
Four cities we cover license vacation rentals in single-family houses: Hollywood, Hallandale Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami Lakes. Each adopted its vacation-rental ordinance after 1 June 2011, the date Florida's preemption statute (FSS 509.032(7)(b)) set: a city rule adopted after that date may regulate a vacation rental but may not prohibit it or limit how often or how long it is rented. On the MLS read on 14 September 2026, those four cities have 1,354 houses for sale, 582 of them at or under $700,000.
Sources: the four city codes (Municode, American Legal), read on 28 August and 15 September 2026; Florida Statutes 509.032(7)(b); MLS via Bridge Data Output, single-family houses, sales only, read on 14 September 2026.
The rule that decides it
Florida regulates vacation rentals at state level. Since 2011, section 509.032(7)(b) of the Florida Statutes says a local law, ordinance or regulation may not prohibit vacation rentals or regulate their duration or frequency, unless it was adopted on or before 1 June 2011. A city that had a restriction in place before that date keeps it. A city that legislated afterwards can license, register, inspect and tax a vacation rental; it cannot ban it.
So the question for a house is not whether the city likes short-term rentals. It is when the city wrote its rule. The four cities below wrote theirs between 2015 and 2022, and their codes read as licensing regimes: a registration, a certificate, an occupancy limit, a renewal date. That is what an owner has to comply with, and it is checkable.
Three things the statute does not settle, and that we read on every house before it goes on a shortlist: the parcel's own zoning district, the state DBPR licence, and a homeowners association or deed restriction, which can forbid what the city allows.
Four licensed cities, measured
Ordinance, adoption date and what it requires, from the city code itself. Houses for sale, median asking price, price per square foot asked, closings and median sale over the last twelve months, from the MLS. Medians, sales only, leases excluded.
| City | Vacation-rental rule | What it requires | For sale | Median ask | $/sf ask | Closings 12 mo | Median sale | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hollywood Broward |
Licensed Code ch. 119, Ord. O-2015-24, 21 Oct 2015 amended O-2023-12, 6 Sep 2023 |
City vacation-rental licence, renewed yearly; the city's own FAQ explains why it cannot ban them | 444 | $649,950 | $444 | 1091 | $550,000 | City code ↗ |
| Hallandale Beach Broward |
Licensed Code ch. 7 art. XIV, Ord. 2016-02, 27 Feb 2016 amended 2018-003 and 2023-003, 19 Apr 2023 |
Registration for any rental under 30 days, citywide, no district carve-out | 49 | $649,900 | $446 | 76 | $522,500 | City code ↗ |
| Fort Lauderdale Broward |
Licensed Code ch. 15 art. X, Ord. C-15-29, 18 Aug 2015 amended C-16-25, 6 Dec 2016 |
Registration and certificate of compliance renewed every 30 September, occupancy of two per bedroom checked on site, parking | 810 | $992,500 | $578 | 1757 | $685,000 | City code ↗ |
| Miami Lakes Miami-Dade |
Licensed Code ch. 13 art. VI div. 3, Ord. 22-302, 25 Jul 2022 amended 25-334, 18 Mar 2025 |
Certificate of Use and business tax receipt before the first listing, $500 then $500 a year, fire inspection since 2025 | 51 | $1,260,000 | $480 | 130 | $887,500 | City code ↗ |
Ordinances read by BlueBay Brokers on 28 August 2026 (Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, Miami Lakes) and 15 September 2026 (Hallandale Beach), on the cities' published codes, with the statute on flsenate.gov. A reading expires after twelve months because codes change. MLS: Bridge Data Output (Miami Realtors / SEFMLS), single-family houses, read on 14 September 2026; closings are the twelve months to that date.
The other eight zones we measure
We publish a rental status only after reading the city's ordinance and recording its date. For these eight zones we have not, so no status is printed here: the numbers are the market, nothing more. Several of them regulated rentals before 2011, which is exactly why the reading has to be done, not assumed.
| Zone | Rental status | For sale | Median ask | Median sale, 12 mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| City of Miami | Ordinance not read by us | 2068 | $824,997 | $690,000 |
| Miami Beach | Ordinance not read by us | 153 | $5,495,000 | $3,900,000 |
| Coral Gables | Ordinance not read by us | 136 | $3,685,000 | $2,200,000 |
| Coconut Grove | Ordinance not read by us | 88 | $3,495,000 | $2,725,000 |
| North Miami | Ordinance not read by us | 120 | $717,500 | $567,500 |
| Key Biscayne | Ordinance not read by us | 35 | $7,950,000 | $4,537,500 |
| North Bay Village | Ordinance not read by us | 13 | $5,245,000 | $1,090,000 |
| Morningside | Ordinance not read by us | 2 | $5,225,000 | $1,880,000 |
MLS read on 14 September 2026, single-family houses, sales only. "Ordinance not read by us" means exactly that; it is not a statement that rentals are allowed or forbidden.
Before a house goes on a shortlist
The county parcel number is the key, never the postcode. We record what the zoning district says for that folio, where we read it, and on what date.
Florida licenses vacation rentals through the DBPR (Division of Hotels and Restaurants). The city licence and the state licence are two separate documents.
A homeowners association or a recorded restriction can forbid what the code allows. On a house this is often the binding constraint, and it is read in the recorded documents, not on a listing.
The four codes above cap occupancy (typically two per bedroom), require parking and, in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Lakes, an on-site inspection. A four-bedroom house is an eight-guest house, whatever the listing says.
Questions we are asked
No. Hollywood adopted its vacation-rental ordinance on 21 October 2015, after the 1 June 2011 line in Florida Statutes 509.032(7)(b), so it may license and regulate vacation rentals but may not prohibit them. The city says so itself in its published FAQ. What it does require is a city licence renewed every year.
It answers the city's part only. The parcel's zoning district, the Florida DBPR licence and any homeowners association or deed restriction each have to be read for that address. Nothing on this page certifies that a rental is legal at a given house; it tells you which cities cannot ban it and what they require.
No association to vote a rental ban, no monthly fee, and a licence granted to the owner by the city rather than by a board. The trade-off is that the owner carries the roof, the pool and the insurance alone. Our single-family hub measures twelve zones on the same MLS basis so the two can be compared on closings, not on brochures.
Shortlist · 24h
Tell us the budget and the city. You get a shortlist from live inventory, the closings behind each price, and for every address on it, what we were able to verify about short-stay use and what we were not.
Send us the address. We come back with the closed comparables on its own street and what the record says about short-stay use on that parcel.