BY: ANDREW COLTON | Editor and Publisher
BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) (Copyright © 2023 MetroDesk Media, LLC) — A Florida Atlantic University Professor says rules set by Homeowner Associations in Florida are partially responsible for rising rent rates.
Ken Johnson, Ph.D.., an economist at FAU’s College of Business, says an abundance of short-term rentals on sites like AirBNB, combined with a prohibition by many HOA’s of renting homes in their communities, lead to a shortage of available rental inventory in Florida.
“Both of these take away units that could be rented to the public, and it’s the shortage of available units that drives rental rates higher,” Johnson said. “While developers and local governments clearly need to build more units, that’s not the only solution to this problem.”
Johnson says that the average rental premium paid in the United States is 7.4 percent, but in Cape Coral-Fort Myers, for instance, renters are paying a premium of 18.05 percent. According to Johnson, Miami also has some of the highest rental premiums in the country. He adds that HOA’s relaxing rental rules would help lower rental prices — although that’s something most HOA’s have no interest in doing.
“In both cases, there are incentives for owners and HOA boards to change what they’re doing, and at the same time, they would be helping to ease the rental problem in Florida,” Johnson said. “Markets will work in time, and we will slowly build enough units to ease this crisis. But there also can be relief in the interim.”
Learn more Tuesday morning as Andrew Colton hosts South Florida’s First News on NewsRadio 610, WIOD. Listen live on the air, on WIOD.COM, on the iHeart Radio App, or by telling Alexa, Google, or Siri to play “NewsRadio 610 WIOD.”
