Rents are cooling in Miami entering 2024
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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 Miami-Dade 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."