Rental rate rise expected to continue
Southwest Floridians in the Cape Coral and Fort Myers area may find themselves reaching deeper into their pockets to keep up with the cost of living in 2025.
Despite low unemployment levels and subsiding inflation, median rent prices from 2024 to 2025 in the local area are forecasted to be 10.5% higher, according to a recent study.
Data from Construction Coverage shows that in 2024, the median rent in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro came in at $1,956, and in 2025, is slated to be $206 more expensive at $2,162.
Nationwide, data from Construction Coverage ranks the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area as the 18th highest increase for “midsize metros,” with three other Florida-based areas in the same category above it.
Construction Coverage’s Jonathan Jones writes that rentals have been highly competitive across the country. He said that many builders were hit hard by the recession, and as a result, the United States under-built its housing stock throughout the 2010s. He states that rental vacancy rates are near record-low levels, meaning more renters are competing for fewer available units.
Florida as a whole is predicted to see a 6.4% increase in rent prices, coming in at 15th nationally.
From 2023 to 2024, the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro saw a 15.2% increase in median rental rates, from $1,708 to $1,967.
According to city of Cape Coral officials, the city is working toward “creating and preserving affordable housing for its residents through a variety of initiatives.”
Some of those initiatives include:
• Community Development Block Grant (CDBG): Funds programs for housing rehabilitation, social services, and neighborhood improvements.
• State Housing Initiatives Partnership (SHIP): Provides financial support for affordable housing and requires periodic Local Housing Assistance Plans.
• Foreclosure Prevention Program: Offers up to $10,000 to help homeowners facing financial hardships.
• Non-Profit Partnerships: Works with organizations like Habitat for Humanity to provide affordable homeownership and rental options.
• Home Repair Grants: Assists low-income homeowners with critical repairs through forgivable loans.
• Live Local Act: Ensures long-term affordability in new developments by requiring 40% of residential units to be affordable for at least 30 years.
• Disaster Repair Grants: Assists low-income homeowners with hurricane related repairs
• Insurance Deductible Grants: Assists low income homeowners with reimbursements for out-of-pocket deductibles post-disaster.
An example of the city’s commitment to affordable housing came Thursday morning when Civitas, an affordable rental community for families, celebrated its official opening. The project was made possible through a variety of sources, including the city’s funding commitment of more than $1.1 million in grant support.
Lee County Housing Authority Executive Director Marcus Goodson said what’s occurring in the rental market right now is “scary.”
“Especially for minimum wage income earners, it’s tough,” Goodson said. “When you have to pay for food, transportation, healthcare, medicine, childcare — all of those things to live in this world, and you’re already paying forty-five to fifty percent of your income towards your housing cost, it’s unsustainable.”
Goodson said point blank, Lee County is an expensive place to live, and it’s getting more expensive each year. He said there’s a ripple effect from landlords and their rising insurance costs and taxes being passed down to tenants.
“The problem is that income is not keeping up,” Goodson said. “Salaries and hourly wages are not keeping up with the cost of housing in Lee County and Southwest Florida.
“The increased costs these families are facing on an annual basis compared to the increase of their salaries and hourly wages are unsustainable.”
The mission of the Lee County Housing Authority is to “assist low-income families with safe, decent, and affordable housing opportunities as they strive to achieve self-sufficiency and improve their lives.”
The LCHA is committed to operating in an efficient, ethical, and professional manner, and creates and maintains partnerships with its clients and appropriate community agencies in order to accomplish this mission.
“That’s the beauty of government-assisted housing, is that our rents are always based on income,” Goodson said. “If you didn’t have housing authorities (and similar programs), middle- to low-income families, and certainly extremely low-income families, just wouldn’t be able to make it. There would be far more homeless people than what we already have — and we already have too many homeless people sleeping on the streets and in the park.”
Goodson said while LCHA is doing what they can with what they have, if you ride around Lee County, many housing developments in the works are market-rate.
“What we do is critical, the problem is we don’t have enough units to go around,” he said. “We’re always one-hundred percent occupied. (There’s always) a two, three, four-year waitlist to get in. That in itself spells out the situation we find ourselves in.”
While rental prices have been eye-opening in recent years, Goodson said individuals and families being priced-out is an issue that’s been at hand for nearly four decades.
“This has been around for quite some time,” Goodson said. “Locally, we’re beginning to talk about it a little more than we have in the last 10 years. In my profession, we’ve been screaming as loud as we can scream for a number of years. Now, we do seem to have landed on the soft ears of people in decision-making positions. It takes public and private partnerships to do this. Government can’t do it all. But, government has to do its fair share, or it’s not going to happen. The return on investment is not enough for developers to get into this business on a similar scale as they get into the market-rate developments. You’ve got to have subsidies, and only the government can provide that.”
The increase in population across Southwest Florida is also a driving factor for increasing rates.
“People are coming here in numbers,” Goodson said. “And there’s only so many housing units in the state. You can continue to build, of course, but at any given moment, there’s a finite number.
“We’ve got to plan (for growth). We’ve got to budget. It’s one thing to talk about it.”
Goodson called developments like Civitas “critical” for Southwest Floridians to get by.
“These ninety-six units are all but leased up, and it happened in just a matter of days,” he said. “That’s an indication of the demand.”
Goodson also spoke to the need for affordable housing spread across the region, not just in certain communities.
“You’ve got to be able to spread it out throughout the county. And Civitas represents that,” he said. “It’s over on Pine Island Road. We have a groundbreaking ceremony in North Fort Myers coming up. We’re looking to be part of projects that are outside of where they are traditionally found. You want blended communities with different income levels. You just don’t want it concentrated. We’ve done that before in this country. We’ve concentrated people, and we found out it doesn’t work. Why are we still trying to do that? I’m thankful we have some projects that are outside of the normal geographic boundaries in Lee County where you find affordable housing developments.”
Goodson’s advice for this looking at an increase in rent?
“Sometimes you have to take a step back to take two steps forward,” he said. “Sometimes you may have to bring in a roommate, or move back home to figure things out. Communicate with agencies that provide affordable housing in the community and see if there are some units available.
“Sometimes you’ve got to pivot. I had to do it over the course of my professional career. Just be open to other housing options. It may not be what you want at the moment, but you’ve got to have a vision, and you’ve got to be able to see down the road, see past tomorrow, and know that things will get better.”
For more information on LCHA and programs they offer, visit www.leecountyha.org.
To reach CJ HADDAD, please email cjhaddad@breezenewspapers.com