Street Economics

North Miami Beach, Florida

HJR 1 Homestead-Exemption Tax-Base Exposure

Miami-Dade County . 2025 final assessment roll

Snapshot

The North Miami Beach read

North Miami Beach fits the Renter-Heavy archetype. A majority of the residential housing is not owner-occupied: 55% or more of units are rentals or second homes, and most of that non-owner stock is held by Floridians — in-state landlords and second-home owners — making this a local-ownership rental market rather than an absentee one. Owner-occupancy is a minority of the housing stock. At full $250,000 phase-in in 2028, HJR 1 exposure sits at 12.7%, with the 2027 step landing at 8.6%. Exposure runs lower than a homeowner town because the amendment only helps homestead owners, and most units here are non-homestead; the insulation is real, but it reflects a community where most residents rent rather than own.

Of 17,210 residential housing units, 38.1% are owner-occupied, 5.5% are out-of-state owned, and 56.3% are non-homestead but Florida-owned. Among ranked Florida cities, North Miami Beach ranks 322 of 404 by exposure, placing it well toward the lower end of the statewide distribution.

Land-use composition

Share of taxable value by category, North Miami Beach, 2025 roll:

What the exposure band means

Exposure band: Low exposure. The base is already substantially non-homestead. The amendment is a manageable headwind. Focus on protecting the diversified base that provides the insulation.

Looking ahead

Neither of the following changes the exposure figure above; both shape how North Miami Beach grows its base after the amendment takes effect.

First, beginning January 1, 2027, the annual assessment-increase cap on non-homestead property drops from 10% to 5%, covering commercial, industrial, and small residential rentals of nine units or fewer. Because capped values can only rise 5% a year, the main path to growing taxable value in these categories is transactions: a sale or change of control resets the property to market value, so transaction velocity matters more to non-homestead base growth than it did under the old cap.

Second, new Florida residents who did not maintain a Florida permanent residence as of December 31, 2026 phase into the larger exemption over five years rather than receiving it all at once. This cannot be read from the roll, so the figures above assume full application of the exemption to every homestead. Near-term exposure could run slightly lower than modeled where North Miami Beach has many recent arrivals still inside their five-year window.

Where the opportunity is

These recommendations are based solely on the tax roll’s land-use composition. They do not account for whether local land development regulations and zoning permit the described uses, whether there is local obstruction, or the political dynamics that typically decide what actually gets approved. This is a starting point for a conversation, not a development plan.

• With homestead_pct at 38.1% and residential plus multifamily together representing roughly 75% of taxable value, the low exposure figure is a housing-and-ownership signal first and a fiscal achievement second. Most residents do not own where they live, and that structural fact — not a diversified commercial base — is the primary source of insulation.
• Commercial at 15.2% of taxable value is a meaningful share but not dominant. Growing commercial, light-industrial, and employment-generating value along existing corridors and the commercial core is the clearest way to deepen the non-homestead base so it does not rest mainly on rental housing.
• Industrial carries a notable out-of-state ownership signal on value — 30.9% of industrial value is out-of-state owned — which is worth monitoring as a concentration risk even though the industrial share of total value is modest at 2.5%.
• Rental and missing-middle housing that is deed-restricted and well-managed adds taxable base without displacing residents. Rental is non-homestead and already the dominant tenure here, so supporting its quality and stability reinforces the base rather than undermining it.
• Where resident stability and ownership are community goals, any push toward owner-occupied housing should be paired with anti-displacement measures. New owner-occupied homestead housing is the one category the amendment exempts, so it should be treated as a community-values decision, not a tax-base strategy.

Watch-out: a renter-heavy city with mostly Florida landlords is a local rental market, not an absentee-ownership story — do not describe it as outside-owned. High rental share at modest values still usually signals an affordability and local-wealth issue, not a tax-base achievement, and the read should be honest about that distinction.

Source and scope

All figures are drawn from the Florida Department of Revenue 2025 final assessment roll, the most recent certified roll in the state’s possession. The roll is used as a structural proxy for tax-base composition, not as a dollar forecast for any specific budget year. HJR 1 / CS-HJR 1F is on the November 2026 ballot; the 2026 roll is the assessment roll in place when voters decide. If the amendment passes, the first roll affected by the larger exemption is the 2027 roll ($150,000 step), with full phase-in on the 2028 roll ($250,000). When the 2026 and later rolls are certified, the analysis re-runs on the new data.

Ownership shares are measured on a residential-unit basis. The out-of-state ownership figure is a mailing-address proxy: it counts units whose owner’s mailing-address state in the roll is a non-Florida state or country. It undercounts true outside ownership — an out-of-state owner using an in-state LLC address counts as Florida — and it does not prove where an owner actually lives. This is a land-use-composition starting point, not a full fiscal, economic, or legal plan.

Place: north miami beach