Influx of students, young professionals moving to Boston sends rental prices skyrocketing

BOSTON — Boston is about to get a whole lot busier.

As tens of thousands of students descend onto Boston for the upcoming Fall semester, many young professionals are also returning to the city for their September 1st leases.

On Wednesday, students began moving into their dorm rooms at Boston University.

“I’m excited and nervous. Stressed to unpack all my stuff,” said incoming Freshman Lillian Mayer of Newton.

According to real estate experts, the influx of people has been pushing the demand for rentals sky-high.

“I think that all of those young adults that have been living at home during the pandemic are ready to get out on their own and find their own space,” said Amy Ziskin, a realtor at Compass.

Ziskin told Boston 25 that the housing market in Boston has been more aggressive than ever, with prices flying back up from pandemic levels.

Lower-end studios, she said, are going between $1400-$1800 per month.

“There were empty apartments, and so what they ended up doing was incentives. They were giving one month free, no rental fee, which is unprecedented in this area,” she said. “Those deals are gone. Now we’re seeing 4, 5 applications, same day that the rental comes out. And renters are even offering more money per month to make their application look more attractive.”

Many are now struggling to find anything affordable.

Daniel Golov is one renter who was stunned by how competitive the housing market had become.

“Every place you look at it taken off the market within 3-4 hours, so I was sending them to my brother and as soon as he would look at them, he’d be like oh. It’s already off the market.”

Golov told Boston 25 he also felt he was the target of bait and switch scams.

“Websites like apartments.com or apartmentfinder.com, any of those generic apartment finding websites, you have these realtors posting these beautiful apartments that are modern and up to date, and not too expensive. So pretty much they want you to look at them and click it and contact them, but pretty much all of them would be like oh yah, we actually just leased that out five hours ago. Here’s something that’s similar but not as nice and just as expensive. So you’re kind of just getting scammed in like a bait and switch almost.”

His advice to renters who are still looking to move into the city, is move on a place quickly.

“If you find something you like, make sure you get the application in fast and put the money down right away. Because if you don’t, someone else will.”

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