Two apartments at 560 Revere Beach Boulevard, both listed as available on the same morning, September 16, 2026.
Home B313 is a one bedroom, one bath, 652 square feet, plan A02, $2,680 a month. Home B713 is a one bedroom, one bath, 652 square feet, plan A02, $2,780 a month. Same floor plan. Same square footage. Same building. The only difference between them is four floors of elevator.
That $100 a month is $1,200 over a twelve month lease, and it isn’t an oddity on their board. It’s the shape of the whole thing.
The Board Prices Altitude, in $25 Steps
Modera Revere Beach listed 170 available homes that morning, 169 of them available immediately. Unit numbers on the board carry the building letter, then the floor, then the stack, so B713 reads as building B, floor 7, stack 13. Hold the plan code and the square footage still, and the price moves with nothing but the floor number.
Plan A02 at 652 square feet in building B was listed twenty-six times over. Five homes on the third floor at $2,680. Three on the fourth at $2,680. Six on the fifth at $2,730. Six on the sixth at $2,755. Six on the seventh at $2,780. Twenty-six identical apartments, four prices, sorted by height.
Twenty-three plan-and-size groups on that board had homes on more than one floor, which gives 46 measurable floor-to-floor steps. The step was $25 twenty-four times and $50 sixteen times. It was zero only four times, always between the third and fourth floors. So the rule of that building is roughly $25 a floor a month, and it holds whatever you rent. A studio on plan S03 at 573 square feet ran $2,528 on the fifth floor, $2,553 on the sixth, $2,578 on the seventh. A three bedroom on plan C05 at 1,410 square feet ran $4,645 on the third and $4,745 on the fifth.
Nothing about that is dishonest. Higher floors have better views and the landlord is selling the view. The part worth thinking about is the billing model. You don’t buy the view at Modera. You subscribe to it, and the subscription renews on the landlord’s terms.
What to do with that. Before you sign or renew, ask the leasing office for the same plan on a lower floor and price the difference over the number of years you expect to stay. Four floors at $25 each is $1,200 a year, and over three years that is $3,600 for elevation you may or may not want that badly.
Two Months Free Is a Year One Price, Not a Rent
Every page of the site carries the same banner: “ENJOY UP TO 2 MONTHS FREE! Enjoy up to 2 months of rent free living when you lease by 9/30/26. *Restrictions apply.” Take it at face value, because it’s a real offer and it’s worth real money.
Then do the sum the second year runs on. Home B313 is listed at $2,680. Two months free across a twelve month lease means ten months paid, $26,800 for the year, an effective $2,233 a month. That’s a good number for a new building across the street from the Atlantic.
Your renewal, though, is calculated from $2,680, because $2,680 is what the board says the home costs. So the payment goes from $2,233 to $2,680 with nothing about the apartment changing. That is $447 a month more, a 20 percent step up, before a single dollar of renewal increase is added on top of it. On the seventh floor the same pattern runs $2,317 to $2,780.
The concession also tells you something about the building’s position. Mill Creek’s own page says Modera Revere Beach has 357 homes averaging 901 square feet. The board had 170 of them available on one morning, which is close to half the building. A property with that much space to fill has room to negotiate, and a renter who knows the vacancy number walks in with something to say.
What to do with that. Whatever you’re quoted, write down the gross monthly figure separately from the net effective one. Plan your second year on the gross, then decide if you’d sign at that number, because that’s the number you’re signing for.
Across the Street, the Same Ocean Is for Sale
Revere Beach Boulevard is not only apartments. On the same day, sixteen condominiums were listed for sale on that boulevard, at a median asking price of $497,000, averaging $511.14 a square foot, with an average of 87 days on the market. The range ran from $319,900 to $839,990. Several of them are a short walk from Modera’s front door, facing the same water.
Put one against the other. The cheapest two bedroom on Modera’s board that morning was $3,490 a month, which is $41,880 a year. A two bedroom, two bath of 1,000 square feet at 474 Revere Beach Boulevard was asking $450,000. Ten years and nine months of that rent equals the asking price of the condominium, and at the end of the ten years and nine months of renting, nothing is recorded in your name.
