TAMPA, Fla. — It's one of the hottest new places to live in downtown Tampa. But you better be ready to pay New York prices. A one-bedroom at Water Street's all-new "Heron" starts around $2,000 a month, and only goes up from there.
“It's striking,” said Jeff Tucker, a senior economist for real estate app Zillow. “Tampa actually has one of the fastest rent appreciation rates at the moment among major metro areas.”
Tucker says Tampa's high prices may be a sticker shock to locals but not for many of the people moving here.
Research shows the top three places people are coming to Tampa from are New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C. -- all places where rent is already sky-high.
“When they move out and come down to Florida they will view most rent levels there as a bargain by comparison,” said Tucker.
Experts suggest a combination of Florida's affordable prices, warm weather, and no state income tax started an exodus from big cities even before the pandemic. Then when COVID hit, everything accelerated.
“We are seeing much stronger demand in what used to be more vacation counties,” said Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors. “Because workers are saying work from home… maybe I can work from my vacation home and why should the boss care?”
But the problem with big apartments, is they do take time to build.
“Anytime there's a really rapid surge in demand there's just no way for builders to keep up,” said Yun.
That could mean higher rent, even in more modest apartments.
Zillow's latest numbers show Tampa Bay's overall rent prices averaging around $1,624 a month. That's up 8.3 percent from just a year earlier, a trend that's expected to continue until the number of new apartments increases.
“If supply can kind of keep up then that ought to dampen some of the price increases,” said Tucker. “There's really no question that if a city becomes more attractive and brings in more migration it is going to tend to raise the rent levels in that city.”
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