Share This Article
The town of Sudbury is known for its abundance of single-family homes, green lawns, open space, and public schools. But what if you’re not interested in buying a single-family home? What options are available to you?
Given single-family homes make up the vast majority of Sudbury’s housing stock, about 94% according to the Town of Sudbury, one might expect to see a selection of those units available for rent. As of September 25, 2025, Zillow.com and Realtor.com listed zero single-family homes available for rent in Sudbury.
In fact, Realtor.com was listing just 20 Sudbury apartments for rent, all of which were located at two properties: Avalon Sudbury in the Meadow Walk plaza on Route 20, and Cold Brook Crossing on Route 117 in North Sudbury.
The least expensive one-bedroom unit at Cold Brook Crossing was $2,690 per month and offered 802 square feet of living space. Pet rent was listed at an additional $65 per month per pet, and covered parking was advertised at an additional $175 per month.
At Cold Brook Crossing, the step up to a two-bed/two-bath unit with run you at least $3,595 per month in base rent. A three-bed/two-bath unit is listed for $5,195 per month. For comparison purposes, the mortgage payment (inclusive of property taxes and insurance, after a 20% down payment) on a $700,000 home at today’s rates would be approximately $4,800 per month.
Heading south to Avalon Sudbury in the Meadow Walk plaza, a one-bed/one-bath unit with 792 square feet was advertised on Realtor.com at $2,995 per month. Fees for pets and parking were not advertised. On the Avalon Sudbury website, one-bedrooms started at $3,190, two-bedrooms started at $3,850, three-bedrooms and townhouses started at $4,950.
The rents were not inconsistent with other apartment complexes in the area. The new apartments at The Oxbow in Wayland were advertised between $2,700 and $5,500 depending on the beds, baths and square footage.
Above Average
According to Apartments.com, the average rent in Massachusetts is $2,554, putting Sudbury’s least expensive options more than $100 higher than the state average. Apartments.com indicates that Massachusetts is the second most expensive state to rent an apartment. However, the average rent in Boston was a whopping $3,532 according to the same data set, and that only got renters 696 square feet on average.
If it’s any consolation, a new building called “The Sudbury” in Boston is advertising studio apartments with less than 600 square feet for $3,550.
While Realtor.com recently reported that rents are dropping across the country, the Boston-Cambridge-Newton metropolitan area was cited as one exception to the trend.
The Town of Sudbury recently minted a Housing Production Plan, which discusses affordability at length. The plan concludes “As discussed earlier, 80 percent of AMI for a 4-person household is $118,450. In order to keep housing costs from exceeding 30 percent of that income, the maximum affordable rent would be $2,961 per month with all of the utility costs included. If utilities were not included, deducting the Utility Allowance would set an affordable charged rent at $2,719. This 4-person household would be about $100 behind at the end of every month for the starting rents in Sudbury’s newest developments for a one-bedroom apartment. The two-bedroom units would create a $900 deficit each month.” (Page 67)
Don’t Forget The Taxes
With an average single-family tax bill of $16,343, Sudbury is among the 20 highest average tax bills in the state according to data from the Division of Local Services (DLS). That may sound steep, but the top-ten highest average tax bills in the state are all at least 10% higher than Sudbury’s, with Weston, Brookline and Lincoln all coming in north of $20,000 per year.
To put that in broader context, spot 50 on the list came in at about $11,000 in property taxes, and spot 100 was approximately $8,000 per year. Notably, when the tax bill is calculated as a percentage of income, Sudbury fares much better.
While homeowners may be more aware of the property tax bill they’re paying, renters typically just get a bill for a rent amount that factors in property taxes paid by the landlord. It’s hard to track whether or not property taxes are driving apartment rents up since the bulk of Sudbury’s market-rate apartments were built in the last decade. However, the same DLS data shows that Sudbury’s average single-family value has skyrocketed from $650,000 in 2010 to $1,116,000 in 2025. In that same time period the tax bill as a percentage of income has actually trended down from a high of 14.18% in 2013 to 10.51% in 2025, with the average being 11.8% for the years that DLS has data on-hand.
That indicates that the growth in property values has generated an enormous amount of wealth for Sudbury’s single-family property owners over the last 15 years, while the tax burden has remained quite steady, if not easing a bit relative to income growth.
High taxes may play a small role in apartment rental rates, but with the data available from DLS, it would appear that market forces — supply and demand — are (rather unsurprisingly) the driving force behind Sudbury’s above-average apartment rents.
What’s perhaps more surprising is that the single-family homes selling below the median sales price in Sudbury are arguably a stronger value proposition than any market-rate rentals across the town, offering more space for smaller monthly payments, and the opportunity to build equity.
