Tampa Bay area among top markets for renters looking to move from somewhere else
The region trails only Denver, Baltimore and San Diego for the percentage of people from outside the area searching for apartments on Apartment List.

By Richard Danielson
Tampa Bay Times
Published: Jan 22, 2020

A lot of people are thinking about moving to the Tampa Bay area, according to an ApartmentList.com ranking of the metro areas with the largest percentages of people somewhere else researching apartments on the web site.

From June through December, 44.3 percent of searches on ApartmentList.com for bay area apartments came from outside Tampa Bay. That’s fourth only to Denver, Baltimore and San Diego on a company ranking released Wednesday. Orlando ranked 11th on the list of metros attracting the most renters from elsewhere. Miami was 24th.

Of those looking to rent in the bay area, the largest share — 38.9 percent — did their searches from Orlando, followed by Miami (7.9 percent) and Lakeland (4.5 percent).

Perhaps not coincidentally, Orlando topped the list of metro areas for searches done by people looking for apartments somewhere else. Tampa ranked 17th on that list. Among searchers looking to move out of the bay area, 16 percent researched apartments in Miami, followed by 9.6 percent considering Orlando and 7.3 percent looking at North Port.