About Arlington
Arlington is a town northwest of Cambridge and Somerville, running along Massachusetts Avenue from the Cambridge line at East Arlington through Arlington Center to Arlington Heights. The first thing to know before searching here is that it has no rapid-transit station of its own, and that the MBTA station called Arlington is on the Green Line in Boston's Back Bay, roughly six miles away and unrelated to the town.
What Arlington has instead is Alewife just over the Cambridge line and one of the heaviest bus networks in the metro area. Route 77 runs the length of Massachusetts Avenue to Harvard, and routes 62, 67, 76, 78, 80, 87 and 350 cover the rest of the town and reach Alewife, Harvard, Lechmere, Waltham and Burlington. Which bus corridor a listing sits on matters more here than the neighborhood name.
The 10-mile Minuteman Bikeway runs from Alewife through Arlington Center out to Lexington and Bedford on a former railway bed, paved and level the whole way. For a lot of Arlington renters it is a genuine commuting route to the Red Line rather than a weekend amenity.
The town divides into East Arlington at the Cambridge line, Arlington Center in the middle, Arlington Heights at the northwest end, and Brattle Square between East Arlington and the Center. The rental stock is overwhelmingly two-family houses, with single-family homes and a scattering of mid-size buildings near Massachusetts Avenue filling in, so most listings are a full floor of a house with stairs, tenant-paid heat and driveway parking.
Inventory follows the Greater Boston September 1 cycle, so listings are widest from April through July. Because nearly all of the stock is owner-held rather than managed, listings appear individually rather than in batches.
Spot Easy lists Arlington apartments from verified agents, with real-time availability, filters for bedroom count, bathrooms, pets, parking, laundry and no-broker-fee listings, and photos or 3D tours on most units. Median asking rents across Greater Boston by bedroom count, with sample sizes and percentiles, are published monthly in the Spot Easy Rent Index. Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Belmont and Lexington apartments all border Arlington.
FAQ about Arlington Apartments for Rent
Where is Arlington, MA?
Arlington is a town in Middlesex County directly northwest of Cambridge and Somerville, bordered by Medford to the east, Belmont to the south, Lexington to the west and Winchester to the north. Massachusetts Avenue runs the full length of the town and is its spine, connecting East Arlington at the Cambridge line through Arlington Center to Arlington Heights at the northwestern end. Brattle Square sits between East Arlington and the Center. Listings are almost always described by one of those four names rather than by the town alone, and the difference matters: East Arlington is a walk from Alewife and the Red Line, while Arlington Heights is several miles further out and depends entirely on the bus. Arlington is also long rather than wide, stretching several miles along a single avenue, so the town name on a listing tells you much less about the commute than the neighborhood name does.
Is the Arlington T stop in Arlington, MA?
No, and this catches people out regularly. The MBTA station called Arlington is on the Green Line in Boston's Back Bay, at Arlington Street beside the Public Garden, roughly six miles from Arlington Center and in a different city entirely. Arlington the town has no rapid-transit station of its own. The closest one is Alewife on the Red Line, just over the Cambridge line at the southeastern corner of town, which is walkable from parts of East Arlington and a short bus ride from the rest. If you are comparing listings from a search that mixed the two, check the city and postal code before anything else. This confusion is common enough that it is worth stating plainly: if a listing claims a Green Line location in Arlington, MA, something is wrong with the listing rather than with your understanding of the map.
How is transit access in Arlington?
Arlington has no rapid-transit station, so the bus network and Alewife do the work. Route 77 runs the length of Massachusetts Avenue to Harvard and is the busiest in town; routes 62, 67, 76, 78, 80, 87 and 350 cover the rest and reach Alewife, Harvard, Lechmere, Waltham and Burlington. Alewife itself sits just over the Cambridge line and is the Red Line connection, with a large parking garage and a bus interchange. The Minuteman Bikeway also runs from Alewife through Arlington Center, and for a lot of renters here it is a practical way to reach the Red Line without waiting for a bus. Check which corridor a listing sits on before comparing it with anything in a subway town. Route 77 is the one to check first for most addresses, since it runs the spine of the town, and its frequency is what makes a car-free Arlington commute workable at all.
What is the commute from Arlington to Boston like?
Most car-free commutes from Arlington are a bus or a bike to Alewife or Harvard, then the Red Line. Route 77 down Massachusetts Avenue to Harvard is the most frequent option, and the Minuteman Bikeway to Alewife is genuinely competitive at peak times because it avoids traffic entirely. Driving uses Massachusetts Avenue, Route 2 or Route 60, and the Route 2 and Alewife Brook Parkway approaches are the main constraints in the morning peak. Distance from Alewife is the single biggest variable across the town: East Arlington is close enough to walk, Arlington Center is a short ride, and Arlington Heights is a longer bus trip. Check the specific address rather than the town. Many renters here end up combining modes by season, cycling the bikeway in warmer months and taking route 77 in winter, so it is worth checking that both options work from an address rather than only one.
Which parts of Arlington should I search?
East Arlington, at the Cambridge line, is the densest part of town and the closest to Alewife and the Red Line, so it is the natural first choice for a car-free commute. Arlington Center holds the main commercial strip, the Robbins Library, the theaters and the point where the Minuteman Bikeway crosses Massachusetts Avenue. Brattle Square sits between the two with its own small cluster of shops. Arlington Heights at the northwestern end is the furthest from rapid transit and leans hardest on the bus, but it sits closest to the Arlington Reservoir and the open land toward Lexington. Choose on distance to Alewife and which bus corridor you can use, since those vary far more across Arlington than the housing does. The rent difference across those four areas is generally smaller than the commute difference, which means the most common mistake here is optimizing for price and then absorbing an extra half-hour each way.
