SoFla property values flatten despite rent hikes

Although rental prices are through the roof, South Florida landlords said property values have stayed relatively flat. Rising construction and operating expenses have factored into this, but are not due to a growth in commodities costs.

“It’s not necessarily the price of materials that’s going up,” Steve Patterson of Related Development LLC told Daily Business Review. “What is going up is profit taking. All the vendors and contractors that have been suffering for the last five years are finally having the opportunity to take a profit.”

The spike in interest rates has led people to rent instead of buy. But inventory is very hard to find.

“It’s simple economics — supply and demand,” Bill Hahne of Miami Beach-based brokerage Hahne Real Estate said. “The rental supply is half what it was last year. At all price points, whatever category clients are looking for, we as real estate agents just don’t have as much to show them.”

Real estate experts have said appreciation should give way to housing sector stability in the coming year. [Daily Business Review] — Mark Maurer