Fort Lauderdale Ranked as One of the Nation’s Top 10 Cities for Real Estate Investment

A highly regarded annual real-estate industry outlook released yesterday (Oct. 26) ranked Fort Lauderdale as the sixth-best market in the nation for real estate investors. The city jumped 29 spots to break into the top 10 this year.

The outlook, Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2018, was released by PwC US and the Urban Land Institute. Now in its 39th year, Emerging Trends is based on interviews and survey responses from more than 1,600 real estate experts, including investors, fund managers, developers, property companies, lenders, brokers, advisors and consultants.

Local officials are not surprised that the city ranked so highly. “Greater Fort Lauderdale’s rapid ascension to the top sixth market spot is further confirmation of the strength of our economy, including consistent, dynamic year-over-year job and wage growth, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” said Bob Swindell, president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, Broward County’s official economic-development partnership. “Diverse employment opportunities, low taxes and affordability, along with world-class lifestyle amenities, make our community a talent hub for young professionals and established executives.”

Seattle ranked at the top of the list, up from fourth last year, due to its job opportunities, diverse economy and young, educated workforce, while Austin and Salt Lake City rounded out the top three. The Miami market jumped from the 25th spot last year to 11th this year.

Real-estate investors are shying away from large primary markets, such as New York and San Francisco, due to high prices and competition, instead choosing to focus on smaller secondary and tertiary markets for 2018.

“The growing interest in smaller cities by real-estate investors is influenced by their relative affordability, coupled with a concentration of young, skilled workers,” said Mitch Roschelle, PwC partner and co-publisher of the report. “The diverse, robust economies of these smaller cities make them very desirable to investors.”

For more information, see https://americas.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/125/ULI-Documents/EmergingTrendsInRealEstate2018.pdf.