Despite the rise in rent prices, Watertown remains one of the more affordable neighborhoods to rent an apartment in Boston. Watertown ranks the 8th most expensive suburb to rent in greater Boston, but its average rent price of $2,330 is well below Boston’s average of $2,708.
Watertown Rental Market Forecast 2022 and Beyond
It appears that Watertown’s rental market may have benefited from a population shift towards the suburbs during COVID. Similar trends were seen in the Arlington rental market and the Quincy rental market over the past two years. When offices shut down in 2020 and many workers went remote, a lot of professionals opted to rent out in the suburbs where they could more easily social distance and enjoy larger work-from-home spaces.
Now Watertown, like most of Boston, is seeing even less apartment availability than before the pandemic. In addition to the apartment shortage, inflation is now driving up the costs of property maintenance for landlords. Both of these forces are exerting strong upward pressure on rent prices all over the city.
With an economic downturn on the horizon or perhaps already here, it will be interesting to see how long prices will continue to rise. If economic conditions take a turn for the worse, we could see corporate layoffs which will lead to higher unemployment and demand destruction. This will certainly curb rent prices, but not for the reasons anyone is hoping for. We expect rent prices to continue to rise in the short term in Watertown, but may level off towards the end of 2022. We do not expect rent prices to continue to rise in 2023. We’ll continue to monitor these trends as they develop.