Report: Southwest Florida, Tampa renters fight for fewer available apartments

If you are looking to rent an apartment in Tampa or Southwest Florida, you better act fast.

A new report finds that the two regions are among the toughest markets in the state for apartment hunters, with current tenants staying longer and more people looking for units.

According to RentCafe’s Rental Competitiveness report, there are nine renters for every vacant unit available in Tampa. It’s slightly better in Southwest Florida, where seven renters are competing for each available apartment.

Miami, which is likely not to come as a surprise, has 21 people looking to rent an apartment for every unit.

Making it tougher to find a place to rent is that occupancy rates remain high in the local markets as more people stay in their apartments rather than move. In Tampa 92.9% apartments are occupied, with 69.7% of people renewing their leases while 92.7% are occupied in Southwest Florida, with 65.6% of people renewing their leases.

All hope isn’t lost though.

The report says that increased multifamily construction will ease some of the pressure over time.

That’s already reflected in the data for Southwest Florida, where the number of prospective tenants looking for an available unit, the occupancy rate and the lease renewal rates all fell slightly from last year.

The same can’t be said for Tampa, where it will take a little longer for new construction to catch up. While the occupancy rate fell 0.5% when compared to last year, the lease renewal rate jumped 3.3% and despite an increase in inventory the number of prospective renters for every available unit remained unchanged.