How to hunt for an apartment in Boston
By: yiseowl - Wednesday, Feb 26, 2014 - 11:11pmSearching for an apartment in Boston is a unique process…and a big pain in the ass. 79 percent of all rentals in Boston turn over their leases between September 1st and 14th, setting the stage for aggressive rental agents and frantic tenant hopefuls. Signing on something that’s not a complete piece of shit requires some legwork and a little bit of patience. Having lived in four different apartments over eight years in Boston, I thought I’d share my experience in finding a decent place for a good price.
1) Figure out where you want to live: Budget and location are the two most important things to consider when looking for an apartment. The image below is a rental heat map put together by Jeff Kaufman — he used data from the website PadMapper. We took it a step further and added geographically accurate T stops. There’s a lot of useful info packed into this little map. For example, you can identify cheaper neighborhoods by looking at cooler colors. A quick glace at the map shows somewhat reasonable prices in Brighton Center/Oak Sq, Assembly Sq, Lower Allston, Ward 2 Somerville, and certain parts of JP and Dorchester.