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By R.J. Rico

The Associated Press

Krystal Guerra鈥檚 Miami apartment has a tiny kitchen, cracked tiles, warped cabinets, no dishwasher and hardly any storage space.

But Guerra was OK with the apartment鈥檚 shortcomings. It was all part of being a 32-year-old graduate student in South Florida, she reasoned, and she was happy to live there for a few more years as she pursued a degree in marketing.

That was until the property was purchased, and the new owner informed Guerra he was raising the rent from $1,550 to $1,950 鈥� a 26 percent increase that she said meant her rent would consume most of her take-home pay from the University of Miami.

鈥淚 thought that was insane,鈥� said Guerra, who decided to move out. 鈥淎m I supposed to stop paying for everything else I have going on in my life just so I can pay rent? That鈥檚 unsustainable.鈥�

Guerra is hardly alone. Rents have exploded across the country, causing many people to dig deep into their savings, downsize to settle into subpar units or fall behind on payments and聽risk eviction now that a federal moratorium has ended.

In the 50 largest U.S. metro areas, median rent rose an astounding 19.3 percent from December 2020 to December 2021, according to a聽Realtor.com analysis聽of properties with two bedrooms or fewer. And nowhere was the jump bigger than in the Miami-metro area, where the median rent exploded to $2,850 鈥� 49.8 percent higher than the previous year.

Other cities across Florida 鈥� Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville 鈥� and Sun Belt cities such as San Diego, Las Vegas, Austin, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee, all saw spikes of more than 25 percent during that time period.

Rising rents are an increasing driver of high inflation that has become one of the nation鈥檚 top economic problems. Labor Department data, which covers existing rents as well as new listings, shows much smaller increases, but these are also picking up. Rental costs rose 0.5 percent in January from December, the Labor Department stated last week. That may seem small, but it was the biggest increase in 20 years, and will likely accelerate.

Economists worry about the impact of rent increases on inflation because the big jumps in new leases feed into the U.S. consumer price index, which is used to measure inflation.

Inflation jumped 7.5 percent in January from a year earlier; it was the biggest increase in four decades. While many economists expect that to decrease as pandemic-disrupted supply chains unravel, rising rents could keep inflation high through the end of the year since housing costs make up one-third of the consumer price index.

Things have gotten so bad in Boston,聽which has nearly overtaken San Francisco as the nation鈥檚 second-most expensive rental market,聽that one resident went viral for jokingly putting an igloo on the market for $2,700 a month. 鈥淗eat/hot water not included,鈥� Jonathan Berk聽tweeted.

Experts say many factors are responsible for astronomical rents. These include a nationwide housing shortage, extremely low rental vacancies and unrelenting demand as young adults continue to enter the crowded market.

Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, lead author of a聽recent report from Harvard University鈥檚 Joint Center for Housing Studies, said there was a lot of 鈥減ent-up demand鈥� after the initial months of the pandemic, when many young people moved back home with their parents. Starting last year, as the economy reopened and young people moved out, 鈥渞ents really took off,鈥� she said.

According to the聽U.S. Census Bureau, rental vacancy rates during the fourth quarter of 2021 fell to 5.6 percent 鈥� the lowest since 1984.

鈥淲ithout a lot of rental vacancy that landlords are accustomed to having, that gives them some pricing power because they鈥檙e not sitting on empty units that they need to fill,鈥� said Danielle Hale, Realtor.com鈥檚 chief economist.

Meanwhile, the number of homes for sale dipped to a record low, contributing to ballooning home prices that have caused many higher-income households to remain renters. That in turn has increased demand for rental housing.

Construction crews are also trying to bounce back from material and labor shortages that at the start of the pandemic made a preexisting shortage of new homes even worse. The estimated shortfall was 5.8 million single-family homes 鈥� a 51 percent leap from the end of 2019, Realtor.com said.

And potentially compounding all of this is the increasing presence of investors.

A record 18.2 percent of U.S home purchases in the third quarter of 2021 were made by businesses or institutions,聽according to Redfin, as investors targeted Atlanta, Phoenix, Miami, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida 鈥� popular destinations for people relocating from pricier cities.

The increasing presence of investors is a factor in rent hikes, Hale said, but only because they have pricing power due to low vacancies.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 the only driver,鈥� she said.

Most investors aren’t tied down by rent control. Only two states, California and Oregon, have statewide rent control laws, while three others 鈥� New York, New Jersey and Maryland 鈥� have laws allowing local governments to pass rent control ordinances, according to the聽National Multifamily Housing Council.

And laws in some states like Arizona actually restrict local jurisdictions from limiting what landlords can charge tenants.

In Tucson, Arizona, the mayor鈥檚 office said it has been deluged with calls from residents worried about rent hikes after a California developer recently bought an apartment complex that catered to older people and raised rents by more than 50 percent to essentially force out many on fixed incomes. The rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the complex went from $579 to $880 per month. The increases were legal under Arizona state law.

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema decried the increases during a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing, saying Arizona鈥檚 rapidly growing housing costs have been a 鈥渕ajor concern鈥� of hers for years.

Nationally, Hale expects rents to continue to rise this year, but at a slower pace, thanks to increased construction.

鈥淚mproving supply growth should help create more balance in the market,鈥� said Hale, who forecasts rents to rise 7.1 percent in 2022.

In Miami, Guerra has started packing her belongings ahead of her March move-out date. She spent weeks frantically looking for alternative housing within her budget but said she couldn鈥檛 find anything that wasn鈥檛 鈥渆ither incredibly small, incredibly broken down or an hour away from work and everyone I know.鈥�

Her plan now is to put her things into storage and move in with her boyfriend, even though the timing isn鈥檛 ideal.

鈥淲e didn鈥檛 want to have the decision of moving in together forced upon us,鈥� Guerra said. 鈥淲e wanted it to be something we agreed to, but it鈥檚 happening before we wanted it to happen.鈥�

Editor鈥檚 note: AP economics writer Christopher Rugaber in Washington and AP writers Michael Casey in Boston and Anita Snow in Phoenix contributed to this report.