The Tampa rental market is starting to give renters a little more room.
The share of rental listings affordable to a median-income household in the Tampa metro area rose to 61.4% in May, up from 51.6% a year earlier, according to a Zillow analysis released Thursday. That was one of the largest gains among major U.S. markets.
The improvement comes after years of population growth, rising rents and limited housing supply pushed Tampa into the ranks of the nation’s least affordable rental markets. Now, the apartment-building boom that reshaped skylines across Tampa Bay is starting to show up in the numbers.
Thousands of new units have entered the market, giving renters more choices and forcing landlords to compete harder for tenants. More than half of Tampa rental listings, 50.5%, included concessions in May, including free rent, waived fees or other promotions, Zillow found.
Typical rent in the metro area fell 1% from a year earlier to $2,018 in May, making Tampa one of the few major markets to post an annual decline.
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Orlando also recorded a sharp improvement. The share of affordable rental listings there rose to 69.5% from 61.3% a year earlier.
Nationwide, 74.1% of rental listings were affordable to median-income households in May, the highest share Zillow has recorded for the month since it began tracking the data in 2021. National rent growth measured 2% year over year.
“More supply on the market means more choices, and more choices mean landlords have to compete on price and incentives,” Kara Ng, a senior economist at Zillow, said in a statement. “The combination of cooling rents and rising incomes has quietly moved the affordability needle in a meaningful way.”
Even with the gains, Tampa remains less affordable than many competing Sun Belt markets. Austin posted a 91% affordability rate in May, while Raleigh reached 94.8% and Salt Lake City recorded 90.2%.
How long Tampa’s improvement lasts may depend on what happens next in the apartment pipeline. Developers have begun pulling back on new projects as financing costs remain elevated and apartment starts slow nationally. That could leave fewer new units reaching the market in the years ahead than the wave of construction that helped cool rents across Tampa Bay.
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