Florida Cities See Some Of The Biggest Rent Drops In U.S. In April
MIAMI, Florida - Three Florida cities were among the top ten cities in the U.S. to have the biggest drop in rent prices year over year, according to a recent Redfin study.
COVID-19 Pandemic Rent Price Inflation
During the COVID-19 pandemic, rental rates in Florida and across the U.S. reached unprecedented highs, triggering concerns about housing affordability for many Florida residents as rent inflation as high as 50% outpaced wage inflation of around 20% during the same time period, with deviations depending on each Florida metro.
U.S. asking rents rose as much as 17.6% year over year during the pandemic, and then fell as much as 4.1% this past summer, according to Redfin.
Sun Belt Accounts For Biggest Y-o-Y Rent Decline In U.S.
The median asking rent in Seattle fell 7.3% year over year in April—the biggest drop among the U.S. metros Redfin analyzed.
Next came nine Sun Belt metros: Austin, TX (-6.6%), Nashville, TN (-5.9%), Jacksonville, FL (-5.6%), Miami (-5%), San Diego (-4.7%), Phoenix (-4.6%), Charlotte, NC (-4.5%), Tampa, FL (-4.3%) and Orlando, FL (-3.2%).
“The Sun Belt has built a ton of new apartments in recent years, partly to meet the surge in demand brought on by the flood of people who moved in during the pandemic housing boom. But the boom is over, and now property owners are struggling to fill vacancies, which is causing rents to fall,” said Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari.
“The good news is that the uptick in housing supply in the Sun Belt has improved affordability for renters, which can be a lesson for other American cities grappling with housing affordability challenges.”
Rents in some Sun Belt markets are also just coming back down to earth after skyrocketing to unsustainable levels during the pandemic, Bokhari added.
SIMILAR STORIES
