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Southwest Florida apartment vacancies reach 17-year high<\/p>\n
Brian Tietz<\/p>\n
Apartment vacancy rates across Southwest Florida have climbed to levels not seen since the Great Recession following an aggressive rush to build multifamily housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Entering 2026, vacancy rates were 20.3% in Lee County, 13.8% in Collier County and 19.5% in Charlotte County. Lee and Collier each experienced their highest vacancy rates in 17 years, according to CoStar data pulled by Nelson Taylor, vice president of market research for LSI Companies.<\/p>\n
Five years earlier, apartment vacancy rates had hit near-record lows: 6.3% in Lee County, 3.7% in Collier County and 4.2% in Charlotte County. The tight market triggered intense investor interest in building more units across the region.<\/p>\n
The storm surge wrought by Hurricane Ian in September 2022 combined with other forces to create a rush to build, creating an oversupply compared with demand.<\/p>\n
The storm was only part of the story.<\/p>\n
The post-COVID-19 population surge in 2021, an influx of coastal residents seeking inland shelter after Hurricane Ian in 2022, and insurance, federal and investor dollars pouring into the region for hurricane recovery in the years since prompted construction of many more apartment units across Southwest Florida.<\/p>\n
The trends unfolded amid rising interest rates that did not begin to soften until late last year. As interest rates rose, they reinforced the perception of intense need for more multifamily units.<\/p>\n
The current climate benefits consumers; monthly rents are finally easing for renters. An apartment that cost $2,858.07 per month in 2023 now goes for about $2,209.60 in 2026, a decrease of 22.7%, according to a survey by Mayhugh Commercial Group in Fort Myers. After averaging units of all types, the survey showed that a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment entering the year rented for substantially less, about $1,800 per month.<\/p>\n
Many of the new complexes have responded by offering two to three months\u2019 free rent and lowering asking rents. The Cove at 47th in Cape Coral sweetened the deal further with free bridge tolls for a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything we have is predicated on population growth,\u201d Taylor says of the statistics. \u201cThink about it. If we have 10 residents on an island, and there\u2019s 10 homes, and we build 10 new homes, we still only have 10 people.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople will move to the island. Traditionally, this area has always been a growth market. That\u2019s why the traffic gets worse, and we\u2019re building new schools. We weren\u2019t adding homes fast enough to keep up with the people coming down here. Now that we\u2019ve added too many homes, prices are starting to come down. It\u2019s that simple. Supply and demand.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Cove at 47th apartment community in Cape Coral is among the multifamily developments that have added to Southwest Florida’s housing inventory. The property has offered leasing incentives, including free bridge tolls for a year, as apartment vacancies across the region have climbed.<\/p>\n
Brian Tietz<\/p>\n
Supply Floods the Area<\/p>\n
While the population grew by about 1.9% year over year from 2023 to 2024, per U.S. Census Bureau numbers, apartment units grew by 9.6% that same year, to a combined 53,430 units across a region with a population of about 1.3 million people.<\/p>\n
\u201cRents were rising, vacancy was falling,\u201d Taylor says of 2021. \u201cWhat do I want to do? I want to fulfill that need. It just so happened that 15 other developers thought the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2025 in Lee County, developers completed a record 4,330 new apartment units, according to CoStar data. That\u2019s up 17% from the previous record, 3,696 units completed in 2024, which was up 82% from the 2,031 completed in 2023.<\/p>\n
In 2025 in Collier County, there were 982 new units, a 12% increase from the 878 in 2024, which was a 77% increase from the 496 finished in 2023. Collier County had a record 1,130 units delivered in 2022, with a 310-unit complex in Ave Maria and 265-unit Hammock Park accounting for a large portion of that record.<\/p>\n
In 2025 in Charlotte County, there were 341 new units completed, a 36% decrease from the 533 finished in 2024.<\/p>\n
Charlotte County set a record with 1,027 new units built in 2023. The massive jump can be attributed to three new complexes of almost 300 units each: Livano Charlotte Harbor, Babcock Ranch and Jacaranda Apartments.<\/p>\n
