Apartment vacancies will rise and rents will fall as the Tampa Bay area sheds another 50,000 jobs this year.

That's the not-so-cheerful forecast from a Tampa Apartment Research Report from the Marcus & Millichap real estate firm. 

Here's the highlights:

• Vacancies will rise to 10.4 percent this year while effective rents drop 4.4 percent to $759 this year. That's because the area will shed tens of thousands of employees, many of whom would have rented the units.
• The highest vacancy - 11.5 percent - belongs to downtown Tampa, where 644 units recently joined the rental pool, including 395 in the Element high rise in the city center and 249 in the Vintage Lofts in Channelside.
• The average rent in central Tampa, $967, is the region's highest, which partly explains the vacancies. Central St. Petersburg's vacancy is only 6.6 percent, but the average rent is a relatively modest $716.

The full report is here: Download Apartmentreport