President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is making it harder for foreigners to buy and rent homes, threatening a key pillar of Miami’s half-decade-long economic boom.
Miami, like much of the US, had already been seeing a real estate slowdown driven by higher mortgage rates and record prices. South Florida was also hard hit by soaring insurance costs and condo maintenance fees, as well as the inevitable comedown after the pandemic-induced relocation frenzy that made the area a magnet for new arrivals.
Now, conversations with house hunters, brokers and mortgage lenders point to another dynamic at play: Growing concern that even legal immigrants aren’t safe from ever-changing policy is paralyzing the market in Miami, where more than half the population is foreign born.
Home sales are down more than 17% from a year earlier in Miami, nearly six times the national decline, according to March data from Redn Corp. Properties now spend a median of almost 100 days on the market, more than twice the US rate and a sign of waning demand. In the rental market — which is more likely to cater to undocumented migrants and legal immigrants living temporarily in the US — prices for one-bedroom apartments have plunged 16% in the past year, Zillow Rentals data show.
Trump’s policies are also weighing on the lower end of the market, with many landlords asking for proof of US citizenship or a long-term visa before they rent a home, according to local real estate brokers. They say that’s a departure from the past, when temporary visas were ne and landlords were often willing to look the other way if someone was undocumented.
Adding to the pressure, the Trump administration is cutting o Federal Housing Administration mortgages — which account for 16% of all singlefamily home loans — to anyone who doesn’t have US citizenship or permanent residency. Until now, FHA loans, which are popular with rst-time buyers because they accept lower credit scores and just a 3.5% down payment, were available to people with temporary status.
Trump’s deportation campaign is adding to woes facing one of the nation’s main stalwarts of growth since the pandemic. Wages in the Miami area were up only 1.2% from a year ago in March, down from a rate of more than 7% seen in recent years and the weakest among the nation’s largest metro areas, government data showed. And after hiring at a much faster rate than the national average in the aftermath of the pandemic, job growth in Miami has been lagging behind the US.
