more about our new methodology below, or see a more detailed post here.
Methodology:
Apartment List is committed to making our rent estimates the best and most accurate available. To do this, we start with reliable median rent statistics from the Census Bureau, then extrapolate them forward to the current month using a growth rate calculated from our listing data. In doing so, we use a same-unit analysis similar to Case-Shiller’s approach, comparing only units that are available across both time periods to provide an accurate picture of rent growth in cities across the country.
Our approach corrects for the sample bias inherent in other private sources, producing results that are much closer to statistics published by the Census Bureau and HUD. Our methodology also allows us to construct a picture of rent growth over an extended period of time, with estimates that are updated each month.
Read more about our methodology here.
About Rent Reports:
Apartment List publishes monthly reports on rental trends for hundreds of cities across the U.S. We intend these reports to be a source of reliable information that help renters and policymakers make sound decisions, and we invest significant time and effort in gathering and analyzing rent data. Our work is covered regularly by journalists across the country.
We are continuously working to improve our methodology and data, with the goal of providing renters with the information that they need to make the best decisions.