Boston is staring down a mass exodus of young residents who are being squeezed out by surging housing costs driving them toward more affordable markets, according to a new survey. 

The 2026 Young Residents Survey, commissioned by The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Foundation, found that more than a quarter of Bostonians (26%) between the ages of 20 and 30 years old say they plan on leaving the metro in the next five years—a share the organization calls “distressing.”

The survey also determined that newer residents, LGBTQ residents, unemployed residents, students and unmarried people were more likely to report plans to leave Boston.

The share of survey participants heading for the exit is similar to the results of the 2023 survey, which found 25% of respondents eyeing a move three years ago.

The latest study was conducted in February and March and included 600 young people living in the Greater Boston area, which includes Suffolk, Norfolk, Middlesex, Plymouth, and Essex counties.

The findings reveal that when deciding to stay or leave, 78% of respondents said the cost of rent is important, and 72% cited the ability to buy a home. 

The cost of staying

As the region grapples with a housing crisis, half of survey respondents said that affordable housing should be a top priority for local leaders.  

“It’s no surprise that housing affordability is a top issue in Boston, especially for the youngest residents who are more likely to be renters,” says Realtor.com® senior economist Jake Krimmel.

Median asking rents in Boston stood at $2,918 in March, the second-highest among the nation’s top 50 metros, surpassing New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and trailing only ultra-expensive San Jose, CA.

On the homebuying side, Boston’s real estate market is one of the nation’s least affordable, with median listing prices climbing to $832,500 in April—the fifth-highest among major U.S. metros and nearly double the national median, according to the latest Realtor.com monthly housing market trends report.

Concerns over housing affordability, along with job availability, and safety, have soured the outlook for young Bostonians, with the report showing that life satisfaction has plummeted from 89% to 79% in just three years. 

Why the Sun Belt is winning over Bostonians

Among the responders planning to leave Boston, approximately half are looking to move within Massachusetts and the rest are considering venturing out of the state. 

A deeper dive into the 30-page report shows that 46% of Bostonians planning to exit the Northeast are headed South. Specifically, 23% are looking to settle in Southeastern states, such as Florida, Kentucky, or Tennessee, while another 23% are mulling a move to the Southwest, which includes Arizona and New Mexico. 

Compared with Massachusetts, these states offer more inventory and lower housing costs, making them magnets for debt-burdened college graduates and early-career professionals.

“The region’s affordability continues to be a concern as young residents struggle to seize opportunities that outweigh challenges, like housing and career growth,” the Chamber of Commerce Foundation said. “Competitor states that are more affordable may be appealing to young residents who are eager to find housing to rent or purchase that is more affordable and accessible.”

Jack Gaughan, a Nashville Re/Max broker and president of Greater Nashville Realtors®, has helped a transplant from Boston in his mid-30 put down roots in Nashville.

“He originally moved right around COVID but rented until he decided Nashville was the place he wanted to call home,” Gaughan tells Realtor.com.

The broker says his client, a western Massachusetts native who spent nearly a decade living in Boston, wanted to invest in a property that was “modern but functional.” In the end, he closed on a four-bedroom home in a trendy part of Nashville.

For perspective, Nashville’s median listing price was just under $539,000 in April, nearly $300,000 below Boston’s.

The hidden cost of losing Gen Z

Krimmel says that while an outflow of young people from Boston might put some downward pressure on rent price growth in the short term, the long-term trade-off would be a major blow to the metro’s economy.

“Boston’s young people are overwhelmingly high-skilled college graduates who play an important role in the job market, entrepreneurship and innovation scene, and the local service economy, too,” he says.

Krimmel also points out that in a metro with so many universities, including Harvard and MIT, even if tens of thousands of young people moved out overnight, there would be tens of thousands of other recent graduates or current students to take their place.

“That’s the root of Boston’s rental market crisis: a seemingly never-ending supply of young, educated renters but never enough supply of rental housing for them,” says the economist.

To reverse this trend, Krimmel says the answer is simple in theory but seemingly impossible in practice: increase housing supply of all types at all price points, both in the urban core and lower-density suburbs.

In 2025, Gov. Maura Healey’s administration unveiled a housing plan indicating that Massachusetts needs to add 222,000 new homes by 2035 to keep up with growing demand while keeping costs in check. 

A year earlier, Healey, a Democrat, signed The Affordable Homes Act, which authorized a record $5 billion for housing and created nearly 50 initiatives aimed at speeding up housing production.

Yet, progress has been elusive. Last fall, Massachusetts received an F on the Realtor.com State-by-State Housing Report Card after falling behind most other states on affordability and new home construction.

During her monthly “Ask the Governor” segment on Boston Public Radio that aired in late March, Healey addressed her administration’s efforts to keep Massachusetts’ young people from moving somewhere cheaper, stressing that it is a trend currently haunting other high-cost areas like California and New York. 

