TAMPA, Fla. — In 2019 Amanda Vath found a home that she liked. It was big enough for her and her fiancé and their six children and rent was at $1,685. It was a place she could afford.
“Everything’s going up. The electrics has gone up, insurance has gone up because we have to carry renters' insurance, so it’s just a lot,” Vath said.
In February her rent jumped to $1,850 and she was told it’ll go up again next year, to a total of $1,925.
“We’re beyond paycheck to paycheck. We’re like transferring money over from Mercari every couple of weeks just to hang on. Our electric is due to get shut off in a couple weeks,” Vath said.
She would move elsewhere but with her husband out of work, it’s just not feasible. “Especially with six kids, several of them special needs, so we have to travel to Tampa and back to go to appointments. So, gas and electric and everything else along with the rising in rent is tough,” she said.
It’s an all-too-common story for people across the country. A new report from realty tracker Redfin found the median monthly asking rent for the United States surpassed $2,000 in May for the first time ever.
The report found the median monthly rent across the nation stood at $2,002, which was a 15 percent jump from the same time in 2021. The increase matched April's 15% year-over-year increase but was down from March's 17% gain.
For comparison, the Redfin analysis of asking rents was approximately $1,600 in May 2019.
In Tampa, the median rent jumped to $2,188 in May, a 22.4% year-over-year increase. But, according to Redfin, Tampa's skyrocketing rents weren't the highest in Miami or the nation.
The report found Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach all reported 29% year-over-year increases in rent prices in May. Still, those jumps didn't make the top four in the nation.
The four metro areas with the fastest rising rents as of May were: Austin, Texas (48%), Nashville, Tennessee (32%), Seattle, Washington (32%), and Cincinnati, Ohio (32%).