What kinds of buildings are Arlington apartments in?
Two-family houses are the most common building type in Arlington by a wide margin, followed by single-family homes, three-families and a scattering of mid-size buildings clustered along Massachusetts Avenue. Only a small number of properties in town have fifty units or more. In practice most Arlington listings are a full floor of a wood-frame house, which means stairs rather than an elevator, heat and electricity on the tenant, and driveway or street parking rather than a garage. The mid-size buildings near Massachusetts Avenue are where elevator access and on-site laundry are realistic, and they also tend to sit closest to the route 77 corridor. Filter for the amenities you need rather than inferring them from the street. Because the mid-size buildings are concentrated on one avenue, filtering for elevator access effectively narrows your search to the Massachusetts Avenue corridor, which is worth knowing before you rule that corridor out for noise or traffic.
What sizes of apartment are most common in Arlington?
Two-bedrooms lead, and Arlington also has a notable tail of large apartments: four-, five- and occasionally six-bedroom listings come to market because full floors of big two-family houses and whole houses both get rented out. One-bedrooms are available in modest numbers, mostly in the buildings near Massachusetts Avenue, and studios are close to absent. If you want something small, the mid-size buildings along the avenue and in East Arlington are where to concentrate, or widen the search to Cambridge and Somerville. If you want three or more bedrooms, Arlington is one of the stronger options in this part of the metro area. The large-unit supply is a genuine feature of this town rather than an occasional accident, so if you need four bedrooms or more it is worth searching Arlington deliberately rather than treating it as a fallback.
What is the Minuteman Bikeway?
The Minuteman Bikeway is a ten-mile paved rail trail running from Bedford Center through Lexington Center and Arlington to Alewife station in Cambridge. It was built on a former railway bed, so it is level and continuous the whole way, and it connects at Alewife to the Red Line and a bus interchange. It crosses Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington Center, which puts a large share of the town within a short ride of it. For renters this is more than a recreational path: it is a car-free commuting route into Cambridge that bypasses traffic entirely, and proximity to it is worth weighing alongside the bus corridors when comparing listings. It is also plowed in stretches during winter, though conditions vary by town, so it is not automatically a year-round route and is worth checking locally before relying on it in January.
What is there to do in Arlington?
Spy Pond in East Arlington and Menotomy Rocks Park in the middle of town are the main open spaces, with the Arlington Reservoir at the northwestern end offering a swimming beach in summer. Arlington Center holds the Robbins Library, the Regent Theatre and the Capitol Theatre within a few blocks of each other, along with most of the town's restaurants. The Minuteman Bikeway crosses the Center and runs the length of the town. The Jason Russell House, a farmhouse dating from about 1745, still stands on Massachusetts Avenue and is operated as a museum by the Arlington Historical Society, which bought it in 1923. Arlington Center is compact enough that the library, both theaters, the bikeway crossing and most of the restaurants sit within a few minutes of each other on foot, which is unusual for a town without rapid transit.
What is the history of Arlington, MA?
Arlington was known as Menotomy in the colonial period and sat directly on the road between Boston and Concord, which put it in the path of both the outbound march and the retreat on 19 April 1775. The Jason Russell House on Massachusetts Avenue, built around 1745, stood through that day and survives as the town's principal historic site, restored and operated as a museum by the Arlington Historical Society since the 1920s. The town later took the name Arlington. Much of the housing a renter will see today is considerably later than that, dating from the streetcar-suburb expansion along Massachusetts Avenue and the two-family building that followed it. That streetcar-era expansion is the reason so much of the town's rental stock is two-family housing built to a similar pattern along the avenue, which in turn explains why floor plans here are more consistent than in older parts of the metro area.
When should I start looking for an apartment in Arlington?
Arlington follows the Greater Boston September 1 cycle, so inventory is widest between April and July and thinnest in late winter. Searching in late May or June gives the widest choice for a September start. Because nearly all of Arlington's stock is owner-held two-family houses rather than managed buildings, listings appear individually and irregularly rather than in batches, and there are no leasing offices releasing inventory on a schedule. That makes an alert for your bedroom count considerably more effective than checking manually, and it means a well-placed unit near the route 77 corridor or the bikeway can be gone within days of posting. Searching Somerville and Medford alongside Arlington is usually worthwhile, since all three share the same two-family stock and the same September cycle. Inventory here is thin enough that the practical advice is to start earlier than you would in a larger town and to keep an alert running continuously rather than checking in bursts.
How do I find no-broker-fee apartments in Arlington?
Apply the no-broker-fee filter, which limits results to listings an agent has specifically marked as carrying no tenant-paid fee. Fee terms are set per listing rather than per neighborhood, so the filter is more reliable than any rule of thumb. Arlington is a harder place to use it productively than a town with managed buildings, because most of the stock is owner-held two-family houses without in-house leasing staff, so no-fee listings appear irregularly and do not last long. The mid-size buildings near Massachusetts Avenue are the likeliest exception. Where a fee does apply it is most often one month's rent, on top of first month, last month and a security deposit. If a listing does not state its fee terms, treat them as unconfirmed and ask the agent. Because the no-fee stock here skews toward the avenue, applying the filter tends to shift your results toward the busier corridor, so weigh that against the quieter side streets before deciding the fee is not worth paying.