The short version is this. A two bedroom in Brookline rents for a median of $3,800 and takes 19 days, based on 251 rentals that closed in the six months ending 26 August 2026. And here's the number nobody warns you about: plan on $9,200 in cash to move in, two and a half months of rent, the most of any town I cover. Two thirds of Brookline landlords want last month up front and half want that plus a full deposit.
Brookline closed 2,114 rentals in 25 months, and demand right now is as strong as anywhere I track: 77 percent went at or above the original asking price over the last six months. I pulled every closed rental in the MLS across both main Brookline zip codes and ran the numbers myself. Nobody else publishes this, so I do. Updated monthly, and the other towns I cover are at the markets page.
These are rented prices, not asking prices. What tenants signed for, not what landlords hoped for. Three windows because the short one is current and the long one is stable. Anything with fewer than ten rentals behind it I leave out rather than pretend it means something.
| Bedrooms | Last 3 months | Last 6 months | Last 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | $2,450 (40) | $2,450 (59) | $2,450 (85) |
| 1 bedroom | $3,075 (126) | $3,000 (211) | $2,950 (317) |
| 2 bedroom | $3,800 (155) | $3,800 (251) | $3,700 (366) |
| 3 bedroom | $4,725 (60) | $4,900 (99) | $4,800 (153) |
| 4 bedroom | $5,400 (19) | $5,400 (40) | $5,475 (66) |
| 5 bedroom | too few | too few | $8,300 (20) |
| All rentals | $3,500 (405) | $3,500 (673) | $3,500 (1,013) |
Medians. Number of closed rentals in parentheses. Windows end 26 August 2026. Brookline and Cambridge trade the title of most expensive market depending on the bedroom count: Cambridge wins on twos, Brookline's threes at $4,900 run higher.
| Area | Rentals | 1 bedroom | 2 bedroom | Days to rent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Longwood | 86 | $3,100 (36) | $3,538 (30) | 16 |
| Beaconsfield | 62 | $2,900 (21) | $3,500 (22) | 24 |
| Brookline Hills | 39 | too few | $3,700 (11) | 26 |
| Brookline Village | 233 | $2,950 (75) | $3,800 (63) | 24 |
| Coolidge Corner | 472 | $2,800 (164) | $3,895 (159) | 26 |
| Chestnut Hill | 98 | $3,360 (33) | $4,862 (48) | 10 |
Sorted by two bedroom price, full 25 month period, listings where the MLS carries a neighborhood tag; about half do. Two patterns worth knowing. Coolidge Corner is two markets in one place: the cheapest one bedrooms in Brookline at $2,800, in the old brick buildings, next to two bedrooms near $3,900. And Chestnut Hill is the strangest line in any of my towns: the most expensive two bedroom, $4,862, renting in a median of ten days. That's the newer luxury stock near the D line being absorbed as fast as it lists.
| Type | 1br median | 2br median | 2br days | 3br median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apartment | $2,850 (227) | $3,600 (306) | 22 | $4,500 (177) |
| Condo | $2,900 (370) | $3,800 (395) | 23 | $5,225 (104) |
| Townhouse or duplex | too few | too few | too few | $4,650 (22) |
Full 25 month period. Brookline is the only town I cover where condos outnumber apartments in the rental pool, 997 to 855, and the condo premium widens with size: $200 on a two bedroom, $725 on a three.
Priced right: 19 days. Overpriced: 52 days, and a $200 cut anyway.
1,958 closed Brookline rentals analyzed, 25 months
The median Brookline rental takes 25 days. Fourteen percent rent within a week, thirty one percent inside two weeks. Landlord discipline here is the best of any town I track: only 30 percent ever cut the price, 58 percent got exactly their original ask, and 12 percent got more than asking.
