Good morning. Today is both Armed Forces Day and National Mimosa Day, two holidays that have never shared a calendar page before and probably shouldn't share a glass. If you're honoring those who serve, the mimosa is optional. If you're just honoring brunch, the ceremony is also optional.
THE 1% RULE SNAPSHOT · 🏆 Karim's Top 3 Multifamily Picks
Scored from 451 eligible listings. Rate assumption: 6.985% (6.36% 30-yr + 0.625% investment premium). Down: 25%. Expenses: 35%.
📍 1563 NE 148th St — Miami, FL 33161
💵 $660,000 | 🏠 Duplex (2 units) | 💰 Est. Rent: $7,800/mo
✅ 1.18% Rule | 💵 Net Cash Flow: ≈ $1,782/mo
⚠️ Previously Featured (Issue #09) — still active, still the strongest 1% ratio in Miami-Dade this month.
The strongest ratio on the board, and it's a duplex under $700K in North Miami. $1,782/mo in net cash flow at current rates is real money. If you looked at this one last issue and passed, the only thing that's changed is two fewer weeks on the market.
🔗 View listing (MLS: A11972932)
📍 2101 NW 26th St — Miami, FL 33142
💵 $890,000 | 🏠 Fourplex (4 units) | 💰 Est. Rent: $9,300/mo
✅ 1.04% Rule | 💵 Net Cash Flow: ≈ $1,611/mo
Four units in Allapattah for under $900K. At $222,500 per door with a 1.04% ratio, this is the kind of entry point that looks obvious in retrospect. Allapattah has had some rent softness year-over-year, so pull current market comps before locking in the rent assumption, but the unit count and the price per door are hard to argue with at today's rates.
🔗 View listing (MLS: A12005294)
📍 1680 NW 22nd Ct — Miami, FL 33125
💵 $1,100,000 | 🏠 Triplex (3 units) | 💰 Est. Rent: $10,575/mo
0.96% Rule | 💵 Net Cash Flow: ≈ $1,393/mo
This one doesn't clear 1%, and it's worth being honest about that. At $366K per door in Little Havana, the play here is equity over ratio: you're buying in a dense, high-demand corridor at a price point that's getting harder to find in Miami-Dade. The cash flow at $1,393/mo still works at current rates. If the 1% rule is non-negotiable for you, pass. If the door count and the location matter more than the decimal, this is worth a look.
🔗 View listing (MLS: A12000744)
🏙️ Karim's Top 3 Condo Picks
Rate: 6.3% | Down: 25% | Expenses: 20% (HOA included in cash flow figures below)
A note on condo cash flow in South Florida: Every pick below shows negative monthly cash flow, and that's not a mistake or a bad data set. It's the reality of owning a condo as a rental in Miami-Dade and Broward. HOA fees in this market typically run $700 to $3,500 a month depending on the building, and they eat straight into your net. Multifamily will almost always outperform condos on pure cash flow in South Florida. That said, condos come with trade-offs that work in your favor: zero maintenance headaches (the HOA covers the building), and the tenant pool skews differently. Condos in managed buildings tend to attract longer-term, higher-income renters who treat the unit like their own. If you're optimizing purely for cash flow, buy a duplex. If you want to own something that runs itself and attracts a specific kind of tenant, condos have a case.
📍 6799 Collins Ave Unit#312 — Miami Beach, FL 33141
💵 $749,000 | 🛏️ 2bd/2ba | 💰 Est. Rent: $7,759/mo | 🏢 HOA: $3,476/mo
✅ 1.04% Rule | 💵 Net Cash Flow: ~-$746/mo
Seven building-level rental comps back this estimate. The 1.04% ratio is real, but the $3,476 HOA is also real. It's what drives the cash flow negative. On the equity side, Mid-Beach 2/2s at $749K are approaching a floor. The question for this one is whether you're underwriting it as a cash flow asset or an appreciation + low-maintenance hold. If it's the latter, the numbers work differently.
🔗 View listing (MLS: A11742089)
📍 140 S Dixie Hwy Unit#507 — Hollywood, FL 33020
💵 $245,000 | 🛏️ 2bd/2ba | 💰 Est. Rent: $2,508/mo | 🏢 HOA: $967/mo
✅ 1.02% Rule | 💵 Net Cash Flow: ~-$98/mo
This is the most compelling condo pick in the list. The math is almost breakeven. At -$98/mo with a 2bd/2ba at $245K, you're essentially building equity at cost. Four building comps support the rent estimate. Hollywood has been absorbing workforce-level demand migration out of Miami-Dade, and $245K remains one of the lower entry points for a 2-bed unit in the tri-county area. Worth a serious look.
🔗 View listing (MLS: A11931697)
📍 1830 Radius Dr Unit#1024 — Hollywood, FL 33020
💵 $275,000 | 🛏️ 1bd/1ba | 💰 Est. Rent: $2,614/mo | 🏢 HOA: $1,140/mo
0.95% Rule | 💵 Net Cash Flow: ~-$326/mo
Six building-level comps support the rent estimate. The ratio comes in just under 1%, but the absolute rent number on a 1-bed in Hollywood at $2,614/mo is strong. The HOA at $1,140/mo drives the negative cash flow, and it sits below average for this submarket. If you're considering condos for the low-maintenance angle, Hollywood 33020 continues to be one of the better-value corridors outside Miami-Dade.
🔗 View listing (MLS: A11661152)
📉 Your Insurance Bill Is Getting Cheaper. That Changes the Math.
