For out-of-town absentee owners, we provide a premium vacation rental property management service that far exceeds what is customary in the industry. That is, we will assist with all licensing to make sure your Ft. Lauderdale house is fully approved as a vacation rental, oversee all property management activities, including repairs and improvements, pay and record all your bills, remit all sales and tourist taxes, and make sure the house is properly insured. Note, invoices are uploaded to your own owner portal where you will also be able to view every booking, including income and expense reports. In other words, you’ll have a complete visual of your business, but without the headaches.

If you own a secondary home in Florida, you are most likely keenly aware that Florida is one of the top tourist attractions in the world! In fact, according to VISIT FLORIDA, Florida had approximately 135 million visitors in 2023. However, what you may not be aware of is that Fort Lauderdale has in excess of 13 million visitors per year (Laurie Finkelstein Reader Team), and it is ranked as the number 3 most visited city by foreign nationals, following Miami and Orlando, with approximately 506,000 visitors in 2022 as reported by News Channel 8 referring to data from National Travel and Tourism.

This makes Fort Lauderdale a great place to own a vacation rental property. It should also be noted that vacation rentals are legal in Fort Lauderdale, which is not the case in many other cities in Florida. For example, vacation rental property management of single-family homes is not legal in Miami Beach, Boca Raton, or Lake Worth Beach. In other words, you are not allowed to rent out a home short-term, which is generally referred to as a rental that is 30-days or shorter.

If you're looking for detailed vacation rental data on Fort Lauderdale, AirDNA is the top source in the industry. This research firm collects data by scraping rental information from platforms like Airbnb and VRBO, among others. AirDNA uses this data to rank most US cities based on five criteria: investability, rental demand, revenue growth, seasonality, and regulation. As of 2024, Fort Lauderdale has a market score of 71 according to AirDNA's ranking. The city boasts 12,920 vacation rentals, with the average unit generating $28,300 annually in revenue. The average daily rate is $309.90, and the average occupancy rate is 51%. (Source: AirDNA Fort Lauderdale Data).

However, drawing from our experience as Super Hosts on Airbnb and Premier Hosts on VRBO, we recommend not putting too much weight on these figures. The statistics encompass a broad spectrum of rentals, including single rooms, studios, and homes with five or more bedrooms. Moreover, unless homeowners are staying in their properties for extended periods, our occupancy rates consistently surpass 52%.

Fort Lauderdale is such a city where the business of short-term vacation rentals has been regulated and they have a city ordinance for vacation rentals. This means that any vacation rental property needs to be approved by the city and an application needs to be submitted followed by an inspection. However, at iRenta.com we handle all such applications for licensing and approvals for all our homeowners, i.e., for both local municipalities and the State of Florida.

In addition, we also handle yearly renewals and inspections. As a side note, you should be aware that for every short-term rental, sales tax needs to be remitted to the State of Florida, and tourist tax (also known as lodging tax or hotel tax) needs to be remitted to the local county, every month. At iRenta.com, again, this is something we do for all our homeowners.

From the very beginning when iRenta.com launched its Airbnb property management business, Fort Lauderdale was always one of the most popular destinations for Scandinavians. Next to Miami, Fort Lauderdale was the one city that every foreign national was familiar with as a tourist destination. And for both international and domestic visitors, it is of course very convenient that this city has its own International Airport.

For the above reasons, according to AirDNA, the most recognized data source for the vacation rental industry, Fort Lauderdale has one of the largest vacation rental markets in South Florida, except for Miami, with approximately 37,243 vacation rental homes. And the average rental revenue per house per year is $111,200 as of April 2024 Source: AirDNA. However, as Super Host on Airbnb and a Premier Host on VRBO, with a much higher occupancy than what is suggested by AirDNA, we at iRenta.com do not believe you should read too much into this data.

Regarding seasonality, it should be mentioned that no longer is Fort Lauderdale just a thriving and pulsating city for snowbirds who reside in South Florida in the winter months. Instead, Fort Lauderdale has become a city that is visited by tourists throughout the year, with lots of Europeans spending part of their summer vacations here. That said, the busiest months for the hotels and vacation rental homes will still be from late December until the end of April. And after that, May can sometimes be a little slow, and September is certainly the month that the hotels and vacation rental homes generally have the lowest occupancy rate.

At iRenta.com, we use an industry-leading dynamic pricing software solution that will maximize your profits per booking based on consumer demand and supply. This is done by scraping every listing on VRBO and Airbnb to set the optimal daily rate based on the availability of equivalent vacation rental homes. In addition, seasonality and special events are also built into the algorithm.