“Over the last three-and-a-half years, we’ve got 100,000 homes in the pipeline. Is it enough? No,” admitted the governor. “I need every community in the state to understand that housing is fundamental to the vibrancy of our neighborhoods.”

Gunshots were fired in a daytime armed home invasion in Saugus, Massachusetts, on Sunday, police say, and the two suspects are in custody.

No one was hurt in the shooting on Oakwood Avenue about noon, Saugus police said. Two Boston men, Derek Matarazzo and Timothy Gregory, are facing felony charges including home invasion after their arrest shortly after the 911 calls came in.

The calls reported two men in masks, dressed in black, armed with guns, breaking into a house, police said. They didn’t share what led to the gunfire or how the men were tracked down, saying only that the department wasn’t speculating on their motivation.

Matarazzo and Gregory are believed to be the only people directly involved in the home invasion, police said, and it’s believed to be an isolated incident, so there’s no danger to the public.

Neighbors who spoke with NBC10 Boston say they are shaken up by what occurred, describing a shootout right outside their homes in the middle of the day.

Ring camera video from a nearby home shows the aftermath, as neighbors say you can see the homeowner running into the middle of the street with a phone pressed to his ear, desperately flagging down police — after the chaos.

A neighbor tells us his family first heard what sounded like a pop — something they thought could’ve been a lawn mower backfiring, until they realized it was gunfire. That neighbor says one of his daughters then saw a man carrying a safe — dropping it in their front yard — while shots were being fired.

“I saw somebody come out of the house shooting and then we all hit the deck, because you didn’t want a stray bullet to ricochet off something and come through the window or anything like that,” George Benn said.

“I saw the shots. I saw a man go down. I thought he was going to be dead but apparently he just flipped on that hill,” Tom Bushee said.

The investigation is ongoing.

Employees at the Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston are gearing up for contract negotiations with the Seaport museum after quietly opting to unionize last month.

Just over 90 employees, in roles ranging from visitor services to development to curation, are now being represented by the UAW Local 2110, a New York-based union, as they prepare to go to the bargaining table, seeking better pay and other job protections.

The ICA voluntarily recognized the union shortly after the workers went to museum leadership in early April, said Maida Rosenstein, UAW Local 2110’s director of organizing. That meant the employees could sidestep a formal election through the National Labor Relations Board and instead conduct a card-counting process.

“That all happened quite quickly,” said Rosenstein.

“Our experience with getting voluntary recognition was that the ICA was reasonable about the process,” she added. “So hopefully that will continue through the bargaining process.”

The next step, Rosenstein said, is for the workers to elect a bargaining committee from among their ranks, and then draw up some specific proposals. “We’re hopeful of being able to be negotiating this summer,” she said.

In a statement, the ICA’s director, Nora Burnett Abrams, who stepped into the top job last May, noted that “our exceptional staff are at the heart of what makes the museum so special.”

“We are voluntarily recognizing our employees’ choice to be represented by a union and view the decision to organize as an expression of their deep dedication to the institution,” Burnett Abrams said. “We look forward to working collaboratively and in good faith with Local UAW 2110 toward a collective agreement.”

The ICA is just the latest local institution to see labor action among its workforce. UAW Local 2110 also represents employees at the MFA Boston, who voted to unionize in 2020 and secured compensation increases and other benefit improvements when they ratified their first contract in 2022. Workers at MASS MoCa in North Adams, the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine are also represented by UAW Local 2110.

Carter Seggev, a 28-year-old events coordinator at the museum, said seeing the MFA go through its own unionization process served as something of a blueprint for the ICA workers.

“It has been a very helpful beginner example, to sort of be like, ‘Oh, yeah, they can do it,’ and especially that scale,” he said.

Rosenstein said a chief concern among workers is improving pay, which is currently “very slightly above minimum wage at the entry level,” she said. Other concerns include protections against layoffs and other “health and safety” provisions, such as adequate rest and seating for visitor-facing employees.

For Seggev, who earns $50,000 a year at the museum, better pay is only one piece of the puzzle. He wants more transparency from museum leadership into policy decisions — and a greater say in the institution’s future.

“I like the ICA a lot. It’s a fun workplace, and I would love to have more of a voice in making sure that everyone is being considered and everyone’s needs are being taken into account,” he said. “For me personally, that’s been the biggest driving force.”

He added that, since workers went public with their organizing efforts, he’s been happy with leadership’s willingness to talk with workers about their aims. He was also encouraged by the museum’s voluntary recognition of the union.

“I know that is a very rare thing, and so far, the communication has been very positive,” he said. “I think everyone’s sort of looking forward to working together to make the ICA better.”

The ICA, which has been housed in a gleaming glass building perched on the waterfront since 2006, had an operating surplus of about $800,000 in the fiscal year that ended in June 2025, according to its latest publicly released financial statements. That was up more than a quarter-million dollars from the previous year.

Dana Gerber can be reached at dana.gerber@globe.com. Follow her @danagerber6.