Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands Market Faces 10-Month Supply Of Rentals Listed For Lease Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

Tenants Paid $2.02 PSF Monthly For Residential Rentals In Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands In Q1 2020 

DOWNTOWN MIAMI (May 28, 2020) - Nearly 400 residential rental properties are formally listed for lease in the Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands market of the South Florida county of Miami-Dade amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report from Condo Vultures® Realty LLC. 

Based on completed leases of more than 40 residential properties monthly in the first three months of 2020, the Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands area now has nearly a 10-month supply of rentals - apartments, condos, efficiencies, multifamily and townhouses - available in the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach at the start of the traditional Summer Buying Season, according to the report based on data from the Southeast Florida MLS Matrix. 

A balanced market is generally considered to have about six months of supply. More months of supply listed for lease suggests a tenant’s advantage and less months typically indicates a landlord’s advantage in the market. 

In this new COVID-19 pandemic era, numerous questions exist about how the South Florida residential real estate market will perform going forward, both in the short- and medium-term periods. After a typical start to the new year, the South Florida residential real estate market began to change dramatically at the end of the first quarter of 2020. 

When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a "state of emergency to create a pathway to obtain funding and resources to stop the spread of COVID-19" on March 9, 2020, the South Florida residential real estate market continued to function, albeit with changes for safety that included social distancing and a push for virtual tours instead of buyer actually visiting properties.  

Nearly a month later on April 3, 2020, DeSantis instituted a 30-day "statewide stay-at-home order" that effectively shut down the Florida economy but in doing so deemed residential and commercial real estate businesses "essential services," according to an industry press report.

Despite the ability to transact real estate during the "stay-at-home order," it is unclear how many buyers have been willing to view properties - either in person or virtually - in hopes of purchasing residences. It is also unclear how many sellers have opened their properties to potential buyers given the contagiousness of the COVID-19 virus. 

Once the "stay-at-home order" was finally lifted on May 4, 2020 for nearly all of the state - excluding the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach - the Florida economy was thought to be in recession like much of the United States. Palm Beach County eventually opened its economy on May 11, 2020, and a week later both Miami-Dade and Broward counties opened for business on a limited basis on May 18, 2020.

This being said, about 42 rental properties are currently under contract - or pending - and waiting to transact at a median monthly asking price of $2,750 per unit or $2.22 per square foot in the Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands area. 

The median asking price of a Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands residential rental property currently listed for lease is $3,500 per property monthly. This works out to a median asking price of $2.86 per square foot monthly, according to the data compiled by CondoVulturesRealty.com. 

In the first three months of 2020, the median transaction price of a Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands residential rental property was about $2,000 or $2.02 per square foot monthly, according to the data. 

This means the current asking price of a Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands residential rental property listed for lease is about 75 percent higher than the median transaction price achieved on a monthly per-property basis and nearly 42 percent higher than the median transaction price achieved on a monthly per-square-foot basis between January and March of this year. 

In the first quarter of 2020, landlords needed 54 days - on a median basis - to lease a Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands residential rental. The current median Days-On-The-Market rate for a Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands residential rental property listed for lease is 62, according to the statistics. 

The number of Days-On-The-Market for the residential rental properties currently under contract is about 65 in the Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands area, according to the statistics.

CondoVulturesRealty.com is a licensed Florida brokerage that specializes in assisting buyers and tenants in value-oriented acquisitions of condos in the tricounty region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

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