Broward emerges as South Florida’s top condo market for investors

Cash buyers accounted for 84.9% of Broward County condo and townhouse sales in 2024, a sign that Peter Zalewski says has pushed Broward to the front of South Florida’s investor market. That tilt matters in a county where first-time buyers are competing with all-cash purchasers, retirees are weighing rising fees against fixed incomes, and existing owners are trying to keep up with insurance and association costs.

The investor surge comes after the Surfside collapse upended Florida’s condo rules. Champlain Towers South fell on June 24, 2021, killing 98 people, and state lawmakers responded with new laws in 2022 and 2023 that require milestone inspections for many condo and co-op buildings and structural integrity reserve studies every decade. The laws carried a widely cited Dec. 31, 2024 compliance deadline, and the UF Warrington College of Business says the change affects more than half of Florida’s high-rise condo buildings.

Broward’s own numbers show how active the market remained even as the rules tightened. Florida Realtors’ 2024 Broward County townhome and condo data showed 12,581 closed sales, 25,767 active listings and a median sale price of $280,000. In the first half of 2024, Broward inventory worked out to about seven months’ supply, which Miami Realtors described as a balanced market, and 80% of Broward municipalities and unincorporated areas with at least five condo or townhome sales a month posted higher median prices than a year earlier.

The investor activity is not spread evenly. Coastal and older-building submarkets such as Hollywood-Hallandale Beach, downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach, and Fort Lauderdale Beach have drawn much of the attention, especially in vintage condos that are at least 30 years old. Vintage units accounted for 83% of Broward listings in one market snapshot, a reminder that the supply being chased is often the stock most exposed to reserve hikes, special assessments and insurance shock.

That pressure is already feeding the rental market. Broward leasing activity jumped 14% during the 2023-24 winter buying season, and downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach has been described as a landlords market, with median asking rent around $3.04 a square foot a month. In Hollywood-Hallandale Beach, cash buyers picked off distressed units in buildings such as Ocean Marine Yacht Club, The Olympus and Sian Ocean Residences. For many longtime owners, the choice is no longer whether to stay put, but whether to absorb another assessment or sell to the next investor who can turn the unit into a rental.