Buying a home in Allston and Brighton.

Allston-Brighton at a glance

Residential exemption

Offered to owner-occupants Apply by April 1. Confirm the current amount with the assessing department.

Transit

Green Line B branch · Boston Landing (Commuter Rail) · MBTA bus MBTA

County

Suffolk County

Housing stock

Heavily rental, with large numbers of student tenants and a supply of two- and three-family houses that draws first-time multifamily buyers.

Figures come from the municipal and statutory sources linked above and are reproduced for orientation, not as advice. Confirm anything you plan to rely on with the assessing department, your lender and your attorney.

Boston's tax rules, an investor's arithmetic.

Because Allston and Brighton sit inside the City of Boston, the city's residential exemption applies here with the same April 1 deadline and the same owner-occupancy test. That last part is the catch in a neighbourhood full of investor-owned units: the exemption follows occupancy, not the building. A landlord-owned unit in the same triple-decker as an owner-occupied one is taxed differently.

If you are buying a two- or three-family and living in one unit, that distinction is worth understanding early. You occupy one unit, so the exemption question attaches to you and your unit, while the rest of the building is rental. It changes both the tax picture and how a lender underwrites the purchase, because part of the property's income is rent.

The rental side of the arithmetic changed in August 2025, when Massachusetts banned charging tenants a broker fee for a broker the landlord hired. Whoever hires the broker now pays. For a buyer modelling rental income, that is a real line item that moved — and most guidance written before that date still assumes the old arrangement.

A tenant can now be asked for first month's rent, last month's rent, a security deposit capped at one month, and the actual cost of a lock and key. That is the complete list. Application fees, pet fees and cleaning fees are not permitted, and any refundable deposit counts inside the one-month cap.

• Allston and Brighton are Boston neighbourhoods, so the City of Boston residential exemption and its April 1 deadline apply here.
• Owner-occupancy is the test — an investor-owned unit in the same building does not qualify.

A rental neighbourhood you can buy into.

The housing stock is dominated by two- and three-family houses alongside larger apartment buildings, and the tenant base skews young and student-heavy given proximity to several universities. That produces high turnover and a rental calendar that is unusually concentrated.

Transit is the Green Line B branch along Commonwealth Avenue, the Boston Landing commuter rail stop at the southern end, and a dense bus network. The B branch has many stops and is correspondingly slow, which is why a few blocks in the right direction can matter more here than in neighbourhoods served by a faster line.

For first-time buyers, the appeal is the entry point. A small multifamily where rental income offsets part of the mortgage is one of the few routes into ownership in Boston at a manageable price, and Allston-Brighton has more of that stock than most neighbourhoods. The trade is that you become a landlord, with the obligations that carries.

What you pay at the closing table

Massachusetts closes through attorneys rather than escrow or title agents, so an attorney fee is unavoidable rather than optional. A straightforward purchase commonly runs $750.00 to $1,250.00 — a range, not a quote.

The deed excise, usually called tax stamps, is a seller cost rather than a buyer one. It is charged at $2.28 per $500 of the sale price or any fraction of it, so it steps up at every $500 boundary rather than running as a true percentage. Calculators that model it as a flat 0.456% come in slightly low on any price that is not an exact multiple of $500 — usually by a dollar or two, so it matters for a net sheet that has to tie out rather than for the size of the bill.

On the buyer side, budget for lender charges, title insurance, recording fees, the home inspection, and prepaid taxes and insurance. Those vary enough by lender and property that a single quoted figure would mislead more than help.

Timing: everything here runs on September 1.

A large share of Greater Boston leases begin on September 1, and Allston-Brighton is the centre of it. Demand for rentals concentrates in the months beforehand, which means if you are buying a tenant-occupied building, the state of those leases at closing is a material fact rather than a detail.

Ask when each lease ends, what rent is actually being paid rather than advertised, whether last month's rent and deposits are held correctly, and whether those funds transfer to you at closing. Massachusetts security deposit rules are strict and the liability follows the property.

For the purchase itself, the ordinary Greater Boston calendar applies — spring and early autumn carry the most inventory. But the rental cycle is the one that determines what a multifamily is worth to you in year one.

Questions buyers ask about Allston-Brighton