South Florida faces a growing affordability problem as housing demand outstrips supply, according to Ana-Marie Codina, whose family firm develops master-planned communities in the region.
“We definitely need more supply,” Codina said in an interview at a Bloomberg New Voices event in Miami on Friday. “There’s very little differential between what rents we’re getting versus some of our competitors who have older product or less amenitized product. And that’s a function of supply.”
While rents are higher in cities such as New York or San Francisco, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area has a bigger share of its population who pay 30% or more of their incomes for shelter. About 38% of residents in the Miami area were “rent burdened,” the most of the 50 largest US metro areas, according to a Realtor.com report.
Codina is the chief executive officer of Codina Partners, the developer of Downtown Doral, a town center in Miami-Dade County a short walk from Trump National Doral Miami, the president’s golf club that is set to host next year’s G-20 leaders summit. The family real estate empire was started by her father, Armando Codina, who was born in Cuba and fled Fidel Castro’s communist regime as a child.
A proposal by Governor Ron DeSantis to eliminate property taxes on owner-occupied homes risks worsening the burden on renters, Codina said, as apartment owners would still be required to pay and could pass expenses onto tenants.
“I really give him credit for having the vision to try to get ahead of this affordability issue,” she said of the governor. “I have a concern about the details and making sure it’s not regressive on renters.”
Codina, who called herself a supporter of President Donald Trump’s, criticized his order to take away temporary protective status from refugees from Venezuela, who make up a large share of residents in Doral, which is nicknamed “Doralzuela.”
“That portion of it is slightly disappointing,” she said of Trump’s immigration crackdown. “Just because you have many residents of the US who are paying taxes and been here for decades and contributing to the community.”
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