By Miguel Rio
Last month in St. Petersburg, average rent prices leaped up to around 6% higher than October 2024, as reported by Zillow data. This puts renters in the area at a tough spot as the percentage increase in the area outpaced the nation’s inflation rate and United States shelter cost.
The nation’s inflation rate and U.S. shelter cost rose about 3%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. All these factors show that according to other areas, cost of living is tighter in the St. Petersburg area, posing struggles for residents renting in the area.
Grace Rosenberry, a University of South Florida St. Petersburg student from the city’s Historic District area, described unexpected jumps in her rent budgeting. She said prices were higher since she started looking for apartments in the area last January.
“I’ve only been renting since July,” Rosenberry said. “I tried to cap my rent at $1,100 a month, and when I started looking in January, that was possible. But not by summer, so I needed to look into more expensive places.”
She noted that she does not know of anyone who pays less than $1,100. This matches with current data from Zillow, which showed the average rent price in St. Petersburg for all property types to be about $2,200.
Recently inflation rates nationally hovered around 3%. This is currently above federal government’s target percentage of 2%, which is according to the Federal Reserve.
Michael Snipes, an associate professor and economics expert at USF, said how percentage increase may initially seem small, but have a significant impact on lives and overall economy in the Tampa area and St. Petersburg.
“This could potentially represent an increase of hundreds of dollars for some, making already tightly-stretched budgets even tighter,” Snipes said.
The BLS reported that the Tampa Bay area, including St. Petersburg and Clearwater, in all items of the consumer price index, it has increased 3.3% from last year as of July 2025. This, Snipes said, is a part of an ongoing trend of inflation rates.
“Tampa Bay also leads the nation in overall inflation rates for the past several years, exasperating an already expensive area to live,” Snipes said.
Lei Wedge, USF associate professor and expert on real estate research, said that overall prices are down in Tampa Bay.
“Rent has been coming down in, some areas slightly increased while most areas came down in Tampa,” Wedge said.
According to Zillow data, rent prices in Tampa went up $95 or around 5% from last December. However, most increases according to Rent.com, come from studio apartments with 5% increase. For one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, they have seen decreases from 12% to 18%.
There are positives for potential homeowners looking to buy houses within the Tampa Bay area, as reported by Zillow, over the span of a year, St. Petersburg home value gone down 9.9%, Tampa decreased 5.1%.
In the past several years, the area of Tampa Bay has seen “extensive population growth,” Snipes said. He said factors such as this are the main source for rent increases due to tourism, increasing the struggle between homes built and population growth.
“Florida is very good at building housing quickly, but the growth in population is quicker,” Snipes said. “Some people were turned away by last years’ hurricanes and chose to move or vacation to other places.”
Snipes said, when it comes to tourism and population growth, wealthier individuals seem to be among the people migrating to Florida with the growth.
According to the Business Observer, Florida leads the nation in net income migration, a factor that has not just Tampa, but all of Florida to be a discussion of thought economically.