Which makes the penalty for the minority who overprice all the sharper: 19 days at or above ask against 52 after a cut, plus the $200 a month given up anyway. In a market where three quarters of units clear at ask or better, a sitting unit is a mispriced unit.
| Time on market | Share |
|---|---|
| Under a week | 14% |
| 8 to 14 days | 17% |
| 15 to 30 days | 27% |
| 31 to 60 days | 23% |
| 61 to 90 days | 10% |
| More than 90 days | 8% |
All 1,958 analyzed rentals, 25 months.
About $9,200 for a typical two bedroom.
Two and a half months of rent. 710 two bedroom rentals. The highest in Greater Boston.
Brookline landlords stack the requirements higher than anywhere else I track:
So a $3,800 apartment realistically needs about $9,200 in the bank to sign. If you're relocating for one of the hospitals or the universities, that number is the thing to plan around, and no listing will tell it to you. Reach out and I'll send you what I currently have available.
Every feature below is compared within the same bedroom count, so a two bedroom is only measured against another two bedroom, and any comparison with fewer than ten rentals on either side gets thrown out.
| Feature | Share of rentals | Rent difference | Speed difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built 2010 or later | 19% | +$1,150 | 2 days slower |
| Second full bathroom | 51% | +$1,025 | 1 day faster |
| A half bath | 14% | +$1,000 | 11 days slower |
| Air conditioning | 79% | +$900 | 1 day slower |
| Laundry in the unit | 44% | +$850 | 3 days faster |
| Garage parking | 52% | +$600 | no clear effect |
| Elevator building | 51% | +$575 | 6 days faster |
| Fireplace | 15% | +$550 | 1 day faster |
| Dishwasher | 87% | +$550 | 4 days faster |
| Shared laundry only, none in the unit | 55% | $800 less | 3 days slower |
| Built before 1940 | 41% | $879 less | 2 days slower |
| Heat included in the rent | 59% | $500 less | 2 days slower |
| Pets allowed | 48% | +$175 | 1 day faster |
| Any off street parking | 53% | +$150 | no clear effect |
| Private outdoor space | 36% | +$150 | 2 days faster |
Median differences within bedroom count. The bottom rows stay in on purpose. A report that finds a premium on every feature is a report you shouldn't trust.
Read the heat row before you celebrate it. Fifty nine percent of Brookline rentals include heat, the highest rate anywhere I track, and those units rent for about $500 less. Same explanation as always: heat included lives in the older brick buildings with shared boilers, which are the cheaper half of this market. The number describes which buildings include heat, not what heat is worth. Still, for a renter the practical version is real: in Brookline you can very often get heat in the rent without paying a premium for it, which is not true in Somerville or Medford.
The parking row is the other Brookline tell: about $150, near the bottom of my ten towns. Between the overnight parking ban pushing everything into deeded spaces and the C and D lines running through the middle of town, the market has settled it: renters here pay for the building, not the driveway.
Those numbers describe what a unit was listed with, not what I verified in person. Agents who fill out listings carefully also tend to be marketing better units, so part of what any feature appears to be worth is really the value of a better building and a better listing. The bathroom, year built and garage rows rest on hard structural fields and are the most reliable. The amenity checkboxes are directional.
The September 1 cycle rules here the way it does in Cambridge: June through August close the most rentals, April is the fastest month at 18 days, and the winter penalty is severe. November rentals took a median of 51 days, the worst month figure in any town I cover except Lexington's January. If your lease ends in late fall, that mistiming costs you more here than almost anywhere, because the rent is bigger.
| Month | Rentals closed | Median days to rent |
|---|---|---|
| January | 79 | 48 |
| February | 67 | 30 |
| March | 127 | 21 |
| April | 196 | 18 |
| May | 208 | 22 |
| June | 262 | 21 |
| July | 278 | 24 |
| August | 279 | 24 |
| September | 184 | 27 |
| October | 85 | 42 |
| November | 77 | 51 |
| December | 116 | 40 |
Two years pooled, 1,958 analyzed rentals.
| Bedrooms | Median size | Rent per square foot |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | 500 sqft | $5.00 |
| 1 bedroom | 733 sqft | $4.01 |
| 2 bedroom | 1,007 sqft | $3.68 |
| 3 bedroom | 1,452 sqft | $3.41 |
| 4 bedroom | 1,873 sqft | $3.19 |
| 5 bedroom | 3,000 sqft | $2.81 |
Second only to Cambridge on price per foot. Square footage comes from the listing agent and is approximate, so trust the pattern more than the exact cents.
