Without a doubt, Tampa is a booming rental market. A recent report from apartment search website RentCate looked at a decade’s worth of rental data from the Tampa metro area and found that a whopping 47% of residents are now renters.
The same report also found that from 2010 to 2019, the average rent has grown from $852 a month to $1,347, which is a rate increase of 58%, a jump that vastly outpaces the national average of 36%.
While it’s already bad enough that national wage averages haven’t stayed on pace with housing costs, the average apartment size in Tampa is actually shrinking. The report shows that over the last decade, Tampa’s apartments have actually shrunk by 10%, going from an average of 1,074 square-feet in 2010, to 969 square-feet in 2019.
On a very related note, the study also says that less people are moving to Tampa’s urban center, and are now opting for cheaper, and farther away, suburban areas. The RentCafe report found that over the last decade, Tampa’s suburban areas witnessed an increase of 26% in new renters, while urban areas saw an increase of 22%.
Arguably the only good thing noted in this study is that the Tampa-area built more non-luxury units (21,400) than luxury units (15,500) over the last ten years. But, you really wouldn't be able to tell with the influx of new luxury projects, like Jeff Vinik's Water Street development, which used giant tax breaks meant for the city’s poorest residents.
So, to summarize, half of Tampa residents are now renters. However, their wages have only marginally increased over the span of ten years, and now they’re paying nearly 60 percent more to live in an even smaller apartment, which is likely farther away from their workplace.
This study only reinforces what we already know: Tampa Bay, as well as most of Florida, is in the midst of an abysmal affordable housing crisis. A report from last May found that the average Tampa resident can only afford a 619-square-foot apartment.
Something tells me it’s not the avocado toast.
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This article appears in Dec 19-26, 2019.