Photo: Pexels
Citizens Property Insurance is cutting Miami-Dade rates by an average of 13.9% this year. Commercial windstorm and hail surplus lines are down 47% statewide. Seventeen new private carriers have entered Florida since the tort reform package passed. The market that was functionally broken two years ago is starting to normalize.
For multifamily investors running current underwriting, this is a real number. A Miami-Dade fourplex carrying $60,000 a year in insurance just got $8,300 cheaper. That's not a headline. It's additional cash flow that wasn't there last year. It's also a change in how sellers are pricing: if insurance costs are falling, the cap rate compression argument for holding gets softer and the entry point for new buyers gets more interesting.
The catch: these are Citizens reductions, and not every property is Citizens-insured. If you're on a private carrier that hasn't yet passed on the rate relief, call your broker. The pressure is there. The question is whether it's been applied to your policy.
🏛️ $240M in Boca. The Institutional Money Is Back in South Florida Multifamily.
Photo: Pexels
Property Reserve, the real estate investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, paid $240 million for Uptown Boca Villas, a 456-unit stabilized multifamily community in Boca Raton. That's $526,000 per door.
Read that number again. An institutional endowment fund, one of the largest real estate investors in the world, just paid half a million per door for a stabilized asset in South Florida. Not a development play. Not a distressed acquisition. A fully leased, operating apartment complex, priced at the kind of per-door figure that would have looked expensive in 2022.
The signal this sends is straightforward: institutional capital has decided South Florida multifamily is a long-term hold at these prices. It doesn't mean everyone should pay $526K per door. It means the floor on well-located, stabilized product in this market has institutional validation behind it. For small investors buying at $200K–$400K per door, that's the ceiling you're underwriting toward.
🏨 The Goodtime Hotel Has a Problem. Here's Why You Should Care.
Photo: Pexels
A judge ordered a $204.7 million foreclosure on the Goodtime Hotel on South Beach this week. CIM Group, the lender, wins the judgment. Developers Eric Birnbaum and Michael Fascitelli, who opened it in 2021 with Kardashian-Beckham fanfare and a Pharrell Williams ribbon-cutting, have until July 1 to pay up or the property goes to auction.
The hotel opened at exactly the right moment and has been fighting vendor lawsuits ever since. The 2021 capital stack on luxury Miami Beach hospitality is cracking, and this won't be the last one.
The investor angle that isn't getting much coverage: when a $200M+ hotel hits foreclosure auction in Miami Beach, it creates secondary pricing pressure on adjacent hospitality and short-term rental inventory in the same corridor. It also confirms something that's been true for a while. The celebrity-backed, Instagram-first hotel concept is a terrible investment at that price point, and the market has a long memory. Multifamily in the same geography keeps collecting rent regardless of whether Pharrell showed up for the opening.
☕ The Fed Is Quiet. Rates Are Not Moving.
Photo: Pexels
The 30-year fixed averaged 6.36% for the week ending May 14, up about 40 basis points from the February low (Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey). Add the standard 0.625% investment property premium and you're underwriting at 6.985%, which is what the picks in this issue were scored against.
There's no Fed meeting until June. The current benchmark sits at 3.5%–3.75% after three consecutive holds, and there's no market consensus on whether June brings a cut. Treasury yields are holding elevated because of two factors: the Iran conflict and an ongoing question about what kind of Fed chair replaces Powell. Rate uncertainty at the macro level is baked in for the foreseeable future.
The practical implication: the picks in this issue were scored at 6.985% and still cash flow. If rates come down 50 bps in the back half of 2026, the same properties get meaningfully more attractive to the next buyer. If rates stay flat, you still own a cash-flowing asset. The wait-for-lower-rates trade continues to not pay out.
🎉 What's Happening in Miami This Weekend
Photo: Pexels
🥁 Haitian Compas Festival — Through today, NoMI Village, Little Haiti. Twenty-eighth edition of one of Miami's largest Haitian cultural events — 50,000 people, live compas music, and a showcase of Haitian fashion and food. If you haven't been, this is the kind of thing that makes Miami actually different from every other city in the country.
🏇 Preakness Stakes — Tonight, 7:01 PM ET. Runs at Laurel Park for the first time in 118 years. Pimlico is mid-renovation. Iron Honor is the 9-2 favorite in a field of 14. Any sports bar worth showing up to will have it on.
🎵 Laura Pausini — Tonight, 8 PM, Kaseya Center. One of the biggest Italian pop artists on the planet, on the same night as the Preakness. Miami does not slow down on a Saturday.
⚽ Inter Miami CF vs Portland Timbers — Sunday, May 17, 6 PM, Nu Stadium. The new stadium at Miami Freedom Park is still new enough that going feels like an event. Pick the right seats and you can see the skyline behind the far end.
Coming up this week:
🎈 POP AIR — The Balloon Museum — Through September 27, Mana Wynwood (318 NW 23rd St). Interactive balloon art exhibition with monumental installations, LED environments, and a tornado room built from inflatable art. 7 million visitors worldwide. $41 weekdays / $49 weekends, with 30% off tickets currently available. If you haven't been, it's worth the trip to Wynwood on its own.
🎵 Reggae Fest: Alkaline — Friday, May 22, 8 PM, Kaseya Center. From $143.
🎵 Carlos Vives — Tour Al Sol — Saturday, May 23, 8 PM, Kaseya Center. One of the biggest Latin acts alive, from $57. Memorial Day weekend in Miami.
⚽ Inter Miami CF vs Philadelphia Union — Sunday, May 24, 7 PM, DRV PNK Stadium. Last home match before the World Cup break.
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.
If you want me to run numbers on any of the properties above, or any listing you're eyeing right now, just reply to this email.
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