Our state’s rapid growth demands a drastic increase in new apartment homes for residents to keep Florida’s communities competitive and welcoming. Based on Florida’s current growth trajectory, we will need to build more than 570,000 housing units by 2030.
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Florida has 67 counties and 29 Metropolitan Statistical Areas
Every county in the state is projected to grow, with some counties projected to grow by more than 40%. This comes after a decade of record-breaking growth—between 2010 and 2020 Florida grew by 15% (2.7 million people), ranking second overall, after Texas.
33.4% of households in Florida are renters, up slightly from 2010. There is a wide distribution of renters across the state's counties. Almost 50% of all households in Miami-Dade are renters, compared with less than 12% in Sumter.
The lack of supply to meet the dramatically increased demand has resulted in rent increases, with smaller suburban counties and exurban counties seeing the largest increases. In 2021, Collier County rents increased by 70%, while Sarasota County rents increased by 66%.
Housing development has not kept pace with population growth. In the last decade, Florida only built 950K new units, compared with 1.62M in the 2000s and 1.26M in the 1990s. The 2020s will need to be a record-breaking development decade to keep the state competitive.
Higher construction costs have increased the rents required to support new development. Between 2020 and the first quarter of 2022, construction costs increased more than 40%, far outpacing the 11.8% increase in inflation over the same period.
Only 7% of residential land use in the state supports multifamily housing.
In Hillsborough County, multifamily land use is higher at 18%.
By 2030, the housing gap for low-income households in some counties such as Sumter, will increase by five-fold. In others, such as Osceola County, the gap for low-income households decreases slightly.
Although Florida law lacks clarity regarding a municipality’s ability to waive or reduce local property tax rates for affordable housing, implementation of tax discounts would encourage the construction of new apartment homes by reducing operating costs. Additionally, tax discounts in exchange for affordable units can unlock significant economic benefits for low-income households and their surrounding communities.
A detailed analysis of this tool can be explored here.