How much space can $1,500 a month get you in each Boston neighborhood?
Boston residents get less room for their money than nearly any other major U.S. city. Find where your dollar stretches the most.
When it comes to rent in Boston, it’s no surprise that your dollar doesn’t cover very much ground.
A recent report from RentCafe found that $1,500 covers only 340 square feet of space in Boston — smaller than nearly all of the one-bedroom or studio apartments the city has to offer.
Boston residents get less room for their money than any other major city in the country, save for Manhattan, where $1,500 scores a mere 262 square feet. The report, which looked at data from the 100 largest U.S. cities, found that those in the South and Midwest offered significantly more space than their East and West Coast counterparts. California alone had 11 cities in the bottom 20, while an apartment in Wichita, Kan., that goes for $1,500 a month could fit six Manhattan units at the same price point inside it.
Although the cost per square foot seems high in the Hub, it’s actually an improvement from years past. The same amount of money adjusted for inflation would get a Boston renter just 330 square feet in 2019 and only 319 in 2015, according to RentCafe’s data.
Related An in-depth look at the Massachusetts rental market (April edition)
How much space you get also depends on where in the city you live. According to data from ApartmentAdvisor, listings for $1,500 or less are hard to come by in Boston. As of March, less than a quarter (23.5%) of all listings in the city cost $1,500 or less, and in several neighborhoods — the Seaport, South End, Roslindale, Downtown, Hyde Park, and the West End — there were no listings to be found within that range last month. Anyone hoping to live in these neighborhoods on a tight budget would probably need to look for a bigger place where they could share the cost with a roommate or two.
For those looking to live in a studio or one-bedroom on a budget, the best bet is Allston, Brighton, or Mission Hill, according to the data, where $1,500 will get 335, 376, and 382 square feet, respectively.
Though some other neighborhoods have a lower cost per square foot, they don’t offer as many smaller, less expensive apartments. Dorchester, West Roxbury, and Hyde Park have the lowest cost per square foot, for example, but Hyde Park had no listings for $1,500 in March, and only 0.4% of all the listings in Dorchester and 1.2% in West Roxbury were within that limit.
Here’s how much space you can get in several Boston neighborhoods, based on the median price per square foot of a one-bedroom apartment:
| Neighborhood | Median Price Per Sq. Ft. |
Square Feet Per $1,500 |
Median Area |
| Seaport | $5.32 | 282 | 740 |
| Beacon Hill | $4.82 | 311 | 549 |
| Fenway | $4.73 | 317 | 630 |
| Back Bay | $4.67 | 321 | 669 |
| Downtown | $4.62 | 325 | 750 |
| North End | $4.56 | 329 | 596 |
| South End* | $4.50 | 333 | 702 |
| South Boston | $4.43 | 339 | 721 |
| West End | $4.30 | 349 | 806 |
| Mission Hill | $4.26 | 352 | 600 |
| Charlestown | $4.01 | 374 | 709 |
| Allston | $3.83 | 392 | 645 |
| East Boston | $3.56 | 421 | 648 |
| Brighton | $3.38 | 444 | 600 |
| Jamaica Plain | $3.25 | 462 | 688 |
| Roslindale | $3.23 | 464 | 575 |
| Roxbury | $3.18 | 472 | 750 |
| Dorchester | $3.08 | 487 | 658 |
| West Roxbury | $2.72 | 552 | 690 |
| Hyde Park* | $2.65 | 566 | 650 |
(Note: The price per square foot calculation above is the median cost per square foot for listings that were available in March. Neighborhoods with an * indicate data are based on low inventory and may not be representative.)
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