One number is deliberately missing from that comparison and you should be suspicious of any page that leaves it out silently. An oceanfront condominium carries a monthly association fee, and the fee is not in the summary listing data we can see. It pays for the elevator, the roof, the seawall side of the building and the insurance on all of it, and on a beachfront building it isn’t small. Ask for the association fee, the current reserve balance and any special assessment history before anything else. A condominium with a low fee and no reserves costs more than one with a higher fee and money in the bank.
What to do with that. Pull up the boulevard listings on your phone the next time you’re at the pool deck looking at the same water. Ask what monthly payment your current rent would support. The rent versus buy question stops being theoretical once it has a street address attached to it.
Revere Cut Its Tax Rate, and the Bills Still Moved
Revere’s fiscal 2026 residential tax rate is $8.94 for every $1,000 of assessed value, down from $9.07 the year before. The commercial rate came down too, from $18.05 to $17.74. The city adopted a residential factor of .882054, which is the minimum residential factor, and the minimum residential factor is the maximum shift of the levy onto commercial property. Dana Brangiforte, who chairs the Board of Assessors, told the council that the shift “allows us to provide the greatest benefit to the residential taxpayer.”
A councillor pointed out at the same meeting that residents could still see larger bills, because assessed values rose. Both things are true at once, which is the part most renters don’t hear. A falling tax rate is not a falling tax bill.
Still, $8.94 is a low rate for eastern Massachusetts, and it makes the cost of owning friendlier than renters expect. On the $497,000 median asking price for a Revere Beach Boulevard condominium, the annual property tax is about $4,443, which is $370 a month. On the $450,000 two bedroom at 474 Revere Beach Boulevard it’s about $4,023 a year, $335 a month. Set that against $3,490 a month of rent for a comparable apartment across the street, and the tax line stops looking like the obstacle it gets described as.
What to do with that. When you compare renting against buying, put the property tax in the purchase column as a real monthly figure rather than as a vague worry. In Revere it’s a smaller number than almost anyone guesses, and a renter is already paying it inside the rent without ever seeing it itemized.
Nobody Agrees What a House in Revere Costs
This one deserves a warning rather than a number. Revere’s published medians don’t agree with each other right now, and the gaps are large enough to change a decision.
One widely cited source puts the July 2026 median sale price across all home types at $699,700, up 20.1 percent year over year, and another figure from the same month puts it at $557,500. A market snapshot drawn from MLS data in September 2026 gives a median asking price of $550,000, up 4.7 percent, with 266 homes sold over twelve months, 87 average days on market, a 99.4 percent sale to list ratio and 3.2 months of supply. A twelve month median sale figure of $530,000, down 9 percent, also circulates.
The reason is not that somebody is wrong. It’s that 266 sales in a year works out to roughly 22 a month, and in a month that thin, a handful of beachfront closings drags the median a long way. A single month’s median in a city the size of Revere is close to noise.
What to do with that. Use a twelve month figure rather than a monthly one. When somebody quotes you a year over year percentage for Revere, ask what window it covers. Better still, ignore the citywide median entirely and price the specific building you’d buy into, which is what the boulevard listings above let you do.
The Down Payment Is the Other Thing Renters Get Wrong
Most renters carry a number in their head that is roughly double what is required. FHA financing allows 3.5 percent down at a 580 credit score. Massachusetts programs reach further for buyers who qualify. They include the MassHousing options and the ONE Mortgage program, which pairs a small down payment with no private mortgage insurance. Several of those programs carry household income limits, which is a reason to price a purchase at today’s income rather than next year’s.
There is a smaller thing worth noticing on the leasing side too. Modera’s board publishes a Total Monthly Lease Price per home and no lease term ladder, no application fee, no administration fee and no pet fee. The pets page welcomes up to two pets per home and rules out skunks, ferrets and certain dog breeds, but names no pet rent. None of that is hidden exactly. It isn’t published, and you find out the full monthly figure during the application. A mortgage works the other way around, with your costs disclosed to you in writing before you commit to anything.
What to do with that. Ask for a free pre-qualification before you sign a renewal rather than after. It costs nothing, commits you to nothing, and it turns the renewal into a choice instead of a default.
