Nearly 7-Month Supply Of Miami Beach Residential Rentals Listed For Lease Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

Miami Beach Tenants Leased Less Than 1,220 Residential Rental Properties In Q1 2020

DOWNTOWN MIAMI (May 22, 2020) - More than 2,650 residential rental properties are formally listed for lease in the Miami Beach market of South Florida amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report from Condo Vultures® Realty LLC. 

Based on completed leases of about 406 residential properties monthly in the first three months of 2020, Miami Beach now has nearly a seven-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, less than 200 rental properties are currently under contract - or pending - and waiting to transact at a median monthly asking price of about $1,836 per unit or about $2.48 per square foot in Miami Beach. 

The median asking price of a Miami Beach residential rental property currently listed for lease is about $2,200 per property monthly. This works out to a median asking price of $2.97 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 Miami Beach residential rental property was about $1,625 or about $2.44 per square foot monthly, according to the data.

This means the current asking price of a Miami Beach residential rental property listed for lease is more than 35 percent higher than the median transaction price achieved on a monthly per-property basis and nearly 22 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, a landlord needed 45 days - on a median basis - to lease a Miami Beach residential rental. The current median Days-On-The-Market rate for a Miami Beach residential rental property listed for lease is 66, 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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