These are the Boston-area towns where it’s cheaper to buy than rent
We all know rents are high in Boston. At the beginning of 2016, the city ranked as having the fourth highest rents in the country.
In a new Trulia report, the home-buying site finds that buying a home in the Boston area is 33.7 percent cheaper than renting, which falls short of the national average of 34.8 percent. (You can view the interactive map here.)
“It is an overwhelmingly better deal to buy than to rent,” Ralph McLaughlin, Trulia’s chief economist, told Boston.com. “[But] there is a lot of variation within the Boston area.”
That range is anywhere from 60 percent, like in Chelsea, down to 4 or 5 percent, as in Winchester and Belmont.
Even in other major metro areas, there isn’t this much variation, according to McLaughlin.
“Boston is a very dynamic metro area,” McLaughlin said. “It has a fairly dense urban hub that is popular among young people, which has driven up rents. [It is] also surrounded by a very suburban type of urban landscape and is popular among homeowners.”
Here are some of the towns in the region with the highest percentage of savings from buying compared with renting:
- Chelsea (median home value: $270,054 / median rent $2,350) is 59.8 percent cheaper to buy than rent.
- Revere (median home value: $312,367 / median rent $2,400) is 51.9 percent cheaper to buy than rent.
- Brockton (median home value: $224,654 / median rent $1,750) is 48.1 percent cheaper to buy than rent.
- Boston (median home value: $476,485 / median rent $2,550) is 40.6 percent cheaper to buy than rent.
- Quincy (median home value: $373,558 / median rent $2,300) is 37.0 percent cheaper to buy than rent.
- Brookline (median home value: $730,509 / median rent $3,200) is 26.9 percent cheaper to buy than rent.
- Needham (median home value: $784,142 / median rent $3,524) is 25.5 percent cheaper to buy than rent.
- Wellesley (median home value: $1,139,140 / median rent $4,925) is 17.6 percent cheaper to buy than rent.
“If the boom in multifamily construction continues, that might have a downward pressure on rents,” McLaughlin said. “It would push the math a little more in favor [of renting].”
McLaughlin also noted that the percent savings for buying versus renting for retirees increases even further, as in the Boston area, it is 41.5 percent cheaper to buy than rent.
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