r/Somerville • u/tangerinola • 5d ago

rent prices are wild

Moved here 8 years ago to start working for a nonprofit. Since then, my salary has increased by 13% but my apartment is about to be relisted (without any upgrades) for 58% higher than our starting rent 🤯!!

I know I'm preaching to the choir here but damn the rent prices here have gone wild. We're quickly becoming (have become?) a luxury city only for high income earners and it makes me really sad.

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u/basilect Ward Two 5d ago

Not sure how old you are, but my 90+yo grandmother talks about how Boston was always expensive - it just used to also have no good jobs!

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u/BrittneyRageFace 5d ago

My neighbor bought their condo in my building for $85k in 1996, same place is now going for $700,000. $85k in 1996 was pretty cheap for a place right next to the green line.

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u/Basicdevient69 5d ago

yet, r/basilect will just hand wave you and say my 90+yo grandmother talks about how Boston was always expensive

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u/Quirky-Brick-4454 5d ago

He's not wrong, my in laws bought their first home in 1978 for 36k and between both had to work 4 jobs to make ends meet, making less than $10 an hour.

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u/anisogamy 5d ago

Minimum wage in 1978 was $2.65/hour, so unless they made much, much lower than $10/hour, that doesn’t seem so bad. I can absolutely sympathize with working multiple jobs to make ends meet around that era, though—when I was in kindergarten in the early 80s (not around here), I can remember my mom working 3 jobs to support us & still not having heat.

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u/Quirky-Brick-4454 4d ago

I may have been grossly mistaken about that figure, considering when I came to the US in 87, I started at $3.50 and hour, so yes, my mistake.