Suffolk County · Massachusetts
Boston, MA housing costs
What a home costs to buy and to rent here, how old the housing stock is, and how much of a paycheck rent takes — all from Census ACS 5-year estimates.
Quick answer
The median home in Boston, MA is worth $710,400 and median gross rent is $2,093 a month. That is 134% above the national median home value of $303,400. 35.4% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, against 65% nationally.
- Median home value
- $710,400#11 of 94 metros
- Median gross rent
- $2,093/mo#4 of 94 metros
- Owner-occupied
- 35.4%US average 65%
- Median year built
- 1947Half the homes here are older than this
Can a median household here buy a median home?
Price-to-income is the plainest affordability yardstick there is.
Boston's median household earns $89,212 a year while the median home is worth $710,400. That is a price-to-income ratio of 8.0×, against roughly 3.9× nationally. Lenders have historically treated anything above 4× as stretched. Renters at the median put 30.1% of household income into gross rent; 30% is the federal threshold for “cost-burdened”.
Related data for Boston
The same household, seen from three angles.
Tables B25077, B25064, B25003, B25035 and B25071, 2019-2023 ACS 5-year, Census place 2,507,000. Values are place-level, not metro-area-wide.