The short version is this. A two bedroom in Newton rents for a median of $3,000 and takes about 22 days, based on 123 rentals that closed in the six months ending 26 August 2026. Plan on about $7,400 in cash to move in, the steepest up front cost of any town I track. And Newton is the fastest strong market I cover: 76 percent of rentals in the last six months went at or above the original asking price.
Newton isn't one rental market, it's thirteen villages wearing one zip code prefix, and the spread is enormous: the median rental in Nonantum runs $2,700 while Waban runs $5,400. The village table below is the part of this page you won't find anywhere else. I pulled every closed Newton rental in the MLS and ran the numbers myself, and it gets updated every month. 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 | too few | too few | $1,850 (11) |
| 1 bedroom | $2,425 (23) | $2,450 (45) | $2,450 (77) |
| 2 bedroom | $2,925 (65) | $3,000 (123) | $3,000 (179) |
| 3 bedroom | $4,300 (58) | $4,200 (113) | $4,000 (179) |
| 4 bedroom | $6,450 (32) | $6,200 (62) | $6,000 (107) |
| 5+ bedroom | $8,400 (14) | $8,750 (29) | $8,625 (42) |
| All rentals | $3,650 (197) | $3,700 (379) | $3,600 (595) |
Medians. Number of closed rentals in parentheses. Windows end 26 August 2026. Notice the shape: Newton one and two bedrooms price close to neighboring towns, then the market goes vertical. The jump from a two bedroom to a three is $1,200 a month, the largest single step anywhere I track, because at three bedrooms you're renting a house in a top school district, not an apartment.
| Village | Rentals | Median, all sizes | 2 bedroom | Days to rent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nonantum | 37 | $2,700 | $2,600 (21) | 32 |
| Newton Upper Falls | 36 | $3,150 | $3,100 (15) | 28 |
| Newton Corner | 42 | $3,300 | $2,998 (14) | 30 |
| Newtonville | 90 | $3,400 | $3,000 (31) | 24 |
| Chestnut Hill | 55 | $3,500 | $3,250 (17) | 30 |
| West Newton | 38 | $3,500 | $2,950 (15) | 24 |
| Auburndale | 38 | $3,550 | too few | 24 |
| Newton Center | 79 | $4,200 | $3,200 (19) | 20 |
| Newton Highlands | 40 | $4,500 | too few | 16 |
| Waban | 25 | $5,400 | too few | 22 |
Sorted by median. Villages are as coded in the MLS; about half of Newton listings carry no village tag and sit only in the town totals. The all sizes medians partly reflect what kind of housing each village rents, not just price level: Waban rents houses, Nonantum rents apartments. That's also why the 2 bedroom column is the fairer comparison where the sample allows one.
| Type | 2br median | 2br days | 3br median | 3br days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apartment | $2,850 (144) | 24 | $3,600 (102) | 26 |
| Condo | $3,100 (101) | 18 | $3,950 (35) | 27 |
| Townhouse or duplex | $3,200 (49) | 17 | $4,200 (86) | 32 |
| Single family | $3,300 (12) | 22 | $5,000 (76) | 20 |
A three bedroom single family in Newton runs $5,000 and rents in 20 days, faster than a three bedroom apartment at $3,600. The house is the product here.
Priced right: 17 days. Overpriced: 52 days, and a $300 cut anyway.
1,000 recent closed Newton rentals
The median Newton rental takes 23 days, the fastest of the towns I track. Thirteen percent rent within a week. Nearly a third are gone inside two weeks. And the discipline here is remarkable: 62 percent of rentals went at exactly the original asking price and another 11 percent above it, which means fewer than three in ten Newton landlords had to cut at all.
When they did cut, the pattern is the same one I find everywhere: 17 days at full price against 52 days with a cut, and the cut ran a median of $300 a month. Overpricing costs a month of vacancy and then the lower rent anyway, and in a market this fast there is no excuse for it.
| Time on market | Share |
|---|---|
| Under a week | 13% |
| 8 to 14 days | 19% |
| 15 to 30 days | 28% |
| 31 to 60 days | 22% |
| 61 to 90 days | 10% |
| More than 90 days | 8% |
1,000 recent rentals.
About $7,400 for a typical two bedroom.
Two and a half times one month of rent. 306 two bedroom rentals.
Newton landlords ask for more up front than anyone else I track. For a two bedroom:
So a $3,000 apartment realistically needs $7,400 in the bank to sign, and on the family sized homes the same ratios apply to much bigger numbers: a $5,000 single family with both requirements is $15,000 at signing. If that shapes your search, better to know before you fall in love with something. Reach out and I'll send you what I currently have available.
