The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected many local housing markets in Metro Boston, Quincy included. The availability rate is a good measure of housing supply in a given area, and can help shed light on the local housing economy when it is disrupted. It is calculated by first taking the sum of all vacant apartments plus those that are available for rent but still occupied. Then if we divide that sum by the total supply of apartments in the region, we can obtain the real-time availability rate. When we apply the same formula for apartments in Quincy MA, we see a real-time Quincy MA availability rates of 1.47%. This is after seeing a YOY change in RTAR% by -13.53%.
When we compare those figures to the rates of the city of Boston, we can get a glimpse of how Quincy’s market is performing compared to the larger Metro housing economy as a whole. The year-over-year change in RTAR% for Boston proper is currently +4.66%. The average YOY change % in apartment availability Boston’s suburbs is even higher +26.70% which indicates that the demand for apartments has not picked up as much in the suburbs as it has in the city. If we take the average RTAR YOY change % for all areas in Metro Boston, it is at +13.44%. Considering these numbers, we can see that the demand has increased in Quincy compared to Oct. 2020 by a much larger margin than other suburbs.
Similarly, the real-time vacancy rate of Quincy MA apartments is 1.23% after seeing a YOY change of -9.56%. In Boston, the vacancy rate is similar (1.57%) after witnessing a year-over-year rise of +3.97%. In the suburbs, the real-time vacancy rate is 1.63% and this is after a YOY rise of +21.64%. If we consider all areas in Metro Boston, the vacancy rate is 1.60% and the RTVR% change year-over-year is +11.11%.
The vacancy rate is calculated by dividing the total number of vacant apartments by the total supply of apartments in Quincy MA. The pattern of vacancy rates in Quincy MA is opposite to that of the city of Boston where the vacancy rates have increased by 3.97% since last year. These tighter supply numbers in Quincy indicates that apartment rental market is seeing a stronger recovery here than most other suburbs.
