10 Cities With the Highest Rent Hikes in the Nation

It’s not so sunny for renters in Florida or California.

Cities in these states dominate a ranking of the top 25 metropolitan areas in the U.S. based on year-over-year rent increases. The list was released this week by RentRange, a company that provides rental market data to the financial services and real estate industries.

The area of Cape Coral and Fort Myers in Southwest Florida ranked No. 1. The Sarasota area, a little farther up Florida’s west coast, took the No. 3 spot. Five of the other top 10 spots went to California metros.

RentRange CEO Walter “Wally” Charnoff tells CNN Money:

“The biggest increases were in the areas where the [housing] market was most depressed.”

South Florida has been described by some as the ground zero of the nation’s foreclosure crisis, as Money Talks News founder Stacy Johnson reported in a series that aired nationally in 2010.

The top 10 metropolitan areas on RentRange’s list, which is based on rent increases for single-family homes from the third quarter of 2014 and the same quarter in 2015, are:

• Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida
• Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville, California
• North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida
• San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, California
• Charleston-North Charleston, South Carolina
• Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, California
• San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California
• Denver-Aurora, Colorado
• Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas
• San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, California

On average in the U.S., the rental rate for a three-bedroom single-family home increased by 5.7 percent from the third quarters of last year to this year, according to a report released last week by RentRange and Real Property Management. That amounts to an extra $74 per month.

For help lowering your rent expenses, check out “8 Ways to Save Big on Rent.”

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