Miami better fits a cash-flow screen, but only narrowly: its gross yield is 6.78% versus Tampa’s 6.71%. Miami also pairs positive rent movement with a higher asking rent, while Tampa’s rent movement is negative. For a buyer, that makes Miami the stronger candidate for testing rent durability and achievable collections, not an automatic operating-income winner. Tampa’s lower acquisition basis may still produce the more practical financing burden and reserve requirement at a specific property.
Tampa is the clearer affordability and employment-stability candidate. Its median home value is $361,156, compared with $476,598 in Miami, and its price-to-income measure is 4.85 rather than 6.23. Tampa’s job growth is 0.10%, while Miami’s is negative 0.26%. Tampa also recorded net migration of 12,471 tax-return households, against Miami’s negative 28,579. These differences give Tampa a broader demand case to test, although migration and employment records do not prove that any neighborhood or unit type will sustain rent.
Miami better fits supply discipline because permitting runs at 3.07 per 1,000 residents, versus 6.39 in Tampa. A buyer concerned about new-unit competition should prioritize Miami, while still checking the local pipeline. Tampa better fits lower measured climate-loss tolerance: its loss ratio is 0.1693%, below Miami’s 0.1935%. Both markets list hurricane as the dominant hazard, so neither deserves abbreviated insurance, flood, wind, elevation or building-condition review. The appropriate next step depends on whether the mandate values slight headline yield and tighter permitting, or lower entry cost, stronger employment, positive migration and lower measured climate loss.