Report: Affordable apartments in Tampa have increased 49% since 2020

The number of new affordable housing qualified apartments in Tampa has grown 49% in the past five years, according to a just released report from RentCafe.

The national apartment search website found metro Tampa completed 3,711 fully affordable apartments between 2020 and 2024 out 48,522 apartments built. Of those, 25% were delivered in 2024.

(The report's authors write that fully affordable "refers to residential buildings in which all units are income-restricted — meaning rent is set so that it does not exceed 30% of the Area Median Income.")

The spike coincides with an increase in the number of affordable housing units built nationwide. The report’s authors, who call the growth “an unprecedented surge,” say that nationwide 310,000 affordable apartments were built in the past five years, with 91,000 of those delivered in 2024.

That’s a 73% increase for the five-year period compared with a 36% increase the previous five years (2015-2019).

RentCafe, which looked at affordable housing construction over the last 10 years for the study, found that “while large coastal markets like Seattle and New York saw major output, fast-growing locations like Austin and San Antonio — where completed apartments more than doubled — also emerged as key contributors to the country’s affordable housing pipeline.”

Helping drive the growth, according to the report, was the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which funneled billions of dollars into housing through state and local governments. Those funds helped developers cover increasing cost and speed up projects while keeping long-term rents affordable, the report's authors write.

Despite metro Tampa’s rapid growth, it trailed far behind Seattle, which topped the list of the top 20 markets for new affordable apartments built in the past five years with 14,290, a 39.7% increase from the previous five years.

Miami was the only Florida locality to make the top 20. It saw 8,690 new affordable apartments built in the past five years. That’s a 97.01% increase from the previous five years, the study found.