Broward County permitted new housing equal to about 0.31 percent of its stock in 2025, a fifth of Miami-Dade’s rate next door, so new supply is not the risk here. Demand is. Payroll shrank year over year from February through June 2026 before a flat preliminary July, and median rent already takes about 29.5 percent of median household income. Grey Oaks is watching this market, not buying in it.

Aerial view at golden hour of high-rise towers along the Intracoastal Waterway, canal-front homes with private docks on the right, and the Atlantic beach on the barrier island beyond.

Watch market

Fort Lauderdale multifamily investment guide

#30 of 50 nationally Southeast

Very little new supply, on a payroll that shrank for five months before it went flat.

The Intracoastal Waterway and the Broward coast. The county builds very little new housing, which is where this guide starts. Generated plate, produced for Grey Oaks. Illustrative of the metro, not a photograph of a specific property.

Our read

Investor capital depth 4 / 5

Buy-side conditions 2 / 5

Qualitative judgments on a five-point scale, not licensed index values. Ranked #30 of 50 markets we cover.

908,200 Jobs in the metro BLS, July 2026

908,200 Total nonfarm employment July 2026, preliminary

29.5% Rent as a share of median income ACS 2020-2024, our arithmetic on two Census medians

$1,907 Median gross rent ACS 2020-2024

The case for

Broward permitted about 0.31 percent of its housing stock in 2025, a fifth of Miami-Dade's rate, so a competing new building is a small risk here.

The case against

Payroll fell year over year from February through June 2026, the largest private sectors are still shrinking, and median rent already takes about 29.5 percent of income.

Our stanceWatching, not buying. Supply is not the risk here; demand and the rent ceiling are.

The figures that matter

Permits as a share of housing stock: 0.31% 2025, our arithmetic on two Census figures · U.S. Census Bureau 2,690 units authorized against 870,571 homes. Miami-Dade next door is about 1.47 percent.
Total nonfarm employment: 908,200 0.0% year over year July 2026, preliminary · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Flat only in the preliminary July figure, after year-over-year declines every month from February through June.
Rent as a share of median income: 29.5% ACS 2020-2024, our arithmetic on two Census medians · U.S. Census Bureau Just under HUD’s 30 percent cost-burden line. Miami-Dade is 30.6 and the Bronx 35.9.
Median gross rent: $1,907 ACS 2020-2024 · U.S. Census Bureau Above Miami-Dade’s $1,829, on a lower median home value.
Renter share of households: 36.4% ACS 2020-2024, from a 63.6 percent owner-occupied rate · U.S. Census Bureau Against 47.8 percent in Miami-Dade. A smaller renter pool.
Unemployment rate: 4.6% July 2026, preliminary · U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Above the 3.7 percent rate for the wider Miami metropolitan area.
Wind and flood insurance cost: Pending Not held · Florida Legislature Must be quoted at the asset. See our Tampa guide for the Florida insurance framework.

Where we would and would not transact

How to read this map

Broward runs as a band of cities between the Atlantic and the Everglades. The coastal cities carry the deepest renter base; the western suburbs carry larger households, higher rents and the renters closest to buying. City figures below are Census QuickFacts place estimates, not county figures.

Select a submarket on the map to see our read on it.

Submarket 1 of 6

Watching

Fort Lauderdale

45.9 percent of households rent here, against 30.4 percent in Pembroke Pines.

What drives our read

Owning with a mortgage costs $825 a month more than the median rent here, on our arithmetic.

What this stance means

We are underwriting but not committing. Something specific has to resolve first, and the read above says what it is. A watch can become a target without the submarket changing, if the price does.

Other submarkets here

Submarket 2 of 6

Not for this strategy

Pompano Beach

Median rent takes about 30.8 percent of median household income, over HUD’s line.

What drives our read

Median household income is $67,195 and 15.2 percent of residents are in poverty.

What this stance means

We would not buy here on this strategy. That is a judgment about fit, not a prediction that the submarket performs badly. Somebody with a different mandate may well be right to buy it.

