In 2025, Miami-Dade authorized 13,292 multifamily units across 160 buildings — the highest figure in nine years, 26% above the post-pandemic peak of 2021 and 82% above 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. Over the same period, Broward fell 34% and Palm Beach fell 46%. Florida as a whole was down 16.5% in total authorized units and 25% in single-family housing.
The easy read would be "everything in Miami is booming." That's imprecise. What the data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Building Permits Survey actually shows — processed here at the county level — is something more specific and more useful for anyone deciding where to place capital: construction in South Florida didn't stop, it polarized. It concentrated exactly where the buyer doesn't depend on a local bank, and it retreated where the buyer does.
This is the expanded version of that analysis, with the full series and the three-county comparison, built for the investor who already has exposure to Miami or is evaluating entry timing — not for someone asking for the first time whether Miami "is a good idea."
The data: Miami-Dade's 2017-2025 series
The Building Permits Survey is the most reliable proxy for construction intent that exists: it measures the permit, not the closing or the MLS inventory, so it leads what later shows up as a finished unit on the market by roughly 18 to 36 months. Here is the series of multifamily units (5+ units per building) authorized in Miami-Dade County:
| Year | 5+ units | Buildings | Units/building |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 8,135 | 107 | 76 |
| 2018 | 8,761 | 181 | 48 |
| 2019 | 7,301 | 136 | 54 |
| 2020 | 7,200 | 167 | 43 |
| 2021 | 10,574 | 160 | 66 |
| 2022 | 8,557 | 164 | 52 |
| 2023 | 10,980 | 191 | 57 |
| 2024 | 8,068 | 135 | 60 |
| 2025 | 13,292 | 160 | 83 |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey, annual county files. Proprietary processing.
2025 isn't just the highest figure in the table: it's the only year in the series where 13,292 units were authorized across the exact same number of buildings as in 2021 (160). In other words, the growth didn't come from more projects — it came from bigger ones.
The tri-county split: same rate cycle, three different outcomes
The most revealing part of this data isn't Miami-Dade in isolation — it's Miami-Dade next to its two immediate neighbors, subject to the exact same interest-rate environment:
| County | 2021 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miami-Dade | 13,393 | 16,535 | +23% |
| Broward | 4,069 | 2,690 | −34% |
| Palm Beach | 7,851 | 4,228 | −46% |
Total authorized units (all categories). Source: Census BPS. Broward bottomed at 1,655 units in 2024, −59% vs. 2021.
Statewide, the drop is even sharper: Florida as a whole went from 213,494 authorized units in 2021 to 178,297 in 2025 (−16.5%), and single-family housing — the product most dependent on the conventional-mortgage buyer — fell from 148,735 to 111,173 units (−25%).
The explanation isn't that Miami-Dade has better weather or nicer beaches than Broward or Palm Beach. It's that the developer's math stopped working for almost everyone — mortgage rates above 6%, property insurance up 63% since 2020, 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum, construction labor running $75 to $100 an hour — except for one very specific type of project: the presale tower in a Miami-Dade submarket, financed with the buyers' own deposits and aimed at whoever pays cash or finances outside the local banking system. Where the project depends on the average resident's mortgage — the suburban single-family home, the Broward or Palm Beach condo aimed at the local buyer — the math no longer closes.
83 units per building: building the roof capital buys
The jump in average building size — from 60 units in 2024 to 83 in 2025 — isn't a statistical footnote. It's the most direct evidence that Miami-Dade's market is reorganizing around the large-scale rental and luxury tower, not scattered housing. Towers like Baccarat Residences in Brickell or Cipriani Residences illustrate the type of product behind that average: projects with hundreds of units, high price points, international buyers, largely financed through their own presale deposit schedule.
It's a different — and more precise — read than "Miami is trendy": global cash capital keeps finding in Miami-Dade the vehicle it no longer finds elsewhere in the state, and that's why it builds there. The Edgewater tower illustrated by projects like Missoni Baia follows the same logic in a different submarket, with its own absorption pace.
The national cushion: "approved" isn't the same as "under crane"
It's worth being analytically honest before drawing hasty conclusions. Nationally, units authorized but not yet started total 268,400, up 48% from December 2019 (181,700). That's not a record — the 2022 peak was 294,000, and the all-time high dates to 1973 — but it remains well above pre-pandemic levels. That cushion matters because it separates "there's paperwork" from "there's a crane": the permit is intent, not certainty that the unit gets built on the original timeline. National housing starts, in fact, sit at a six-year low (−15.4% year-over-year in the latest available data; multifamily −41.6%).
For Miami-Dade specifically, the fact that 2025 was a record both in units and in building size — not just in approved paperwork — is a stronger signal than the national aggregate. But the serious investor still tracks the start and delivery pace of each specific project, not just the initial permit.
What it means for the LatAm investor
Permit data doesn't tell you where to buy today — it tells you where future liquidity will be. The submarkets that consistently concentrate the most permit activity and large-scale projects in Miami-Dade are Brickell, Edgewater, and Downtown: that's where presale capital keeps finding the land and the demand to justify the large-scale tower. That doesn't automatically make them the best buy — it means there will be more new inventory, more comparables, and more resale liquidity in the next cycle.
The practical read for anyone evaluating entry timing:
- Miami-Dade's permit record isn't a generic oversupply signal: it confirms that global capital keeps finding there the vehicle it no longer finds anywhere else in Florida.
- The comparison with Broward and Palm Beach is the one worth monitoring in coming cycles: if the gap keeps widening, it confirms the "cash buyer in Miami-Dade" thesis is deepening rather than normalizing.
- Average building size (83 units) is a useful proxy for which product segment — rental, luxury, institutional scale — new development is concentrating in.
- The national "approved but not started" cushion is a reminder that a permit is a first step, not a last one: track the specific project through to delivery, not just the permit headline.
This analysis complements the broader framework we cover in our complete guide to Miami real estate investment: permits are the indicator that anticipates, roughly a year and a half in advance, where the supply you don't yet see in the market is heading.