Where We Come In
GoldCoast Mortgage Service is an independent mortgage broker in Beverly, up the coast from Revere. John Donlon, who owns the company, has spent more than 25 years financing homes for families across the North Shore and Greater Boston. Plenty of them started in a lease that looked a lot like yours. A bank offers you the loans that bank happens to sell. A broker prices your file across many lenders and shows you what comes back.
We’ll pre-qualify you at no cost and with nothing attached. You might find a condominium on Revere Beach Boulevard is closer than you assumed. You might find another year at Modera is the smarter move, with the renewal negotiated properly and a lower floor on the table. If renting still wins for your household, we’ll tell you so, and the towns we cover are on our service areas page. We wrote a similar breakdown for renters at Princeton Crossing in Salem, and we work with Revere buyers regularly.
Recommended Realtors for First-Time Buyers
We work regularly with two local agents who are good with first-time buyers and who won’t rush you:
- Arthur Martiroso, DNA Realty Group, 617-921-5015
- Joshua Riopelle, Simes City Realty, North Andover, 978-590-2741
You’re welcome to work with any agent you like. We mention them because renters often ask us who to call once the financing side makes sense.
Same landlord, different lesson: at Modera Medford every one bedroom on the board costs more per square foot than every two and three bedroom.
Questions From Renters at Modera Revere Beach
What are rents at Modera Revere Beach?
On September 16, 2026, the property’s own floor plan page listed 170 available homes, 169 of them available immediately. Studios ran $2,528 to $2,633, one bedrooms $2,590 to $2,909, two bedrooms $3,490 to $3,790 and three bedrooms $4,640 to $4,790. Those are the landlord’s own published Total Monthly Lease Prices for specific numbered homes rather than starting rents from a listing site, and boards like this one change constantly.
Why do two identical apartments at Modera Revere Beach cost different amounts?
Because the board prices the floor. Plan A02 at 652 square feet in building B was listed twenty-six times on that one morning, at $2,680 on floors three and four, $2,730 on five, $2,755 on six and $2,780 on seven. Across the whole board, 46 floor-to-floor steps were measurable inside a single plan and size, and the step was $25 twenty-four times and $50 sixteen times.
Is the two months free at Modera Revere Beach a rent reduction?
It reduces what you pay in year one, not what the home is priced at. The banner offers up to two months free on a lease signed by September 30, 2026, with restrictions. On a $2,680 home that is $26,800 across twelve months, an effective $2,233 a month. The renewal is calculated from $2,680, so the payment steps up about $447 a month, roughly 20 percent, before any renewal increase.
What is the property tax rate in Revere, MA?
Revere’s fiscal 2026 residential rate is $8.94 per $1,000 of assessed value, down from $9.07 in fiscal 2025, and the commercial rate is $17.74, down from $18.05. The city adopted a residential factor of .882054, the minimum residential factor, which shifts as much of the levy onto commercial property as state law allows. At the $497,000 median asking price on Revere Beach Boulevard, that is about $4,443 a year, or $370 a month.
What does a condo on Revere Beach cost to buy?
On September 16, 2026, sixteen condominiums were listed on Revere Beach Boulevard itself, from $319,900 to $839,990, at a median asking price of $497,000 and an average of $511.14 per square foot, with 87 average days on the market. A two bedroom, two bath of 1,000 square feet at 474 Revere Beach Boulevard was asking $450,000. Ask for the association fee, the reserve balance and the special assessment history on any beachfront building before you compare monthly costs.
Is it cheaper to buy than to rent in Revere?
It depends on your rent, your savings and your monthly obligations, and anybody who answers that without those three numbers is guessing. What can be said plainly is that the cheapest two bedroom on Modera’s board was $41,880 a year, and ten years and nine months of that equals the asking price of a comparable two bedroom condominium across the street. A free pre-qualification puts a real figure against both sides.
How much do I need for a down payment in Massachusetts?
Less than most renters assume. FHA financing allows 3.5 percent down with a 580 credit score. Massachusetts programs go further for eligible buyers, including MassHousing options and the ONE Mortgage program, which pairs a low down payment with no private mortgage insurance. A free pre-qualification will tell you which of them are open to you at your current income.