Data Analysis

Rents are falling on Florida's west coast and rising on the Treasure Coast. The spread tells you where the apartments got built.

Zillow's Observed Rent Index for July, county by county across the nineteen markets we cover. Typical asked rent runs from $1,593 in Marion County to $3,489 in the Keys, and the year-over-year column splits the state in two.

The typical asked rent in Lee County fell 1.2% over the past year. In Manatee it fell 1.6%, in Sarasota 1.2%, in Hillsborough 1.0%, in Charlotte 0.7%. Cross the state to the Treasure Coast and the same number runs the other way: Martin County up 4.4%, Indian River up 2.6%, St. Lucie up 1.7%.

That is not a statewide rent story. It is two different rental markets wearing one state's name.

This is the first month we carry a rent series at all, and it fills the hole readers have pointed out for as long as we have published: every market page now carries what renters are being asked to pay, county by county, monthly back to 2015.

The level column is its own map of Florida. The Keys ask $3,489, the highest in the state and the price of an island with almost no buildable land. Miami-Dade asks $2,860, Palm Beach $2,648, Collier $2,620. At the other end, Marion County asks $1,593 and Duval $1,628, which is why Ocala and Jacksonville keep appearing in national lists of places renters move to.

The mechanism is on the supply chart

Why would rents fall in the exact counties where they rose fastest in 2021 and 2022? Because that rent spike financed apartment construction, and apartments take three years to open.

Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida absorbed a disproportionate share of Florida's multifamily pipeline. Those units are delivering now, into the same counties where our for-sale supply charts show active listings stacked at decade highs. A renter in Lee County today is choosing between a new apartment with concessions, a rented house from an owner who could not get a sale price, and a condo whose owner is covering an assessment. Every one of those competes the asking rent down.

The Treasure Coast built far less. Martin County in particular permits little multifamily, so demand that spills north from Palm Beach County lands on a fixed stock, and asking rents rise 4.4% in a year.

The history chart shows how recent this flattening is. The four highest-rent counties all climbed near-vertically from 2020 to 2022, plateaued through 2024, and have moved sideways since. A renter's market by Florida standards is rents that stop rising, and that is what most of the state now has.

What this number does not mean

ZORI measures ASKED rent for units listed on Zillow. It is not what sitting tenants pay. A renewal negotiated quietly at no increase never touches this index, so in soft markets the index can overstate what typical renters actually experience, and in tight markets understate it.

It is a smoothed mean of listed units, not a median of all rentals. Single-family rentals and apartments are pooled together.

County lines are blunt. Asking rent in Duval County spans downtown Jacksonville and Baldwin; $1,628 describes the middle of a wide distribution, not any particular apartment.

And a falling asked rent does not promise a cheap lease. Lee County's 1.2% decline still leaves its typical ask 40% above 2019.

If you are in this market

Renting on the west coast, from Tampa Bay through Naples: this is the strongest negotiating position renters have held there in years. Ask for concessions; the new buildings are already offering them, and the asking-rent index falling means landlords are meeting the market.

Renting on the Treasure Coast or in Nassau County: budget for increases; supply is not coming to the rescue soon in the counties that did not build.

Deciding between renting and buying: the counties where rents are falling are broadly the counties where our sale data shows prices soft and inventory high, so both sides of the ledger moved in your favor at once. Run your own county's numbers in the rent-vs-buy calculator linked below rather than reasoning from a statewide average that describes nowhere.

Owning a rental: the spread in this data is the whole story. Underwriting a Fort Myers rental at 2022 rent growth is how negative cash flow happens; the same discipline in Martin County would have left money on the table.

Limitations

Every figure above is Zillow's Observed Rent Index, not computed by us; we cannot audit its smoothing or its listing coverage, and Zillow revises history as listings arrive late. It covers 47 of Florida's 67 counties, and within our nineteen markets every county is present this month. Asking rent is a leading, listing-side measure with the renewal blind spot described above. Multi-county markets are shown as separate county lines because asking-rent levels from different counties cannot be honestly averaged. Year-over-year figures compare July 2026 to July 2025 as published this month; later revisions can move both ends. We publish no rent figures of our own: our MLS feeds carry lease listings for some markets, but lease-data rights are unconfirmed feed by feed, and until they are confirmed we will not compute rent statistics from them.

Sources and links

• Zillow Research, Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI)
• Tool: /tools/florida-rent-vs-buy-by-county.html
• Data hubs: /data/markets/
• Related: /news/florida/florida-condo-sellers-outnumber-buyers-july-2026/

Disclosure: Jon Brooks is a co-founder of Momentum Realty, a Florida real estate brokerage that owns and funds Florida Housing Intelligence. Momentum has a financial interest in Florida real estate transactions, including in markets named here. See our editorial standards.