Other submarkets here

Submarket 3 of 6

Watching

Hollywood

A median rent of $1,653, below the county’s $1,907, on a median household income of $67,203.

What drives our read

Rent takes about 29.5 percent of income here, the same as the county.

What this stance means

We are underwriting but not committing. Something specific has to resolve first, and the read above says what it is. A watch can become a target without the submarket changing, if the price does.

Other submarkets here

Submarket 4 of 6

Watching

Coral Springs

A median household income of $93,602, against $77,633 for the county, and a 7.6 percent poverty rate.

What drives our read

Median rent takes about 26.7 percent of income, among the lighter burdens in the county.

What this stance means

We are underwriting but not committing. Something specific has to resolve first, and the read above says what it is. A watch can become a target without the submarket changing, if the price does.

Other submarkets here

Submarket 5 of 6

Watching

Miramar

Up 5.8 percent since 2020, against 3.5 percent for the county, with a median rent of $2,117.

What drives our read

Owning costs only $406 a month more than renting here, so the renter can buy.

What this stance means

We are underwriting but not committing. Something specific has to resolve first, and the read above says what it is. A watch can become a target without the submarket changing, if the price does.

Other submarkets here

Submarket 6 of 6

Watching

Pembroke Pines

A family suburb, 69.6 percent owner-occupied with 2.66 persons per household.

What drives our read

Owning costs $493 a month more than the median rent, a short step for a renter household.

What this stance means

We are underwriting but not committing. Something specific has to resolve first, and the read above says what it is. A watch can become a target without the submarket changing, if the price does.

Other submarkets here

Broward builds a fifth as much as Miami-Dade next door

Sources 3 U.S. Census Bureau 4 U.S. Census Bureau

Broward County authorized 2,690 new housing units in 2025 against a stock of 870,571, about 0.31 percent on our arithmetic. Miami-Dade, across the county line, authorized 16,535 against 1,125,274, about 1.47 percent. The two counties share a metropolitan area, an economy and an insurance market, and one builds at roughly a fifth of the other’s rate.⁴

The rest of Florida builds faster. Duval County permitted about 1.25 percent of its stock, Hillsborough 1.31, Miami-Dade 1.47, Orange County 2.14, St. Johns 3.10 and Osceola 3.77. Broward’s rate looks more like a built-out northern county: Hamilton County, Ohio and Ramsey County, Minnesota are both about 0.30 percent, and only a handful sit lower, Cook County at 0.22 and St. Louis County at 0.21 among them.³

For an owner, that changes where the risk sits. In a market with a heavy delivery pipeline, the question a sponsor has to answer is what the new buildings do to rents. Here the pipeline is thin enough that new supply is unlikely to be what breaks an underwriting. The question moves to the other side of the ledger: whether the renters are there, and whether they can pay more.

We would not read the low permit count as a shortage signal on its own. Permits measure units authorized, not demand, and we have not measured how much buildable land remains. What it does tell an investor is that a competing new building opening across the street is a smaller risk in Broward than in Orange County or Hillsborough.

2,690 permits against 870,571 housing units, about 0.31 percent.³
Miami-Dade next door: about 1.47 percent, roughly five times Broward’s rate.⁴
Below Duval at 1.25, Hillsborough at 1.31 and Orange at 2.14.

Broward builds at about a fifth of Miami-Dade’s rate. New supply is not what threatens an owner here; demand is.

Payroll shrank for five months before it went flat

Sources 1 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes Broward as its own metropolitan division, Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, inside the wider Miami metropolitan area. Total nonfarm employment there was 908,200 in July 2026, unchanged from a year earlier. That flat reading is preliminary, and it follows year-over-year declines in every month from February through June: minus 1.0, 1.1, 0.6, 1.0 and 0.6 percent.¹

The sector detail is weaker than the total. Trade, transportation and utilities, the largest sector at 195,300, fell 1.8 percent. Professional and business services fell 0.9 percent on 172,200, information 1.6 percent, financial activities 0.6 percent and other services 2.2 percent. Growth came from education and health services, up 2.5 percent, government, up 1.3 percent, and construction, up 1.9 percent.¹

Unemployment in the division was 4.6 percent in July, against 3.7 percent for the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach metropolitan area as a whole, which grew total employment 0.5 percent over the same twelve months.¹²

Construction employment rising while residential permits stay this low is a tension we note rather than resolve. The payroll series counts construction jobs of every kind, commercial, public and residential alike, so it cannot tell us which is growing. It does mean the construction figure should not be read as a sign that new housing is about to arrive.

