It’s been a roller coaster two years for Boston’s most expensive apartment rental market, Back Bay. Prior to the pandemic, Back Bay was experiencing record lows in apartment availability and vacancies alongside all-time high average rent prices. Then in 2020, COVID-19 dramatically increased the apartment supply. The real-time vacancy rate (RTVR) for Back Bay apartments was launched sky-high, eclipsing the 7% mark in September 2020 for the first time on record. Then, starting in March of last year, the RTVR rapidly contracted. By September of 2021, Back Bay had set a new all-time low RTVR.
Back Bay Vacancy Rate Volatility
It’s no secret that remote learning, remote work policies, and the collapse of the short- term rental market were the cause of the apartment supply upheaval in Back Bay. The RTVR catapulted to a record high 7.67% in mid-September 2020 just as campuses were shutting down due to COVID. In the year that followed, we saw the market absorb a jaw-dropping 97% of those vacancies. By late August 2021, Back Bay’s RTVR hit a new all-time low of 0.24%.
It didn’t stop there. By mid- December, the Back Bay RTVR dipped even lower as it hit 0.17%. Now that figure rests at 0.29% with more than 4 months until it hits its historical annual low point in late August. With vacancy figures like this in early April, it’s not unrealistic to predict that Back Bay will hit 100% occupancy by the end of the summer leasing season.
Back Bay Apartment Availability
That vacancy rate was not the only apartment supply metric to surpass historical lows in the last year. The real-time availability rate (RTAR) hit an all time low of 1.13% in late August 2021, the same week the RTVR hit its historical low point. Now, the RTAR for apartments in Back Bay rests at 2.53%, which is -43.02% lower than its pre-pandemic level of 4.44% during the first week of April 2019.
Apartment availability is a good predictor of future market supply. By the looks of the most recent Back Bay…