THE 1% RULE SNAPSHOT · 🏆 Karim's Top 3 Multifamily Picks

Rate: 7.055% | Down: 25% | Expenses: 35%

🏙️ Karim's Top 3 Condo Picks

Rate: 6.3% | Down: 25% | Expenses: 20% (HOA billed separately)

📊 South Florida Market — March 2026

Source: MIAMI REALTORS®

Market	Type	Median Price	∆ YoY	Months Supply	Days to Contract
Miami-Dade	SFH	$674,000	+0.6%	5.7	50
Miami-Dade	Condos	$445,000	+1.7%	13.0	72
Broward	SFH	$600,000	-5.5%	4.8	44
Palm Beach	SFH	$645,000	+3.2%	4.7	42

🧠 What It Means for Investors: Miami-Dade SFH inventory sits at 5.7 months, still a buyer's market on paper, but total home sales just rose year-over-year for the seventh straight month, which means the absorption is real. Broward's 5.5% SFH price decline is the number to act on: it's creating entry points for buyers priced out of Miami-Dade, while the rental market there keeps climbing.

🏗️ Related and Terra Want to Tear Down a Brickell Key Condo. That Tells You Everything.

The Pérez family's Related Group and David Martin's Terra are in talks to buy out all 134 units at the St. Louis building on Brickell Key. The price would likely exceed $200 million total, or roughly $1.5 million per unit. The plan is to tear it down and start over. On the same island, the Mandarin Oriental was imploded earlier this month to make way for a new development. If this deal closes, it'll be the first time an existing condo building on Brickell Key has been redeveloped since the island was originally built out decades ago.

Here's the investor angle that doesn't make the headline: when one of the most active development groups in South Florida is paying $1.5 million per unit just to acquire the land under an existing building, that's a statement about how scarce prime waterfront land has become in Miami. You cannot build what already exists at those locations. The replacement cost math, meaning what it would cost to assemble the land, permit the project, and build the units from scratch, makes existing inventory increasingly hard to price away. For owners of well-located multifamily in Miami, that's not a small thing.

Photo: Pexels

🌆 Miami Leads the South. Broward Is Closing In.

Miami's multifamily market ranked first among all major Southern metros in occupancy and rent growth as of March 2026. Vacancy sits at 6.6%, below the national average of 7.3%, while cities like Austin, Houston, and Tampa are watching rents slide. Miami asking rents grew 0.7% year-over-year. Not explosive, but positive in a market where most comparable cities are going the other direction.

The submarket picture is where it gets interesting. Overtown rents are up 13% year-over-year. Miami Beach is up 10%. Brickell is down 4%. Allapattah is down 4%. The headline number is fine; the zip code you buy in right now matters more than it did two years ago.

Meanwhile, Broward is accelerating. Workforce housing rents in the Fort Lauderdale market are up 9.8% year-over-year. Multifamily sales in Broward rose 10% in the latest quarter. The driver is migration: higher-income households are leaving Miami-Dade for Broward's lower price points, filling the rental pipeline as they make the move. Net migration from Miami-Dade into Broward has been consistent enough that Broward's commercial fundamentals are now tracking ahead of Miami's in some categories. The fourplex in Pompano Beach in this week's picks sits directly inside that story.

Photo: Pexels

☕ The Fed Is Stuck. Mortgage Rates Know It.

On April 29, the Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady for the third consecutive meeting, keeping the benchmark at 3.5% to 3.75%. This was the last meeting under Jerome Powell as Fed Chair, which adds a layer of institutional uncertainty to whatever comes next. The statement that accompanied the hold was not optimistic: policymakers cited geopolitical uncertainty, rising inflation pressure from oil markets tied to the US-Iran conflict, and a CPI reading of 3.3% year-over-year in March, the fastest pace since April 2024.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate, which had dipped to 6.23% the week before, ticked back up to 6.43% on April 30, the day of the Fed announcement. Rates don't move in lockstep with the federal funds rate. They track bond markets and inflation expectations more directly. Right now, both are pointing the wrong way.

