Tampa-St. Petersburg Multifamily Market Report

Single-family housing squeeze stirs multifamily construction. The gap between the average monthly mortgage payment on a median priced home in the Tampa metro and the mean rental obligation was over $1,100 in March, as a low supply of local for-sale listings has kept home prices elevated. Consequently, more renters may delay homebuying over the near-term and instead remain in the renter pool for longer. These homeownership barriers are — aside from helping return net absorption back to positive territory over the past six months — encouraging an elevated number of project starts across the metro. The trend is especially apparent in the CBD, where a pipeline equating to nearly 14 percent of existing stock was underway as of April. Elsewhere, New Tampa-East Pasco County has over 4,300 units pending completion. Here, builders are responding to a growing need for rentals following the recent inflow of industrial tenants, such as FedEx and Amazon, to nearby distribution facilities.