Is Commuting The Key To Savings In MA's Biggest City?

BOSTON, MA — The rental market in the Boston metro is continuing to climb, making affording an apartment more difficult by the day.

In a recent study from Point2Homes, researchers looked for alternatives to affording the market and discovered that a transportation switch could help.

Specifically in Boston, the study found that switching from driving your own car to taking public transit could save someone around $8,200 annually, with annual car costs running residents $9,275 vs. just over $1,000 for public transit.

On average, those savings are more than one month's income for renters in Boston. What residents would lose in the switch is about 21 minutes per day in commute time.

Boston is unique in the study, falling in line with other big northeast cities, and also San Francisco, in that more than half of the residents already use public transit as their main method of moving around the city. In Boston, 49 percent of residents find themselves car commuting.

The city is already a competitive place for renters to find an apartment, with a recent study finding that those apartments are both getting harder to secure and shrinking in living space.

RentCafe.com recently found that Boston’s apartment stock grew by 0.72 percent in recent months, a "significant" jump compared to the 0.19 percent increase seen in early 2024. Despite this, data shows high demand and low supply continue to define the market, as reflected in the 62.8 percent lease renewal rate, which is up 4.5 percent year-over-year.

• Read more: How Competitive Is MA For Local Renters?
• Read more: Are Boston Renters Paying More For Less Space? New Report Answers The Question
• Read more: MA Renters Are Paying More For An Apartment Than A Year Ago: Report