Drew Dixon
The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach area is the most expensive major market in the United States for residential rent prices, according to a new study published this month by Lawnlove.com, a lawn maintenance and care website.
The South Florida area was atop the list of the 198 largest metros in the U.S., ranked by highest rent prices.
But South Florida wasn’t the only Sunshine State region to be called out for having expensive rental rates. There were two more Florida markets in the Top 10, with Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater coming in at No. 8 and Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford being called the 10th most expensive rental market in the U.S.
Florida had a total of eight regions in the Top 20, including Naples-Marco Island (No. 13), Tallahassee (No. 16), North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton (No. 17), Gainesville (No. 18) and Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach (No. 19).
The Lawnlove.com analysis compared 196 of the largest metro areas in the country (while researchers aimed to study the 198 largest metros, two were excluded from the list due to lack of sufficient data).
The study used three categories to compare rental markets, including average rent prices, year-over-year rent changes and the share of renters who are spending more than 30% of their income to cover rental costs and utilities costs each month.
There were a total of 18 Florida markets that landed on the Top 100. California had 13 regions among the Top 100, while and Texas had nine.
The analysis described the difficulties in the brutal South Florida rental market.
“Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach (No. 1) stands out with the highest rental costs for one-and-two-bedroom rentals, and a significant 62.6% of renters are cost-burdened, spending nearly 32% of their income on rent,” the analysis said.
But rental price hikes are facing most major markets in the current housing climate, the study found. Even in smaller markets, renters are getting squeezed.
“With fewer than 500,000 residents, smaller metros like Norwich, Connecticut, (No. 69), Lansing, Michigan, (No. 101), Sierra Vista, Arizona, (No. 83), and Greenville, North Carolina, (No. 41) have seen significant increases in rent prices over the past year, experiencing hikes of over 7%,” the analysis concluded.
The lowest average monthly rent could be found in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, followed by Rock Springs, Wyoming, Fargo, North Dakota, Huntsville, Alabama and Rochester, Minnesota.
