Cape Coral rent among highest in U.S. metro areas

Rates are skyrocketing across the nation.

A recent study by an expert from Florida Gulf Coast University, along with Florida Atlantic University and the University of Alabama, looked at 100 of the largest metro areas in the U.S., and Cape Coral made the cut.

The reality of rent prices stings.

“It’s really demoralizing,” said Billy Gareau, Cape Coral resident.

Gareau has spent most of his life in Estero but had to make the move to Cape Coral because that’s where prices were most affordable.

Realtor Jose Torna hears this a lot.

“Year over year, it’s gone down 1.36%,” he said.

He thinks this is the start of a trend.

WINK asked Torna to take a look at the Waller, Weeks, and Johnson Rental Index, put together by multiple researchers, including FGCU professor Shelton Weeks and FAU real estate economist Ken Johnson.

“What we look at is observed rents from Zillow over the previous 36 months to determine the trend in rent growth. Then we compare that trend to where we would expect it to be to the actual price we’re seeing in the marketplace,” Weeks said.

The data shows that it’s more expensive to rent in Cape Coral than in other big cities like Tampa, Orlando, Denver, Chicago and even Atlanta.

“It’s a very popular part of the world. Your population is approaching 800,000 in the metropolitan area,” Johnson said.

The silver lining is that the cost of rent is decreasing in Cape Coral year over year, down 1.36% Month over month, down .44%

“What this means for people, is it’s still very expensive. We’re still in an affordability crisis. The rental crisis in terms of rapidly rising rents is over. Fort Myers and Cape Coral have built enough units to catch people, at least for right now,” Johnson said.

Johnson said the affordability crisis is not over.

“I would say we’re turning the corner. We’re just not there yet, so don’t let’s not let up. Let’s be diligent and keep building at a pace that’s sufficient to get both homeownership and renting back in line with normal incomes,” Johnson said.

Torna said he’s hopeful that the prices will keep going down.

Weeks hopes the period of upward pressure on rent prices stays behind us for a while, but the key…

“Often rests with increased density, allowing more units in a smaller area allows to drive down the cost of housing,” Weeks said.

Balancing building with population growth.

The interactive index also has a column that shows a “house poor” metric, indicating the minimum income needed to avoid spending 30% or more on rent. In Cape Coral, it’s $87,676.

That’s over the national average of $78,304.