For rent growth this is the relevant fact. A value-add plan in Broward does not have to outrun a wave of new buildings, but it does have to find renters whose incomes are rising, in an economy whose largest private sectors are shrinking.

Broward’s payroll was flat in July only after five months of year-over-year decline, and its largest private sectors are still shrinking.

Rent is higher than Miami-Dade’s on a lower home value

Sources 3 U.S. Census Bureau 4 U.S. Census Bureau 6 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD USER

Median gross rent in Broward is $1,907 a month, above Miami-Dade’s $1,829, even though Broward’s median home value is lower, $414,600 against $463,000. Broward households also earn more: median household income is $77,633 against $71,753.⁴

Annualized, the median rent is about 29.5 percent of median household income on our arithmetic, just under the 30 percent line HUD uses to define a cost-burdened household. Of the counties we cover, the Bronx at 35.9 percent and Miami-Dade at 30.6 run higher, while Orange County at 26.7 and Hillsborough at 25.1 are lighter.³⁶

The same caveat applies here as in our Miami guide. The ratio divides the median rent paid by renter households by the median income of all households, owners included, so it is an indicative market-level comparison, not a count of cost-burdened households. Census gross rent includes utilities, which is what makes it comparable to HUD’s definition at all.

The practical reading is that Broward has less room above the in-place rent than most of the markets we cover, though a little more than Miami-Dade. A renovation premium has to be justified by what a Broward household can pay, and at the median that is not much more than it already pays.

Median gross rent $1,907 against Miami-Dade’s $1,829.⁴
Median household income $77,633 against Miami-Dade’s $71,753.⁴
About 29.5 percent of income, just under HUD’s 30 percent threshold.

Broward charges more rent than Miami-Dade on cheaper homes, and the median renter already sits just under the formal cost-burden line.

In the western suburbs the renter is close to buying

Sources 5 U.S. Census Bureau 4 U.S. Census Bureau

County medians hide a split that matters for underwriting. Census place estimates for six of Broward’s largest cities show two different rental markets.⁵

On the coast, Fort Lauderdale is 45.9 percent renters, Pompano Beach 44.5 and Hollywood 41.1. In Fort Lauderdale the monthly cost of owning with a mortgage runs $825 above the median rent on our arithmetic, a gap wide enough that renters tend to stay renters.⁵

Inland and west, Pembroke Pines is 30.4 percent renters and Miramar 31.2, with larger households than the coastal cities, 2.66 and 3.07 persons. Their median rents are among the highest in the county, $2,046 and $2,117, but owning costs only $493 and $406 a month more. A household paying Miramar’s median rent is a short step from a mortgage payment.⁵

That step is the ceiling in those suburbs. Where owning is nearly as cheap as renting, a landlord pushing rent is pushing the tenant toward buying, which caps rent growth harder than any supply figure. Across the whole county 36.4 percent of households rent, against 47.8 percent in Miami-Dade, and median home value is about 5.3 times income against 6.5 in Miami-Dade, so ownership is more reachable here throughout.⁴

Pompano Beach is the exception in the other direction. Its median rent takes about 30.8 percent of a median household income of $67,195, over the HUD line, with 15.2 percent of residents in poverty. There is little room there above the in-place rent.⁵

Fort Lauderdale: 45.9 percent renters, owning $825 a month above the median rent.⁵
Pompano Beach: median rent about 30.8 percent of median income.⁵
Miramar: owning only $406 above rent, and population up 5.8 percent since 2020.⁵
Pembroke Pines: 30.4 percent renters, owning $493 above rent.⁵

In Miramar and Pembroke Pines owning costs only $400 to $500 a month more than renting. There, pushing rent pushes the tenant toward buying.

