If there is to be a repeat of the COVID-era New York-to-Florida migration in 2026, it is more likely to come in small increments as opposed to a thundering herd.
Now that Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist, has been elected mayor of New York City, Palm Beach and Broward counties — as well as their friendly neighbor to the south, Miami-Dade County — are again viewed as potential landing spots for out-of-state residents and business operators in search of lower tax bills and living costs and more friendly business climates.
“There is genuine interest from New York: Many wealthy individuals are already here, and more are considering it,” said Kelly Smallridge, president and CEO of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County.
“Many of the high-net-worth executives relocating have existing leases, young children in schools, and major personal and business ties — meaning they’re not going to make rash, election-driven moves overnight. It will take some time,” she added. “The New York mayoral effect is real but it will be gradual and not a lightning bolt.”
Where people might live
The South Florida home sales market snapped back to life in October as mortgage interest rates dipped. Sales rose 10.2% and the median sales price went up to $648,000 in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area, according to the Florida Realtors trade group. Condo sales were also up 7.1% for the month, but the median price dipped by 1.5% to $330,000.
Billionaire real estate developer Stephen Ross would like to see new arrivals land at one of his many upscale high-rise properties in downtown West Palm Beach, a metropolitan center he personally envisions and promotes as a “model city” that can rival New York and San Francisco.
“There is no question — the net migration story to Florida is real,” Jordan Rathlev, executive vice president at Related Ross, said in an interview. But he reminded a questioner that people from California, Illinois and Massachusetts are also in the mix, driven south by higher costs of living and/or political climates that many find unpalatable.
“We have a very pro-growth, pro-business approach,” he said. “While others have tried to stymie growth, West Palm Beach and Florida have embraced it.”
But everyone who moves south won’t have the means to live in the lap of waterfront luxury.
“The challenge is still the housing prices and supply,” Smallridge said. “As employers relocate or expand, their number one concern is the cost of housing for their mid- to lower-level employees. Many of the units being produced remain at higher price points.”
David Deutch, president of Pinnacle, a multi-family developer based in Miami, called the South Florida market a “tale of two cities.”
“The luxury market, in my estimation, is overbuilt,” he said. There remains a substantial appetite for affordable and workforce housing to support lower income residents.
“We’re building, but not at the pace we could,” he said. “Those units require assistance and therein lies the challenge.”
Joshua Brandsdorfer, a commercial real estate lawyer with the Berger Singerman law firm, said ”multi-family continues to remain strong in South Florida.”
He said Palm Beach and Broward counties “are reaping the benefits of the urban spiral” from the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut tri-state area. But new residents are moving up Interstate 95 from Miami, too.
“I don’t see that in 2026 slowing down,” Brandsdorfer said.
“I also think with all of the expanded development on the commercial side, it’s forcing municipalities to think more about how to create that sense of place,” he added, where families and friends can socialize and truly think of their buildings and neighborhoods as home.
Most out-of-towners with designs on South Florida will be high net-worth individuals, and as a group, any moving will be undertaken over time, said Ryan Greenblatt, a broker associate with Lang Realty in Boca Raton and an adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University. He told a recent real estate and finance conference at the school’s College of Business that the median price of a home in Boca Raton is $900,000.
Greenblatt told the Sun Sentinel that moving from one region to another is not as easy as it was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Florida loosened its social movement restrictions and big Northeast cities remained largely closed for business.
“I don’t think it’s as simple as it was during COVID to pick up and move,” he said. “Part of the reason we had a mass influx so quickly is that everything was shut down; moving was easy. That’s not the case now. Kids have to go to school. People have to go to work. It’s not so simple to pick up and move your life.”
It’s the high net-worth individuals, who are less encumbered by family and related responsibilities, “who will have the easiest way of picking up their lives.”
They’re not coming to retire. Many work in the lucrative financial industry. More than 300 hedge funds and private equity firms are located in the county, he said. And they’re not all from New York.
“They’re coming from California,” Greenblatt told the FAU audience. “In the last five years, both of my neighbors on both sides of my house are from L.A.”
Where people might work
As with condos and mixed-use developments, new offices are on the rise in Palm Beach County, though less so in Broward, largely to house the continuous flow of financial and professional service workers flowing into the area. Post-COVID, observers note, most employers want their employees back in the office, not spending most of their time at home.
Between Ross and other developers, Smallridge noted that more offices are under construction or have been recently completed.
