Can you afford a "starter home" in the Boston area? Housing report says only 15% of renters make enough.
A new report shows it's increasingly difficult for renters to make the leap to home ownership in the Boston area.
The Boston Foundation's 2025 Housing Report Card says that just 15% of renter households can afford a "starter home" in Greater Boston. The report defines a starter home as one that's in the bottom tier of home values because it's smaller or in a less expensive neighborhood.
The report says that in 2021, an income of about $98,000 was needed to afford a starter home in the Boston area. In 2025, the required household income is more than $162,000.
And if homebuyers are looking for something more "mid-tier," they need to make at least $245,000 a year.
The report estimates that a starter home now costs about $505,000 in Greater Boston, up from $399,000 in 2021. Factoring in higher interest rates, the report figures that the total monthly payment by a homeowner on a entry-level home these days is about $4,200.
"The sobering reality of this combination of price increases and higher mortgage rates is that just one in seven renters in Greater Boston has the income to access a 'starter home' in our region," Luc Schuster with the Boston Indicators research group said in a statement.
Overall, the report found that home prices and rents are leveling off, but are still at historically high levels. It also found that more than 70,000 homes have been built in the region since 2020, but new permits for future housing construction "are way down" - 44% below levels seen in 2021.
A recent Wall Street Journal ranking found that the top affordable housing market in the country is about an hour north of Boston in New Hampshire's Manchester-Nashua metro area.