My favorite part of the report, because these numbers exist nowhere else. Every feature 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 | 22% | +$1,700 | 2 days faster |
| Garage parking | 62% | +$1,200 | 5 days faster |
| A half bath | 34% | +$1,100 | no clear effect |
| Fireplace | 46% | +$1,100 | no clear effect |
| Second full bathroom | 53% | +$1,000 | 4 days faster |
| Private outdoor space | 49% | +$662 | no clear effect |
| Air conditioning | 77% | +$588 | 2 days faster |
| Laundry in the unit | 60% | +$500 | no clear effect |
| Built before 1940 | 50% | $900 less | 2 days slower |
| Pets allowed | 62% | about $50 | no clear effect |
| Second parking space | 62% | about $31 | 4 days faster |
| Walking distance to a T stop | 60% | about $50 | no clear effect |
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 this table for what it really says. In Newton the money is in the building, not the amenity list. New construction, a garage, a second bath, a fireplace: these are $1,000 plus effects because they describe which kind of property you're in, the renovated single family or condo rather than the older apartment. That's also why pre 1940 stock runs $900 less here, the widest old building discount I've measured.
And the things renters supposedly pay up for? Newton shrugs. Pets, a second parking space, walking distance to the T: roughly $50 each. In a market where six in ten rentals sit near a T stop and most listings come with two spaces, none of those are scarce, and Newton renters are buying the school district either way.
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 year built, bathroom, garage and fireplace rows rest on hard structural fields and are the most reliable. The amenity checkboxes are directional.
Spring is the fast season: April through June rentals go in under three weeks. June and July close the most deals. The slow months are October and November, when the median stretches past six weeks. Same advice I give in every town, but it bites hardest here because the rents are biggest: if your lease ends in late fall, fix the cycle. A vacant month on a $4,000 Newton rental is a $4,000 mistake.
| Month | Rentals closed | Median days to rent |
|---|---|---|
| January | 39 | 42 |
| February | 61 | 23 |
| March | 71 | 21 |
| April | 117 | 18 |
| May | 141 | 19 |
| June | 146 | 20 |
| July | 152 | 24 |
| August | 134 | 26 |
| September | 51 | 29 |
| October | 30 | 46 |
| November | 35 | 35 |
| December | 23 | 29 |
February through August pool two years of closings; September through January mostly reflect a single year because of how the export window falls, so read those months as directional.
| Bedrooms | Median size | Rent per square foot |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | 400 sqft | $5.00 |
| 1 bedroom | 748 sqft | $3.25 |
| 2 bedroom | 1,125 sqft | $2.79 |
| 3 bedroom | 1,696 sqft | $2.50 |
| 4 bedroom | 2,400 sqft | $2.43 |
| 5+ bedroom | 3,616 sqft | $2.21 |
A Newton studio costs $5 a square foot, more than double the rate of a five bedroom. The roommate math has never been simpler. Square footage comes from the listing agent and is approximate, so trust the pattern more than the exact cents.
Up, about 3 percent, and I can show it two independent ways.
First, matched windows: comparing February through August of 2025 against the same months of 2026, the all bedroom median went from $3,600 to $3,700, up 2.8 percent, with every bedroom count positive except none. Three bedrooms led at 5.7 percent.
Second, the same units against themselves: across 48 cases where one Newton unit rented twice at least six months apart, the median change was up 3.0 percent. Twenty nine went up, thirteen held, six went down.
When two methods that fail in different ways land on the same answer, believe it. Newton rents are rising around 3 percent a year while Watertown next door sits flat, and the school calendar keeps the demand coming regardless.
| Bedrooms | Feb to Aug 2025 | Feb to Aug 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 bedroom | $2,395 (51) | $2,450 (51) | up 2.3% |
| 2 bedroom | $2,950 (125) | $3,000 (130) | up 1.7% |
| 3 bedroom | $3,975 (117) | $4,200 (121) | up 5.7% |
| 4 bedroom | $5,850 (68) | $6,100 (66) | up 4.3% |
| 5+ bedroom | $8,625 (38) | $8,750 (31) | up 1.4% |
| Same unit, rented twice | 48 matched pairs | up 3.0% | |
Matched calendar windows, February 1 through August 26 of each year, so seasonality can't fake the comparison.
| Included | Share of rentals |
|---|---|
| Water | 59% |
| Sewer | 51% |
| Parking | 49% |
| Trash | 48% |
| Grounds maintenance | 45% |
| Snow removal | 39% |
| Laundry facilities | 25% |
| Hot water | 18% |
| Heat | 17% |
Only one in six Newton rentals includes heat, and with half the stock built before 1940, budget seriously for winter utilities, especially in the single family homes where every bill is yours.
Own a rental in Newton? Our office is in West Newton and 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 Newton 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. Newton closed 1,310 rentals in the 25 months ending 26 August 2026; the MLS export caps at 1,000 records, so this page is computed from the 1,000 most recent, which cover 17 January 2025 through 26 August 2026. 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 exported period. The year over year comparison uses matched February through August windows from each year so both sides are complete, and the seasonal table notes where a month reflects a single year.
Method. Medians, not averages, because Newton's $25,000 a month top end would drag an average around badly. Time on market is the MLS days on market field. Any figure resting on fewer than ten rentals gets left out entirely.
What's approximate. Square footage, amenities and included utilities are entered by listing agents and aren't independently verified. Village labels are as coded in the MLS; roughly half of Newton listings carry none. 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 17 January 2025 through 26 August 2026.