In July 2026 we leased 21 Clover Street in Belmont at $12,000 a month. In the previous two years, no rental property in Belmont of any kind had closed above $10,000. This is the record of how it went.
The house
21 Clover Street is a 4,559 square foot home in Clark Hill, six bedrooms and eighteen rooms across three finished floors, with a detached 2 car garage and a terraced yard.
Houses this size rarely rent. At $12,000 a month, or $144,000 a year, most households who can write that check can also buy in Belmont, and most of them do exactly that. The ones who rent instead are relocating on a corporate or academic timeline, waiting out a build or a renovation, holding a fixed term appointment at one of the Cambridge or Longwood institutions, or spending a year in the town before committing to it. It is a narrow group, and almost none of them are in Massachusetts when they start looking.
The market it went into
Take every rental that closed in Belmont over the previous 24 months, any property type, and filter for $10,000 a month and above. The search comes back empty.
That is what this house was priced into. Not a market with a high ceiling, a market with no tested ceiling at all, because nothing had reached for one in two years.
Three Belmont homes sat at the top of the range at the same time. Above 21 Clover was a furnished home on Belmont Hill at $16,000 a month, still available at seventy one days. Below it was a Clark Hill house of comparable size, 4,881 square feet, listed a thousand dollars a month cheaper at $11,000, still available at one hundred and six days. The Belmont single family homes that did rent over the previous twelve months averaged $8,375 a month, and the highest of them closed at $9,000.
What we built for it
The marketing was finished before the listing went live. 38 photographs, a video tour, a 3D walkthrough, a measured floor plan, and drone work, all commissioned and delivered ahead of the listing date rather than added later once the house had stalled. That is not what a rental usually gets.
Every piece was chosen against a specific problem this house had.
The floor plan was for the scale. Eighteen rooms across three floors is not something photography can explain. A measured plan is what lets a family work out that the third floor suite takes the in laws, the first floor study takes whoever cannot manage stairs, and the front facing room upstairs becomes the office. That is the question that ends in a signature, and a photograph cannot answer it.
The video tour and the 3D walkthrough were for the distance. Most of this renter pool starts looking from another state or another country and comes to Boston once, if at all. A listing that cannot be walked properly at eleven at night from a laptop in another time zone does not exist to them.
The drone work was for the setting. Someone relocating is choosing a neighborhood they have never stood in. The aerials put Clark Hill in context: the tree canopy, the terraced yard, the walk to Belmont Center and Cushing Square, the distance to the schools.
The listing copy was written for one household rather than the widest possible audience. It opened on the neighborhood, moved through the house in the order a family actually uses it, and closed on the fact that the elementary, middle, and high schools are all walkable, along with Town Field, Belmont Center, Cushing Square, Waverley Square, and Waverley Station on the Fitchburg Line.
The timing
The listing went live on May 14 for a July 1 availability, seven weeks ahead of the date.
Counted as days on market that reads slow. It was not a delay, it was the point. Families relocating for a September school year start begin searching in May and June and sign well before they move. Launching into that window meant reaching them first instead of competing for them in August alongside everyone who waited.
The result
The house leased at $12,000 a month on a twelve month term, with occupancy inside the window the owners needed.
Against the highest comparable rented in the previous year that is $3,000 a month more, or $36,000 across the term. Against the average it is closer to $43,000. The owners also had a date they had to hit, and they hit it, which on a house this size is worth nearly as much as the rent.
The record
21 Clover Street, Belmont, Massachusetts. Clark Hill. 4,559 square feet, six bedrooms, eighteen rooms, three finished floors, detached 2 car garage, terraced yard. Listed May 14, 2026 at $12,000 a month on a twelve month term, available July 1. Leased July 2026. No rental property of any type in Belmont closed above $10,000 a month over the trailing 24 months per MLS PIN. Comparable set at the time of listing: one home above at $16,000, unrented at seventy one days; one home below at $11,000, unrented at one hundred and six days. Belmont single family rentals that closed over the previous twelve months averaged $8,375 a month.
We work on high end rentals across Belmont, Newton, Watertown, Waltham, Arlington, Lexington, and Cambridge. Our Belmont real estate page has more on the local market, and we are easy to reach.
