The short version is this. A two bedroom in Waltham rents for a median of $2,775 and takes 28 days, based on 103 rentals that closed in the six months ending 26 August 2026. Plan on about $5,900 in cash to actually move in. If you own a rental here, the single most expensive mistake you can make is overpricing it, and I can show you exactly what it costs below.
I pulled every closed Waltham rental in the MLS for the last 25 months, 964 of them, and ran the numbers myself. Nobody else publishes this, so I do. 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. I show three windows because the short one is current and the long one is stable, and 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 | $1,700 (13) |
| 1 bedroom | $2,195 (65) | $2,125 (104) | $2,050 (155) |
| 2 bedroom | $2,800 (67) | $2,775 (103) | $2,600 (163) |
| 3 bedroom | $3,788 (38) | $3,800 (59) | $3,750 (83) |
| 4 bedroom | too few | $5,100 (18) | $4,400 (34) |
| All rentals | $2,650 (185) | $2,600 (296) | $2,550 (457) |
Medians. Number of closed rentals in parentheses. Windows end 26 August 2026.
| Zip | Area | All bedrooms | 1 bed | 2 bed | 3 bed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02451 | North and west Waltham | $2,900 | $2,100 | $2,700 | $3,700 |
| 02452 | Northeast Waltham | $2,400 | $2,000 | $2,500 | $3,800 |
| 02453 | Central and south Waltham | $2,600 | $2,100 | $2,700 | $3,500 |
Full 25 month period, 949 rentals across the three Waltham zips. The $500 gap between 02451 and 02452 is mostly about what kind of housing sits in each, not demand. Speed is nearly identical in all three, 26 to 30 days.
| Type | 2br median | 2br days | 3br median | 3br days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apartment | $2,600 (195) | 32 | $3,100 (56) | 38 |
| Condo | $2,700 (98) | 29 | $3,450 (20) | 29 |
| Townhouse or duplex | $2,925 (44) | 17 | $3,600 (57) | 27 |
| Single family | too few | too few | $3,950 (58) | 27 |
A two bedroom in a townhouse or duplex gets $325 more than one in an apartment building and rents in half the time. That's the clearest signal in the whole file about what Waltham renters actually want.
Priced right: 19 days. Overpriced: 52 days, and a $150 cut anyway.
964 closed Waltham rentals, 25 months
The median Waltham rental takes 29 days, but the median hides the real story. A quarter of units rent inside two weeks. A fifth sit past two months. Same street, completely different outcomes, and the difference is almost always the asking price.
Here's the math. Units that rented at or above the original asking price took a median of 19 days. Units that ended up cutting the price took 52 days, and the median cut was $150 a month. So overpricing didn't get those landlords more rent. It got them an extra month of vacancy and then the lower rent anyway.
Across the full 25 months, 54 percent of Waltham rentals leased at exactly the original ask, and another 7 percent went over it.
| Time on market | Rentals | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under a week | 97 | 10% |
| 8 to 14 days | 151 | 16% |
| 15 to 30 days | 262 | 27% |
| 31 to 60 days | 252 | 26% |
| 61 to 90 days | 120 | 12% |
| More than 90 days | 82 | 9% |
All 964 rentals, 25 months.
About $5,900 for a typical two bedroom.
Roughly 2.2 times one month of rent. 345 two bedroom rentals.
This is the number that surprises renters, and no listing shows it. Massachusetts lets a landlord collect first month, last month, a security deposit up to one month, and a lock fee. In practice in Waltham:
So if you're budgeting for a $2,700 apartment, budget close to six grand in cash to get the keys. If that changes your search, better to know now. Reach out and I'll send you what I currently have available.
This is my favorite part of the report, because these numbers don't exist anywhere else. I compared every feature within the same bedroom count, so a two bedroom is only ever measured against another two bedroom, and I threw out any comparison with fewer than ten rentals on either side.
| Feature | Share of rentals | Rent difference | Speed difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Second full bathroom | 39% | +$775 | 4 days faster |
| A half bath | 27% | +$525 | 8 days faster |
| Private outdoor space | 32% | +$475 | 6 days faster |
| Laundry in the unit | 47% | +$400 | 8 days faster |
| Two or more parking spaces | 49% | +$375 | 4 days faster |
| Air conditioning | 71% | +$300 | 2 days faster |
| Pets allowed | 62% | +$255 | 5 days faster |
| Shared laundry in the basement, none in the unit | 47% | $422 less | 8 days slower |
| Nothing included, no utilities, no parking | 7% | no clear effect | 25 days slower |
| Walking distance to the commuter rail | 52% | about $28 | 5 days faster |
| Assigned spot instead of general off street | 28% | no clear effect | no clear effect |
Median differences within bedroom count. I kept the bottom rows in on purpose. A report that finds a premium on every feature is a report you shouldn't trust.