For buyers who've been waiting for the Fed to cut and bring mortgage rates down: that trade isn't playing out. Three holds in a row, a new Fed Chair incoming, and an active inflation driver in the Middle East means the rate environment for the rest of 2026 is genuinely uncertain. The picks in this issue were scored at 7.055%, the actual investment property rate available today, and they still cash flow. That's the more relevant benchmark.

Photo: Pexels

💡 The Iran War Is Making It More Expensive to Build — and That's Your Advantage

Oil hit $114 a barrel last week. That's roughly $50 more than a year ago, driven by the conflict with Iran and the pressure on Strait of Hormuz shipping routes. The mortgage rate connection is the one that's gotten the most attention. The construction cost connection is the one that matters more for South Florida investors right now.

Construction Dive reported that project abandonments surged 22.8% in March, directly tied to oil price pressure on material costs. HousingWire's analysis found that 62% of builders are seeing supplier price hikes on petroleum-derived materials: foam insulation, roofing membranes, PVC pipe, vinyl siding, adhesives. Construction material prices are running at a 12.6% annualized rate through the first two months of 2026, the fastest pace since the supply chain disruptions of 2022.

Fewer projects pencil out. More projects get abandoned before breaking ground. That means fewer new units competing with what already exists in South Florida's rental market.

Bottom line: When oil spikes, the cost to build new goes up and projects get abandoned. South Florida already had the tightest multifamily vacancy in the South at 6.6%. Fewer new units coming to market means the ones already standing hold their value and their rents. That's the dynamic playing out right now.

Photo: Pexels

🏠 72 Miami Condos. One Deal. $45 Million.

In late April, a group of Israeli and US investors acquired 72 units at Adam Neumann's Flow House at Miami Worldcenter, about 15% of the 40-story, 466-unit building, for a combined $45 million. The deals were coordinated through a platform called Markondo and financed with $32 million in debt. Unit prices started at $450,000.

This isn't how most people think about condo investing. A coordinated block purchase at 15% of a building, arranged through a platform, at institutional scale. It's a model that's been common in commercial real estate and is now showing up in the residential condo market in Miami. Whether Markondo-style aggregation catches on at scale in Miami is a question with real pricing implications for individual buyers. If institutional-style block buying becomes normalized here, the negotiation changes.

🎉 What's Happening in Miami This Weekend

The city is not operating at normal speed this weekend.

🏎️ F1 Miami Grand Prix — May 3, 4pm, Hard Rock Stadium. The Sprint and qualifying happen today (May 2). The main race is Sunday. If you haven't been to the Grand Prix circuit in Miami, the Hard Rock Stadium setup is genuinely impressive. The track runs through the parking lot and around the stadium itself.

⚽ Inter Miami CF vs Orlando City SC — May 2, 7pm, Nu Stadium. The new stadium at Miami Freedom Park opened last month. An F1 weekend evening game at a brand new venue is the kind of Miami overlap that shouldn't work on paper but absolutely does.

🎵 Alejandro Sanz — May 2, 8pm, Kaseya Center. One of the biggest Latin artists alive, performing on the same night as F1 qualifying and an Inter Miami home opener. Miami in May.

🥂 Wynwood Cinco de Mayo Bar Crawl — May 2, Wynwood Arts District. Day one of the Cinco de Mayo weekend crawl. Check the event page for venue lineup and tickets.

🎵 Ari Lennox — May 7, Fillmore Miami Beach. Good midweek option once the F1 crowds clear out.

Until next time. If this issue landed in your inbox and made you look up a listing, forward it to one investor friend who should be reading this too. The bigger this community gets, the better the deals we can uncover together.

If you want me to run numbers on any of the properties above, or any listing you're currently eyeing, just reply to this email. I'm here.

Karim Samy Real Estate Agent d. 407.405.2969 [email protected] karimsamy.keyes.com

Thinking of selling your home? Click the button below to receive your personalized home valuation.

I'd love to hear your feedback! If you've had a positive experience working with me, please consider leaving a review. It only takes a minute and would mean a lot to me.