Up at the small end, steady at the top, and the comparison below uses matched April through August windows from each year so the export cap on one zip code can't distort it.
Studios rose 8.9 percent, the exact opposite of Cambridge next door, where new tower supply pushed studios down 10.7. Brookline builds almost nothing at the small end, so its studios climbed while Cambridge's fell, and that pair of numbers side by side is the clearest picture of what new supply actually does to rents that I can offer anyone. One bedrooms rose 3.4 percent, twos 2.7, and the family sizes held flat.
The same unit check agrees: across 127 Brookline units that rented twice at least six months apart, the median change was up 3.0 percent, with 80 up, 27 flat and 20 down.
The honest summary: Brookline rents are rising about 3 percent on turnover, led by the small units, in a market where landlords almost never have to cut.
| Bedrooms | Apr to Aug 2025 | Apr to Aug 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | $2,250 (41) | $2,450 (52) | up 8.9% |
| 1 bedroom | $2,900 (163) | $3,000 (187) | up 3.4% |
| 2 bedroom | $3,700 (196) | $3,800 (224) | up 2.7% |
| 3 bedroom | $4,825 (82) | $4,850 (89) | flat |
| 4 bedroom | $5,438 (48) | $5,400 (35) | flat |
| Same unit, rented twice | 127 matched pairs | up 3.0% | |
Matched calendar windows, April 1 through August 26 of each year, both fully covered in both zip codes.
| Included | Share of rentals |
|---|---|
| Water | 72% |
| Sewer | 67% |
| Trash | 60% |
| Hot water | 60% |
| Snow removal | 58% |
| Heat | 58% |
| Grounds maintenance | 41% |
| Laundry facilities | 29% |
| Parking | 27% |
Brookline includes more than any town I track: three in five rentals cover heat and hot water. In the older brick stock the rent you see is much closer to the rent you pay than anywhere else in Greater Boston, which partly offsets that $9,200 at signing.
Own a rental in Brookline? These are the numbers I price units with every week. If you want to know what yours should rent for, send me the address and what it last rented at, and I'll tell you what I'd list it for and how long I think it takes. No charge and no pressure, it's a five minute exercise for me.
Renting instead? Get in touch and I'll send you what I have available, and here's my general guide to Brookline if you're new to the area.
Source. Every figure on this page is calculated from closed rental transactions recorded in MLS Property Information Network. Brookline's two main zip codes closed 2,114 rentals in the 25 months ending 26 August 2026; the export caps at 1,000 records per pull, so this page is computed from 1,958 of them, with the missing 156 concentrated in the oldest months of one zip code. These are rents tenants actually signed, not asking prices.
What the cap affects. Nothing in the three, six and twelve month windows, which sit entirely inside the complete period. The year over year comparison uses matched April through August windows from each year, both fully covered, so the gap can't distort it.
Method. Medians, not averages. Time on market is the MLS days on market field. Any figure resting on fewer than ten rentals gets left out entirely. Rentals in the 02467 zip code, the Chestnut Hill area shared with Newton, are represented only where listings carry Brookline zip codes.
What's approximate. Square footage, amenities and included utilities are entered by listing agents and aren't independently verified. Neighborhood labels are as coded in the MLS; about half of listings carry one. August 2026 is partial, through the 26th.
Corrections. If you find an error, tell me. I'll fix it and note it in the log below. That's the deal.
Based on information provided to and compiled by MLS Property Information Network, Inc. covering the period 26 July 2024 through 26 August 2026.