The South Florida
Real Estate Report.

What I’m watching this week

The disconnect that keeps showing up in the pull this week: brand-new listings priced for cash flow are sitting right next to 200-day-old listings priced for a 2022 market. In the same zip code. The owners who refuse to mark to market are giving the disciplined buyers cover — every overpriced stale listing makes the well-priced one look like a steal by comparison. If you’re buying, that’s exactly the spread you want to be inside of.

Pre-foreclosure activity

Nine new properties came off the PBC and Broward foreclosure calendars in this week’s scout pull — five Palm Beach, four Broward. Two of them are what I’d call genuinely equity-rich situations: a 4BR SFR in 33415 (West Palm) with roughly $180k of equity over the judgment, and a Broward townhouse in the 33325 area showing essentially full equity (the recorded judgment on that one is zero, which usually points to a non-mortgage foreclosure — tax, code, or HOA — and those are a different animal worth handling carefully).

These come out of the proprietary pipeline I run weekly against both county dockets and cross-reference against the property appraiser. Auction windows on this batch range from 66 to 108 days for the PBC properties, and immediate for the Broward filings. If you want me to walk through any of these one-on-one — I’m doing direct, license-disclosed outreach to all of them this week — let me know.

Expired & distressed deal flow

22 expired SFR listings hit the enriched pipeline this week with confirmed owner phone numbers. The pattern is bimodal: an entry-to-mid-tier cluster ($275k–$400k) across Pompano, Lake Worth, Margate, North Lauderdale, Delray, and West Palm — and a luxury cluster ($639k–$2.2M) concentrated in Parkland and Coral Springs. Average days on market in the lower tier is over 230 days — these are owners who already tried the market and it didn’t work. Those are the conversations worth having.

Cap rate snapshot — three properties that pencil

Numbers below use the 50% expense rule (NOI = 50% of gross rent), zip-level rent estimates, and PITI at current conventional rates with 5% down. Not a substitute for the deal-specific underwriting I’d run with you before an offer.

Where	Beds	List	Est. Rent	Pro-Forma Cap	Notes
Fort Lauderdale, 33311	3BR / 2BA	$195,000	~$2,317/mo	~7.1%	Fresh — DOM 1. East-Broward rental zip.
Riviera Beach, 33404	4BR / 1BA	$190,000	~$2,400/mo	~7.6%	160 DOM. The seller knows the market told them no.
Delray Beach, 33444	3BR / 2BA	$300,000	~$2,839/mo	~5.7%	DOM 2. Lower cap, but Delray rental velocity is real.

The Fort Lauderdale and Riviera plays cash flow on paper with 5% down — uncommon at this price point. The Delray comp is a thinner cap but in a sub-market where vacancy is essentially zero and appreciation has carried the deal historically. Different strategies. Both defensible.

What the broader market looks like right now

The MLS pool I scored this week (214 SFRs across PBC + Broward in the $50k–$800k band) is sitting at a mean 103 days on market, with about 17% of listings over 180 days. That’s a market where price discovery is happening through time, not through bidding — exactly the inverse of 2021. Buyers who treat every listing as negotiable and lead with PITI-based offers rather than asking-price-based offers are getting deals their friends say “don’t exist.”

I’m not going to make a call on where rates go next — too many people in this business pretend they know. What I can say: every week another batch of sellers who bought or refinanced into a different rate environment finally accepts the math, and that’s where the inventory is coming from. If you’re a buyer or an investor sitting on capital waiting for “the bottom,” you’re going to miss the part where the deal got done because someone else stopped waiting.

Want to talk through any of this?

Reply to this email, or grab a slot on my calendar. Investor strategy, a specific property, a foreclosure situation you’re working through, or just an honest read on what your house would do in this market — all fair game.

— Ben Shoshan