They may not yet be accurately reflected in some measures. Owners’ equivalent rent of residences, which makes up almost a quarter of the consumer price index, rose 2.4% in July from a year earlier. That figure “lags the reality” because it’s based on a survey of homeowner expectations about what their home would rent for, Zandi said.

Nowhere To Go
Rents are rising most for those who sign new leases. But even people renewing them are getting sticker shock. Carmen Santiago, a dental assistant who was paying $1,479 a month for a two-bedroom apartment in Tampa, gave notice to her landlord in March after the rent jumped by $300.

The mother of two then racked up more than $1,000 on non-refundable application fees that she handed to about 10 landlords, sometimes getting in line without even seeing the properties first. A couple days before her lease expired in June, Santiago took a last-ditch drive. She visited five apartment complexes, all filled. The sixth, a vast complex with 22 buildings, had one unit available.

The two-bedroom cost more than $1,900 a month, including a mandatory cable bill -- more than Santiago would have paid if she renewed her old lease. She could hardly afford it but took it before it was gone.

“I didn’t know how hard it was to find something,” Santiago said. “Looking back, maybe I should have stayed.”

Dopkins, the Tampa rental agent, said she recently represented a woman who had to shelve her plans to move there for her job. After exhausting her relocation package on rental-application fees, the client is now planning to commute two-and-a-half hours from her home in Ormond Beach, Florida, and maybe stay in an Airbnb or hotel room in Tampa once or twice a week.

The soaring demand is most pronounced in Sun Belt cities that have seen an influx of arrivals from the pandemic. The Phoenix area had the country’s biggest increases in rents for single-family houses in June, with an almost 17% surge from a year earlier, according to data released this week from Corelogic. It was followed by Las Vegas, with a 12.9% gain; Tucson, Arizona, at 12.5%; and Miami, up 12.4%.

It’s a reversal from the pre-pandemic norm of tight housing in denser, pricier cities -- places such as New York, Boston and San Francisco, which saw office workers flee during lockdowns. Those areas still have an overhang of inventory of high-end apartments aimed at white-collar professionals. Still, demand is picking up.

Higher Incomes
Renters now crowding the market have higher salaries, in part, because many of them, in normal times, would be buying homes instead. Migration away from the pricey locations also is driving up housing costs for locals, especially those in more affordable cities and in far-flung suburbs.