Fenway Apartment Rental Market Report 2022

Fenway’s apartment rental market has been on a wild ride since COVID began. In 2020, Fenway’s real-time vacancy rate (RTVR) rocketed to 17.87% in September. That marked the 2nd highest RTVR recorded by all neighborhoods during the pandemic, behind Downtown (25.24%).

From there, Fenway’s apartment supply issues only worsened. By April 2021, the real-time availability rate for Fenway apartments (24.37%) was 3rd highest out of all neighborhoods behind Allston (26.8%) and Downtown (25.37%). Then, starting in April, we witnessed one of the fastest market corrections in history. At that point, the worst of the pandemic seemed to have passed and schools announced plans to reopen in fall 2021.

Boston apartment renters came out in full force as initial COVID fears began to wane. We witnessed what was arguably the fastest rental supply absorption in Boston’s history. Fenway’s RTAR contracted to 0.61% by late November, down an astonishing -97.53% in a 6 month span. It was also down -80% from Fenway’s pre-COVID RTAR in late November 2019 (3.05%).