Fort Lauderdale, FL Multifamily Market Report Q3 2026

Cap Rates Expand for 18 Quarters; Vacancy Edges Up to 5.0%

Demand

Fort Lauderdale absorbed 495 units in Q3 2026, against 111 in the same quarter last year. Vacancy is 5.0%, 17 bps looser than Q3 2025. Pompano Beach/Coral Springs is both the tightest submarket at 4.2% vacancy and the rent growth leader at +1.7%. Trailing-12-month absorption of 3,777 units is down from 6,288 a year earlier. Rent of $2,517 is up 0.8% year over year and a record. Vacancy sits 115 bps below the Q4 2023 peak of 6.2%.

Supply

Fort Lauderdale recorded 1,296 units of completions in Q3 and 4,384 over the trailing twelve months (+9% versus the prior TTM period). Units under construction equal 2.9% of inventory, concentrated in Sunrise/Plantation at 5.2% of its stock. Annual completions peaked at 5,330 units in 2024. Q3 deliveries were 70% above last year’s 761. The 6,284-unit pipeline equals about six and a half quarters of absorption at the trailing pace.

Investment Market

Fort Lauderdale recorded $2.7B in sales over the trailing twelve months, +37% against the prior TTM period; Q3 accounted for $1.06B. The high-water mark in this series is $5.5B in 2021.

Fort Lauderdale cap rates average 5.64%, up for 18 straight quarters. Pricing sits at $267k per unit, higher for 2 consecutive years. The cap rate is 102 bps above the Q1 2022 low of 4.62%.