Renting in Boston Just Got Harder

As if the rental crush that started as the pandemic eased in late 2021 wasn't bad enough, rental apartments are even harder to find in Boston today and the rents on the few units that do become vacant are just going higher and higher.According to the Boston Globe, rents in Greater Boston are up 6% since March 2022, which is a steeper increase than the nation as a whole. The median rent for a 1BR in Boston is now $2,011, on par with NYC and San Francisco. That's $24,132 a year, and it means that the income needed to rent that median unit is about $100,000 per year.The vacancy rate is 0.49% - which essentially means any unit that becomes vacant will be rented in a day. A healthy vacancy rate is 5%The Globe interviewed a young woman who couldn't find a place to live on her own after a break-up and wound up spending months living in her car before finding a room to rent with strangers in Jamaica Plain. Another interviewee is a Harvard instructor who lives in a room in a shared collective. She would like her own place, but can't find anything she can afford.White collar professional workers are living like students just to be able to afford to live near their jobs.

Can't Afford Boston? Try Japan.

Japan's shrinking population and a cultural distaste for second-hand homes has led to a growing number of vacant homes (akiya) for sale at seriously low prices, some for as little as $25,000.The country's 2018 housing survey identified about 8.5 million akiya and the number has likely risen since then. Heirs can refuse to take possession of a house that has been left to them in an estate, and in those cases the municipality auctions the house off - for tens of thousands of dollars.The New York Times ran a piece about the akiya and some of the non-Japanese buyers who have relocated to them, when they've been priced out of their home markets. Two Americans have started a business promoting the inexpensive akiya housing to international relocatees.Some in Japan are worried about what it will mean for Japanese culture if so many foreigners move to the country, but few native buyers are stepping forward.Read the whole article here.