If you own a Waltham rental, the row to act on is pets. Allowing them costs you nothing, it's tied to about $255 more rent and a unit that leases five days sooner, and 38 percent of Waltham landlords still say no. That's the market handing you money.
The other one is laundry. In the unit versus a shared machine in the basement is a $400 a month swing and sixteen days of market time. If you've been debating the hookup install, this is the math for it.
Those numbers describe what a unit was listed with, not what I verified in person. And agents who fill out listings carefully also tend to be marketing better units, so some of what a dishwasher appears to be worth is really the value of a well made listing.
I can actually measure that. Among Waltham two bedrooms, the quarter of listings with the most detail filled in rented for $2,800 in 23 days. The quarter with the least detail rented for $2,500 in 37 days. Same town, same bedroom count. The short version is that the listing itself is worth more than most of the amenities in it, which happens to be a pretty good argument for hiring someone who takes listings seriously.
August closes 4.6 times as many rentals as February, but the fastest months are March through June. For a renter that's the tradeoff: summer has the most choice and the most competition. For a landlord it's simpler. Don't list in July. It looks like peak season and it's the slowest month of the warm half of the year, because everything that didn't rent in June is still sitting there competing with you.
| Month | Rentals closed | Median days to rent |
|---|---|---|
| January | 50 | 28 |
| February | 33 | 31 |
| March | 71 | 26 |
| April | 75 | 26 |
| May | 94 | 26 |
| June | 114 | 26 |
| July | 122 | 38 |
| August | 153 | 26 |
| September | 80 | 29 |
| October | 63 | 28 |
| November | 56 | 30 |
| December | 53 | 43 |
Two years pooled, 964 rentals. December is the slowest month of all at 43 days.
A Waltham studio costs twice as much per square foot as a three bedroom.
$4.35 per square foot versus $2.19. This is the whole case for roommates, in one line.
| Bedrooms | Median size | Rent per square foot |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | 420 sqft | $4.35 |
| 1 bedroom | 650 sqft | $3.24 |
| 2 bedroom | 990 sqft | $2.77 |
| 3 bedroom | 1,630 sqft | $2.19 |
| 4 bedroom | 2,092 sqft | $2.14 |
Square footage comes from the listing agent and is approximate, so trust the pattern more than the exact cents.
The headline number says down. The units themselves say flat. Both are true and the difference matters, so let me show the math.
Median rent across all bedrooms was $2,700 in the twelve months ending August 2025 and $2,550 in the twelve months ending August 2026. That's a 5.6 percent drop, and it's the number a market summary would print.
But I can also track the same unit against itself. Across 73 cases where one Waltham unit rented twice, at least six months apart, the median change was up 1.3 percent. Forty went up, thirteen held, twenty went down.
What actually happened is the mix shifted. One bedrooms went from 30 percent of closings to 34 percent, and three bedrooms fell from 21 to 18. More cheap units rented, so the median fell even though rents on the same apartments didn't.
The short version is Waltham rents were roughly flat over the past year. What changed is which units were renting. A price site can't tell you that because it can't see the closed data. I can.
| Bedrooms | 12mo to Aug 2025 | 12mo to Aug 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 bedroom | $2,100 (133) | $2,050 (155) | down 2.4% |
| 2 bedroom | $2,700 (163) | $2,600 (163) | down 3.7% |
| 3 bedroom | $3,500 (96) | $3,750 (83) | up 7.1% |
| 4 bedroom | $4,350 (41) | $4,400 (34) | up 1.1% |
| Same unit, rented twice | 73 matched pairs | up 1.3% | |
Studios and five bedrooms had fewer than ten closings in one or both windows, so they're not shown.
| Included | Share of rentals |
|---|---|
| Water | 68% |
| Sewer | 58% |
| Trash | 48% |
| Grounds maintenance | 45% |
| Snow removal | 42% |
| Parking | 39% |
| Hot water | 26% |
| Heat | 24% |
| Nothing at all | 8% |
One in four Waltham rentals includes heat. Oddly, units that include utilities tend to rent for a little less, not more, because included utilities are most common in older buildings with shared systems. It tells you the building type, not the value of the heat.
Own a rental in Waltham? I run these numbers every month because they're the numbers I use when I price a unit. 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 Waltham 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: 964 Waltham rentals, studios through five bedrooms, settled between 27 July 2024 and 26 August 2026. These are rents tenants actually signed, not asking prices.
Method. I use medians, not averages, because a few very expensive units would drag an average around. 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. Fifteen records carry out of town zip codes from data entry errors; they're in the town totals and out of the zip table. 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 27 July 2024 through 26 August 2026.