The Biggest Increase in One-Bedroom Rents Happened in This State

It’s hard out there for us one-bedroom types.

According to Zumper’s 2021 National Rent Report (as reported by Grow), the median rent on a single-bedroom unit rose 11.6% over the course of the year.

Surprisingly, it’s not in New York or California where the rents have skyrocketed the most — don’t worry, NYC is still awful — but in Florida, which featured five of the top 10 biggest rent hikes in the country.

Some interesting findings from the report:

The worst increase was in Miami, where a median one-bedroom rental cost $2,280, a whopping 38.29% year-to-year increase.
In the top 10, New York City had the worst overall rent, with a median single-bed unit going for (ugh) $3,190, a mere 32.4% increase.
While Mesa, AZ, saw a 24.7% increase in median rent, their one-bedroom apartments were still only going for $1,210.

And these rental hikes aren’t just a bounce-back from 2020’s COVID-related price drops in some major housing markets. “The issue of affordability has been mounting for decades,” says Ruth Shin, the CEO and founder of real estate startup PropertyNest. “As local, state, and federal governments have not done enough to strategically combat the issue of affordability pre-pandemic, [it has] aggravated the situation.”

As the Grow article also depressingly notes, online searches for “rent relief” and “eviction moratorium” are have increased exponentially within the last year.