“Related Ross has two Class A office buildings going on Fern Street” in West Palm Beach, she noted, “while Gatsby [Florida] is proposing a 200,000 square foot Class A building for Palm Beach Gardens. Compson Development is proposing a 150,000 square foot Class A office building for Boca Raton on Federal Highway.
“That is close to 800,000 to 1 million square feet in the pipeline,” Smallridge added. “From the tours we have conducted, high-quality offices will likely continue to be in demand, especially from finance, tech, and wealth management firms relocating from New York.”
Bob Swindell, president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, the economic development agency for Broward County, said he’d like to entertain larger firms with a need for 50,000 square feet if the area had the space to offer.
“I don’t have anywhere to put them right now,” he said.
Swindell is eagerly awaiting the completion of the mixed-use FAT Village high-rise complex in Fort Lauderdale’s Flagler Village section, which has ballooned into a neighborhood of high-rise apartments and hotels.
“We definitely need that,” he said. “The market is able to absorb that. When they get to their occupancy number they will get to phase two, which will add another 270,000 square feet.”
He said a strength in Broward is the industrial sector, which is home to a number of manufacturing firms, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry.
“Obviously with the number of people relocating we experienced from the pandemic through today, we’ve seen it slow down,” Swindell said. “But there is still so much to offer.”
He said he recently hosted a group of prospects from Orange County, California, on an Intracoastal Waterway boat outing to show off Fort Lauderdale. The conversation focused on California’s high tax structure and “barriers to business.”
Swindell said he and his guests also discussed Broward’s status as a home to multiple companies in the aviation and pharmaceutical industries.
“They had no idea our aviation is as strong as it is,” he said, adding there is considerable industrial capacity for manufacturing firms to occupy in Sunrise and Coral Springs.
It’s that unused capacity, though, that is likely to curb construction of new space in 2026, said Ed Easton, founder and chairman of The Easton Group of Miami, a commercial real estate brokerage, management, marketing and investment firm that operates across South Florida and elsewhere in Florida.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to build anything new next year,” he said. “It’s the cost of construction and interest rates and so on.”
In the meantime, leasing “is picking up” to fill empty spaces.
“There’s a lot of product out there,” he said. “People [owners] are going to take discounts to rent it. But they’ve had a hell of a run.”
In the meantime he, too, sees a near-term future of inbound migration.
“There’s a lot of money coming here from New York and bad states like California and New York are helping us a lot,” he said. “We’re getting real substantial people coming into the community.”
Dustin Ballard, managing director of Colliers, the commercial real estate services firm, said the office, industrial and retail segments of the industry are “pretty healthy for South Florida and I anticipate that to continue.”
“We are paying close attention to what’s going on in New York with the result of that election,” he said. “I’ve taken more of a cautiously optimistic approach. I don’t think it’s going to be an absolute flood of people coming to South Florida. We’re going to continue to see some of the migration from other parts of the country as well.”
“I was a product of migration from California to South Florida,” Ballard added. “I think we will see a lot of that. Whether it’s wholesale businesses moving south setting up shop or satellite locations — I expect that to continue into 2026.”
Ballard also speaks in superlative terms when describing the emergence of the office markets in Palm Beach County, calling it “especially exciting.”
He pointed to the lease that ServiceNow, the publicly traded artificial intelligence platform, recently signed with Related Ross to locate an innovation hub and AI Institute at 10 CityPlace in West Palm Beach, an operation expected to generate 850 jobs over the next five years.
“There’s a lot of tidbits of information to be really excited about that I expect to continue across our region,” he said.
In Fort Lauderdale, he cited the FAT Village project as a major step “because there really hasn’t been a ton of new construction in Broward and that is one thing that has held this market back.”
“I think that will start coming to fruition,” he said. “As FAT Village gets online I expect to see Broward to pick up some [with] the same velocity Miami and Palm Beach has had.”
Ballard also noted the February acquisition of 350 and 450 Las Olas Boulevard by Bradford Allen Capital, which plans to spend $25 million for a “significant renovation.”
It’s critical, he added, for employers to create an elevated quality of life for employees — a life that includes workplace amenities that supersede the standard fitness centers and conference rooms.
“It’s a quality-of-life decision you have to make as a business owner,” Ballard said.
He suggested it is too early to handicap whether a plan to add nine 30-story residential towers and a hotel to Fort Lauderdale’s Galleria Mall neighborhood would work.
“In the long-term I could see it working,” he said. “That project is so far out it is impossible to determine how it’s going to work over the next five years. A lot can change over that time period.”
But, he said, the investor group led by Miami Beach developer Russell Galbut “are very smart people.”