1 big thing: Rents are cooling
Miami's rental market "is slowly cooling down" after a blistering hot year, according to Zumper's Annual Rent Report, which draws on data from 2023 to make predictions about 2024.
What's happening: The median one-bedroom rent in Miami is down 1.8% to $2,660, "a far cry from the double-digit year-over-year increases it was posting as recently as this summer," the report says. Rents for one-bedrooms fell 14.4% in Sunny Isles Beach and two-bedrooms fell 14.5% in Aventura and 10.4% in North Miami, the Miami Herald reported in December, citing Zumper's Miami Metro Area Report.
Why it matters: Miami was the hottest rental market in the U.S. in 2023, according to RentCafe, which found there were 22 people competing for every available apartment.
The big picture: Around the country, pandemic-era relocations are slowing and new apartment buildings are coming online. Anyone moving into a new rental over the next six months will have more bargaining power as property owners trying to fill new builds will offer move-in deals, Zumper's report predicts.• "Eventually, they'll have no choice but to cut asking rents," it says.
Zoom in: The number of apartments for rent in Miami grew by 3.7% since January 2023, RentCafe reported in December. According to Colliers, 16,260 units are expected to be completed by the end of 2024 in MiamiDade County.
What they're saying: South Florida real estate developer Asi Cymbal, chairman of Cymbal DLT, tells Axios the 1.8% drop in rent rates "looks more like a stabilization."• "We won't be seeing a groundbreaking frenzy going into next year as lenders will continue to be conservative, making financing hard to come by, even with the anticipated Fed rate cuts."• He pointed to Florida's Live Local Act, passed last year, for having incentivized developers to build more workforce housing.• "For example, Cymbal DLT's Laguna Gardens will feature one- to three-bedroom apartments with starting rental rates priced between $2,000 and $3,000 per month, which is below market value for the Miami Gardens area, which ranges from $2,400 to $3,500 for similar units.
"Yes, but: Activists say the new builds and price drops are barely putting a dent in the housing crisis. Smash, a Miami nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing, is calling for 210,000 residential units by 2030.Noting the rent price drops in Sunny Isles and Aventura, Adrian Madriz, co-executive director of Smash, wrote to supporters in December, "you can now look forward to spending just an arm, instead of the usual arm, leg and first born
