I sell real estate in Boston, so take the following accordingly: this city has serious problems in 2026, and some of you should not move here.

Here are nine of them with real numbers, and then the honest case for why it is still worth it for the people it is worth it for.

1. Rates did not come down, and prices did not either

The 30-year fixed averaged 6.69 percent for the week ending August 6 — up from 6.66 percent the prior week and above the 6.63 percent of a year earlier. Whatever affordability improvement you heard about earlier this year has been erased. Fannie Mae and the Mortgage Bankers Association both place near-term forecasts around 6.4 percent, which describes a market holding roughly where it is.

Against that: the Greater Boston median single-family price for the first half of 2026 was $810,000; the median condo was $625,000. On the rental side, average apartment rents ran roughly $3,943 a month in the South End and $4,249 in South Boston earlier this year.

High entry price and expensive financing at the same time. That is the affordability problem in one paragraph.

2. The property tax structure has a trap in it

Boston gives owner-occupants who file a residential exemption. For FY2026 it removed up to $351,108 of assessed value, saving qualifying owners up to $4,353.74.

The trap: only five Greater Boston communities offer a broad owner-occupant residential exemption — Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville, and Watertown. Newton, Arlington, Belmont, Medford, Lexington, Winchester, and Milton have nothing general at all.

Two buyers with identical budgets, one in Boston and one in Newton, are carrying costs that differ by roughly $360 a month before the mortgage enters the conversation. Almost nobody runs that comparison, which means people choose towns on a basis that is off by four thousand dollars a year.

3. It floods, and it is going to flood more

The city's own emergency management materials state that Boston is among the most flood-vulnerable cities in the country.

Two numbers. An area with a 1 percent annual chance of flooding has roughly a one-in-four chance of flooding during a 30-year mortgage. And from 2014 to 2024, almost one third of all NFIP claims came from properties outside mapped high-risk areas.

Boston's Coastal Flood Resilience Overlay District deliberately extends beyond FEMA's maps, covering areas that could be inundated in a 1 percent storm with 40 inches of sea level rise. The areas studied most closely: Seaport and Fort Point, Downtown and the Wharf District, the North End, East Boston, South Boston, Charlestown, parts of Dorchester near Morrissey, and the low-lying Charles River edges.

That is most of the newest construction and most of the recent appreciation in the city.

4. Winter, and not the part you are thinking of

Last winter: 19 inches in a single 24-hour stretch in January, another 15 in February, schools closed two consecutive days so crews could widen roads for the bus fleet.

The cold is fine. The operational reality is not. Snow emergency declared, parking ban in effect, every car on a posted snow emergency artery towed. Space savers permitted only during an emergency and for 48 hours after — and banned at all times in the South End and Bay Village. Drivers who have taken a saved space, including long after the window expired, have had their cars threatened and vandalized.

Then the property side: ice dams coming through your ceiling in February when every roofer is booked, and frozen pipes in garden-level units and in any property sitting empty — which includes the one you just bought and have not moved into.

5. Renovating here is genuinely hard

Two near-identical projects: one permits in 24 to 48 hours, the other takes twelve months. The difference is whether the project complies with zoning as written.

If it does not: your permit is refused, you appeal within 45 days, your hearing is scheduled 60 to 90 days out, and every abutter is notified. Simple variances with support resolve in three to four months. Complex ones with opposition take a year or more.

Demolition triggers Article 85 review for all buildings at least 50 years of age — nearly everything here. If the Landmarks Commission finds a building preferably preserved, it can invoke a 90-day delay.

6. Condo fees are compounding faster than anything else

Insurance renewals on older masonry buildings, deferred capital coming due, elevators and facades.

And it is not only your monthly cost. A buyer qualifies against a total monthly payment, so at 6.69 percent, $200 a month of fee difference is roughly $31,000 of purchasing power. Fee growth reduces what the next buyer can pay you.

7. Two thirds of the city moves on the same day

Something close to two thirds of Boston leases turn over on September 1. Tens of thousands of people move in the same week.

If you rent, you compete against everyone simultaneously on a compressed timeline, often sight unseen. If you own rental property, your entire year runs on one calendar. It is a strange way to run a housing market and it is unique to here.

8. The housing stock is old and has old problems

Knob and tube wiring, which is not just a repair cost — some carriers will not write a policy on a property with active knob and tube, which makes it a financing problem, because you cannot close without insurance.

Oil heat with aging tanks, and occasionally buried tanks in yards, which is environmental liability rather than a repair line. Single-pane windows in historic districts where replacement may not be permitted. Unpermitted work everywhere — finished basements, converted third floors — creating legal-use problems at financing time.

9. The top of the market is the slow part

The starter segment has been the competitive one this year. Luxury properties in Newton and Brookline have been notably slower to sell.

So money makes this easier than it is for the buyer at $600,000 — but if you buy at the top and need to sell in three years, you are selling into the slow half of the market.

The honest case for staying

Boston offers something very few metros do: world-class hospitals, world-class universities, and a genuinely deep employment market in medicine, research, biotech, education, and finance, inside a geography small enough to live in without a two-hour commute. The career you build here in those fields is not replicable in most American cities, and it compounds over decades.

That is the trade. High cost, difficult housing stock, hard winters, in exchange for career depth and density.

The five-minute test

One question: if I moved to a cheaper city, would my career be materially worse in ten years?

If yes — medicine, research, biotech, higher education, or any field where the employers here are the employers — the cost of this city is buying you something real, and most of the nine problems above are manageable with information.

If no — if your work is portable, or your field is not concentrated here — look hard at what you are purchasing. You are paying a large premium for difficult weather, old housing, and a cost structure that will not improve. There are places where the same money buys a materially better daily life.

I would rather tell you that than sell you a condo you resent in four years.

If you are weighing this and want a straight read on what your money actually buys here, in a specific neighborhood at a specific number, send me your budget and what you do for work. I will tell you honestly what that gets and what it does not.

Chris Remmes, Managing Broker, Remmes & Co. [email protected] | 617-398-0015

Mortgage rate per Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, week ending August 6, 2026. Median prices from Warren Group Greater Boston data, first half 2026. Rent averages per RentCafe, February 2026. Exemption, flood, and snow figures per the City of Boston. Permitting per City of Boston ISD and Landmarks Commission materials.