Florida took tenant regulation away from every county in 2023

Sources 7 Florida Legislature 8 Florida Legislature 9 Florida Legislature

In 2023 the Legislature created Section 83.425 of the Florida Statutes. It preempts to the state the regulation of residential tenancies, the landlord-tenant relationship and every other matter in the residential landlord-tenant part of the statutes, and it supersedes local regulation on a list of named subjects: tenant screening, security deposits, rental applications and their fees, the terms of a lease, required disclosures, fees charged by a landlord, and notice requirements.⁷

The practical effect is that no Broward city or county commission can set its own rules on those subjects. The rules that govern a Broward lease are the state’s, and they change only when the Legislature changes them.

For an owner that is a genuine advantage in underwriting, because a term that cannot be changed locally is one less variable over a five-year hold. It is also a reminder that the variable has moved rather than vanished. What the state grants it can amend, and a Broward underwriting should be checked against the statute as it stands on the day of purchase, not as it stood when the model was built.

The property tax cap is where Florida’s statutes split by building size, and the split matters to a syndication. Section 193.1554 covers non-homestead residential property of nine or fewer dwelling units. An apartment building of ten or more units falls instead under Section 193.1555. Both cap the annual increase in assessed value at 10 percent for every levy other than school district levies, so the school portion of the bill is never capped. Both reset the property to just value on the January 1 after a change of ownership or control, which includes the cumulative transfer of more than 50 percent of the owning entity.⁹⁸

Section 193.1555 adds a trigger that the smaller-property statute does not: a qualifying improvement, meaning a substantially completed improvement that raises the just value of the property by at least 25 percent, also resets the assessment to just value. For a value-add plan that is the clause to model. A renovation large enough to move value by a quarter can reset the tax basis on its own, with no sale at all. Broward has its own property appraiser and millage, so a Miami-Dade comparable tells you little about a Broward tax bill.⁸

What we would need to see before we bought in Broward

Sources 1 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 3 U.S. Census Bureau 5 U.S. Census Bureau

We are watching Broward rather than buying in it, and the reason is specific. The supply side is favorable, because the county builds very little. The demand side is not there yet: payroll shrank for five months before a flat preliminary July, the largest private sectors are still contracting, and the median renter already pays about 29.5 percent of income.¹³

What would change that is a sustained return to payroll growth in the private sectors, not only in health care and government, while permits stay where they are. A thin pipeline meeting growing demand is the setup a value-add plan wants. Our method is set out in how we evaluate a market, and where we do transact is on the markets index.

What is the renovated rent as a share of the median household income of the city the asset is in, not the county?
In Miramar or Pembroke Pines, what is the monthly gap between the renovated rent and the cost of owning?
What share of the rent roll depends on trade, transportation and utilities or professional services payrolls, both of which are shrinking?
Is there a bound insurance quote at the asset, and what does the model do at a materially higher renewal?
Does any planned recapitalization transfer more than fifty percent of ownership and reset the assessment?
Does the renovation budget raise just value by 25 percent or more, a qualifying improvement under Section 193.1555?
Has the lease template been checked against Section 83.425 and the rest of the state landlord-tenant law as it stands today?

Broward has the supply side a value-add plan wants. It does not yet have the demand side, and we would rather wait for payroll growth than underwrite it.

Employment by sector

Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, FL Metropolitan Division. Figures are as published for July 2026, preliminary.

Sector	Jobs	12-month change
Trade, transportation and utilities	195,300	-1.8%
Professional and business services	172,200	-0.9%
Education and health services	125,300	+2.5%
Government	104,600	+1.3%
Leisure and hospitality	97,800	+0.6%
Financial activities	71,300	-0.6%
Construction	55,000	+1.9%
Other services	35,300	-2.2%
Manufacturing	32,900	+0.9%
Information	18,400	-1.6%

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economy at a Glance, Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, FL. Retrieved September 10, 2026.

The demand base

Population, tenure, incomes and housing costs for the county. These are the figures that decide whether a renter household exists, and whether it could buy instead.

