09/07/2026
I've been doing some mini data analysis projects on the Orlando housing market and this one came from a discussion I had with some people about rent.
There's been a lot of talk lately about renting and buying becoming similar in monthly cost. I wanted to look at the other side of that argument: has renting actually become more affordable?
So I pulled 14 years of Census data for the Orlando metro looking at renter household income, median gross rent, and median gross rent as a percentage of household income.
The result was pretty interesting.
Renter household income increased roughly 97% from 2010 to 2024. Median gross rent increased roughly 92%. At first glance, that actually doesn't look terrible. The problem is when those increases happened.
During the first part of the dataset, renter incomes substantially outpaced rent and affordability improved. By 2016, the median percentage of household income going toward gross rent had fallen to 32.5%.
Then it reversed. From 2019–2024, renter household income increased about 35%, but median gross rent increased 44%. By 2023, median gross rent as a percentage of household income had climbed back to 36.1%, just shy of the 36.8% high we saw in 2011 following the financial crisis.
Basically, Orlando spent more than a decade recovering from the rental burden left behind by the financial crisis, only to find itself almost exactly where it started.
I put the data together in the graphic below. Everything comes directly from Census ACS 1-Year data. Curious what everyone else is seeing or experiencing around Orlando.
Also, the free analysis (and many others covering different topics) is always available on my Substack. I do not, and will not, charge for information. If you'd like to read it for a deeper explanation, you can find it here: https://billiegrimes.substack.com/p/orlando-renters-nearly-doubled-their?r=8bwgn8
