South Florida rents grew 1%. Permits jumped 37%. Pick your story
Rents are up, barely. Permits are up the fastest of any metro we track. That is not the same story.
The Real Deal reported this morning that South Florida’s multifamily market is improving, framing it as the worst being over for landlords: leasing has outpaced new supply for six months, and owners are pulling back the concessions they used to fill units in 2024 and 2025. We ran our own series against that claim and it splits down the middle.
Why it matters
For agents pricing renewals and developers deciding whether to break ground, the two halves of this story point in opposite directions. Our Zillow Observed Rent Index read for the Miami metro shows asking rent up 1.0 percent year over year as of May, positive but the second-slowest of the 13 metros we track, ahead of only Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Austin, Tampa and Denver, and well behind New York’s 4.4 percent or San Francisco’s 7.1 percent. That is consistent with a floor, not a recovery. Rents stopped falling. They have not resumed climbing.
The supply side argues the other way, harder. Our Census permit series, read on a trailing 12-month basis to strip out the noise TRD’s own reporting flagged with its “nearly 28,000 units under construction” pipeline warning, shows the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro authorizing new units at a 37.1 percent faster clip than the prior 12 months. That is the fastest permit growth of any of the 12 major metros in our dataset, more than double Los Angeles, the next-fastest, and a sharp contrast with the national permit trend, which is down 2.3 percent.
The numbers
South Florida rent: +1.0% YoY, $2,693/mo, ZORI, May 2026. South Florida permits: +37.1% trailing-12-month, 1,860 units/mo, Census via FRED, May 2026. South Florida home values: -2.9% YoY, $475,622, ZHVI, May 2026. National multifamily starts (5+ units): +9.7% on a 3-month average versus a year ago.
What’s next
An agent pushing renewal increases on the strength of “the worst is over” is reading half the data. Our numbers say landlords have room to hold the line on rent, not room to push it, while the fastest-growing permit pipeline in the country keeps arriving behind them. Developers weighing a start should treat the concession pullback as real but temporary insurance against the supply already in the pipe. More South Florida coverage as the next Census print lands.