PiggyRent

Boston rent report: October 2026

A 1 bedroom in Boston lists for a median $3,100 a month, from 1,970 listed apartments in 992 buildings (listings collected Oct 4, 2026). A 2 bedroom lists for $3,595 (2,222 listings). A 1 bedroom lists for a median $3,253 in Cambridge. Here's what Boston's listings say.

Check my rent

Published · corrected · listings collected Oct 4, 2026 · method · chart and data

Corrected Oct 13, 2026: Single rooms listed as 3- and 4-bedroom units (under 360 sq ft) were taken out, a city whose listings sit mostly in one ZIP code or one building is no longer shown, and the dates now say when the listings were collected rather than a 45-day window.

Share this report

What a Boston apartment lists for.

1 bedroom
$3,100 /momedian of 1,970 listings in 992 buildings
2 bedrooms
$3,595 /momedian of 2,222 listings in 1,358 buildings

Medians of the asking rents on 7,156 apartments listed in 3,523 Boston buildings. Half ask more, half ask less. They are what buildings are asking for a unit today, not what anyone signed.

Boston, city by city.

Median asking rent by bedroom count for each principal city with a rent page, with the number of listings in brackets. A dash means fewer than 10 listings, or listings from one building. Apartment size and age differ from one city to the next, and a small sample moves more than a large one, so read a figure with its count.

CityListingsBuildingsStudio1 bedroom2 bedrooms3 bedrooms
Cambridge, MA1,378642$2,684 (175)$3,253 (458)$3,800 (461)$4,200 (211)
Boston, MA7,1563,523$2,550 (961)$3,100 (1,970)$3,595 (2,222)$3,750 (1,233)

Neighborhood medians are not in this report: the Boston rent pages are built by city, so there is no neighborhood table yet. Each city name above links to its rent page.

Since the last report.

This is the first Boston report, so there is nothing to compare it with yet. The rent data is updated every two weeks and each report is a snapshot of one refresh, so a comparison starts with the report built from the next one.

How we got these numbers, and their limits.

  • Asking rents, not signed leases. Apartments listed on Apartments.com and Zillow, listings collected Oct 4, 2026. Move-in specials aren't taken off.
  • Each apartment counts once, even when both sites list it. The dates above are the days these listings were collected.
  • Market-rate apartments only. Whole houses, furnished units, single rooms let on their own and income-restricted units whose listing says so are left out.
  • Every figure comes from two or more buildings and ten or more listings, and no building is named. A city is shown only when its 1 bedroom listings are spread out: no ZIP code holds more than half of them and no building more than a quarter.
  • A city is every listing with that city's address. There is no metro-wide figure here, and no neighborhood figure.
  • Listings lean toward large, professionally managed buildings, which list many units at once. Small landlords are under-represented.
  • The full method.

Chart and data for this report.

Free to publish with a credit to PiggyRent (piggyrent.com). The chart carries its own sample size and dates. Questions, or a cut of the data we haven't published: hello@piggyrent.com.

Bar chart: median asking rent for a 1 and 2 bedroom in Cambridge ($3,253 and $3,800), Boston ($3,100 and $3,595).
  • boston-1br-2br.png Chart: 1 and 2 bedroom median asking rent in Boston's principal cities
  • boston-cities.csv Data: Boston's principal cities by bedroom count, with listing and building counts
  • method.txt The method and its limits, as plain text

Embed the chart.

A static image and a credit line: no script, no iframe, nothing that tracks your readers.

<figure>
  <img src="https://piggyrent.com/press/boston-2026-10/boston-1br-2br.png" width="1200" alt="Median asking rent for a 1 and 2 bedroom in Boston's principal cities, October 2026, from PiggyRent" style="max-width:100%;height:auto">
  <figcaption>Median asking rent, listings collected Oct 4, 2026. Asking rents, not signed leases. Source: <a href="https://piggyrent.com/rent/reports/boston-2026-10">PiggyRent</a>.</figcaption>
</figure>

Other metros.

Want to see where your own rent sits? Check my rent, free for renters. All reports.