Measure	Value	As of
Population, Broward County	2,013,317 +3.5% since April 2020	July 1, 2025 estimate
Households	753,956	ACS 2020-2024
Housing units	870,571	July 1, 2025
Owner-occupied rate The remaining 36.4 percent rent.	63.6%	ACS 2020-2024
Median gross rent	$1,907	ACS 2020-2024
Monthly owner cost with a mortgage $526 above the median rent.	$2,433	ACS 2020-2024
Median household income	$77,633	ACS 2020-2024, in 2024 dollars
Median home value	$414,600	ACS 2020-2024
Building permits 2025 About 0.31 percent of existing stock.	2,690	2025, Broward County, all residential
Mean travel time to work	29.1 min	ACS 2020-2024
Bachelor’s degree or higher	36.7%	ACS 2020-2024, age 25+
Foreign-born share	36.9%	ACS 2020-2024
Poverty rate	11.7%	ACS 2020-2024
Persons 65 years and over	19.5%	July 1, 2025 estimate

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts, Broward County, Florida. Retrieved September 10, 2026.

Underwriting sandbox

Run the arithmetic yourself

No market data is pre-filled here, because we will not put estimated figures in your model. Enter the numbers from a real deal and this shows you what they imply.

What to stress in Fort Lauderdale

Flat payroll for the full hold, with renovated rents capped at the local cost of owning. If the deal fails, it needed demand Broward does not yet show.

Units Purchase price · $ In-place average rent · $/mo Other income · $/yr Vacancy and credit loss · % Operating expenses · $/yr Loan amount · $ Interest rate · % Exit cap rate · %

Net operating income

Going-in cap rate

Debt service coverage

Cash-on-cash, year one

Breakeven occupancy

Exit value at your cap

Cap spread, entry to exit

Standard formulas, nothing proprietary. Net operating income is gross potential rent plus other income, less vacancy and credit loss, less operating expenses. Debt service assumes a thirty-year amortizing schedule at the rate entered. These outputs are arithmetic on your inputs, not a projection, and they are not advice.

Diligence

What to ask before you wire

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1 of 27

Sponsor

Ask to speak with a limited partner from a deal that did not go to plan
Confirm the general partner's cash co-investment in this specific deal
Review the full fee schedule, including construction management and refinance fees
Confirm whether the preferred return is cumulative and whether it compounds
Read the capital call clause and what declining one does to your position

The asset

Current rent roll and trailing twelve month operating statement, not a summary
Economic occupancy, not physical occupancy, for the last eight quarters
Bad debt and concession history by month
Third-party property condition assessment with remaining useful life on roof and mechanicals
Unit-level renovation scope and actual achieved premiums on completed units

The market

Units under construction within a two-mile radius, with delivery dates
Submarket rent trend in dollars, not percentages, over eight quarters
Employment concentration: what share of demand depends on one employer
Comparable trades in the submarket over the last eighteen months

Expenses

Bound insurance quote at this asset, with current roof age and any mitigation report
Post-sale property tax modeled from the purchase price under this state's rules
Utility structure and whether any recovery program is in place
Payroll and management fee structure, including any affiliate arrangements

The capital stack

Debt maturity date and what happens at it
Whether the rate is fixed, floating, or capped, and who pays for the cap
Debt service coverage covenant and current headroom against it
Refinance assumptions in the model and what happens if none is available

Fort Lauderdale specifics

Renovated rent as a share of the city's median household income, not the county's
Gap between the renovated rent and the local cost of owning
Qualifying improvement test under Section 193.1555 on the renovation budget
Bound insurance quote at the asset
Lease template checked against Section 83.425

Follow-up

What investors ask us about Fort Lauderdale

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Ricardo Sanabria · Grey Oaks Multifamily

Answering

Ask me anything about Fort Lauderdale. These are the questions that actually come up.

Why is Grey Oaks not buying in Fort Lauderdale?

Because the demand side is not there yet. Broward's payroll shrank year over year from February through June 2026 before a flat preliminary July, and median rent already takes about 29.5 percent of median household income. The supply side is favorable; what a renter can pay is the constraint.