The market correction signals business as usual, said Phil Fischler, who as president and founder of Fischler Property Company in Fort Myers brokers land for multifamily projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a long-term market perspective, the apartment sector is doing exactly what it does after a period of rapid growth,\u201d Fischler says. \u201cIt pauses and recalibrates. The current increase in vacancies is giving renters more options and better deals today, and based on decades of market cycles, this is a healthy adjustment that sets the stage for a more balanced and stable market as the region continues to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three years ago, numerous apartment developers all put their chips into the same place, Taylor says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like standing on your tippy toes at a parade,\u201d Taylor says. \u201cIt works well until everyone else does it. Someone stood on their tippy toes to have a better view. Everyone else wanted to capture that view. You will now see the tapering off of new supply moving forward. What we saw was too fast of a run-up. Now we\u2019re seeing the correction.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Joe Bonora, founder and president of Catalyst Development, stands outside Montage at Midtown in Fort Myers. Bonora said today’s elevated vacancy rates reflect a temporary surge in new apartment construction rather than a long-term weakness in demand.<\/p>\n
Brian Tietz<\/p>\n
Upsides of a Renter\u2019s Market<\/p>\n
While that correction can create speedbumps to further development, it smooths the pavement for people looking to pay less in rent.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we want to be rent burdened in this area?\u201d Taylor says. \u201cOr do we want to have disposable income? Retail, restaurants, food, experience. What seems like a negative, it\u2019s more of a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chase Mayhugh, president and CEO of Mayhugh Commercial, a property brokerage company, said softening interest rates and the single-family home market also are factors in apartment vacancies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe multifamily sector is also competing against other forces,\u201d Mayhugh says. \u201cEasing home prices have lured some renters into homeownership, while others, especially young families, are relocating to more affordable markets altogether. These shifts are shrinking the tenant pool just as supply hits new highs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joe Bonora knows the trends. As founder and president of Catalyst Development, he developed CityWalk before selling it. He\u2019s leasing his latest project, Montage at Midtown, and beyond that, he\u2019s planning to redevelop 2442 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., former home of The News-Press newspaper\u2019s offices and now an empty printing press facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, compared with previous projects over the past 12 to 15 years, I expect our leasing velocity will be slower, just given the inventory on the market,\u201d Bonora says of Montage at Midtown. \u201cBut absorption is still strong. We had a market study done not too long ago, and it showed absorption aligned with supply. Meaning, there\u2019s still a lot of demand for apartments. There\u2019s just a lot of supply.\u201d<\/p>\n
The high vacancy rates aren\u2019t all doom and gloom from the perspective of a developer, Bonora said, just as they\u2019re not all bright and sunny from the perspective of a renter. He cautions against taking the vacancy numbers at face value. The overall rate blends newly opened buildings \u2014 which may sit at 30% vacancy simply because they haven\u2019t had time to fill up \u2014 with established complexes running at 95% occupancy. The result is an average that looks worse than the stabilized market actually is.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the vacancy rates tend to be misleading when you look at the data,\u201d Bonora says. \u201cWhen you\u2019re averaging all the apartments and there\u2019s a 20% vacancy rate, that\u2019s not indicative of stabilized apartments. It\u2019s pulling from all of the open leasing apartments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bonora said he has no regrets about building the 321-unit Montage at Midtown amid the current high vacancy rates. He said most of the next wave of apartments being built in Lee County will be workforce and affordable units using federal government funds distributed after Hurricane Ian.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started construction two years ago knowing there was a lot of supply,\u201d Bonora says. \u201cBut also knowing that, as you get into 2027 and beyond, it\u2019s not like these things get built overnight. What you\u2019re seeing now is a result of the past two or three years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southwest Florida apartment vacancies reach 17-year high Brian Tietz Apartment vacancy rates across Southwest Florida have climbed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[146729,28,30,29,7796,146730,22966,1521],"class_list":["post-360067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-apartment-vacancy","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-multifamily-housing","tag-oversupply","tag-rental-prices","tag-southwest-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}