For Owners of Second Homes and Seasonal Residences
Seasonal Leasing for Luxury Homes in South Florida
Your home can earn while you are away. The question is whether it should.
Many South Florida owners spend part of the year somewhere else, and a furnished seasonal lease can turn those months into income. Whether it should depends on your schedule, the furnished market near your home, your association's rules, the taxes on a short lease and the wear you will accept. BreakThru Realty prepares a written seasonal strategy first: what furnished homes nearby leased for by the season, the lease periods worth offering, the costs and the rules, so you decide with the figures in front of you.
Get My Luxury Rental Strategy · Speak With a Luxury Leasing Advisor: (786) 914-1017
Income Around Your Own Dates
Lease periods planned around the months you use the home, not the other way round.
The Rules Settled First
Association terms, transient rental tax registration, insurance and your homestead checked before any marketing.
The Home Looked After
An inventory and an inspection with photographs at the start and the end of each lease, and management between seasons if you want it.
When Is the Rental Season in South Florida?
Seasonal renters come mainly for the winter, and the strongest demand is for January through April.
Renters planning a winter here often start looking months ahead, so a seasonal property is best photographed, priced and listed well before it is available. A home ready in late summer meets the renters who plan early; a home listed in January meets those who are left. The strategy sets the listing date from the season you want to fill.
How Is a Seasonal Rent Priced?
As a total for the lease period, from what comparable furnished homes leased for in past seasons.
Seasonal leases in the MLS are usually quoted as a total for the stay rather than by the month, which is why our city rental pages keep them apart from monthly rents. Your strategy reads the seasonal leases that closed near your home, their length and timing, and the furnished annual leases beside them, then proposes the periods to offer and the total for each.
Your Next Tenant Might Already Be Searching
Many owners assume a brokerage is mainly an advertising budget. Our work starts with the renter market itself. Before your property goes on the market, a broker reviews the requests renters have made to BreakThru Realty: the location, the budget, the lease length, the move in date, the furnishing and the water each one asked for, and the listings they are weighing. Your property may fit the needs of a renter already searching in your area. If a request fits, we tell you privately what that renter asked for, with no renter named, and a broker contacts that renter one to one only with your consent. If none fits, the marketing plan takes the property to the wider market. A request that fits is a reason for a conversation, not a promised tenant or an application.
Choose the Level of Involvement That Works for You
Listing your property with BreakThru Realty does not oblige you to hand over its management. Each service stands on its own, and the fee for each is set out in writing before you sign.
Option 1. Luxury Rental Listing Representation
For owners who want BreakThru Realty to market and lease the property, and will look after it themselves once the tenant moves in.
- Rent pricing from the closed and active leases that compare
- Listing preparation, with professional photography and video
- The property's own page on breakthrurealty.com, online advertising and the MLS
- Every inquiry answered and every showing attended by a licensed agent
- Applicant screening on identity, income, credit, background, eviction history and references
- Lease negotiation and a lease that follows Florida law
- The association application, the deposits and a move in inspection with photographs
Once the tenant moves in, the property is yours to look after. Management can be added at any time.
Option 2. Luxury Seasonal Leasing
For owners who spend part of the year away and want furnished seasonal income from the property.
- Seasonal pricing from the furnished leases that closed nearby
- The lease periods worth offering, planned around your own dates
- The furnishing and inventory list the lease refers to
- Association, insurance and tax points settled before marketing
- Renter qualification for every season
- An inspection with photographs at the start and the end of each lease
Between seasons the home is yours, or under management if you choose it.
Option 3. Luxury Property Management
For owners who want the property looked after once the lease is signed.
- Monthly rent collection and owner statements
- Maintenance and repairs coordinated through licensed vendors you approve
- Routine inspections, with photographs
- Tenant communication, notices and renewals
- Year end owner reporting
BreakThru Realty manages the property. Repairs are carried out by licensed outside vendors, and the statements show who did what.
What You Receive: Luxury Rental Strategy
A written plan for leasing your property, prepared by a licensed BreakThru Realty broker from the closed and active leases that genuinely compare with it, before you decide how, when or whether to lease.
Included once the broker has what the strategy needs
- An annual rent range from the closed leases closest to your property in size, finish, building, water and view, with every comparable listed
- A furnished rent range, where enough furnished and unfurnished leases closed nearby to measure the difference
- The seasonal market for a property like yours: what furnished homes nearby leased for by the season, and the months renters ask for
- The comparable properties a renter will see beside yours today, and the ones that leased recently
- How long comparable properties took to lease, and the vacancy that implies for each route
- The costs of each route: the leasing fee, furnishing, utilities, cleaning, maintenance and, if you want it, management
- An estimated net rental income for each route, worked from your own figures and labelled as a broker's judgment
- Whether a renter already working with us might fit your property, told to you privately with no renter named
- The association, insurance and tax points to settle before marketing
- A recommendation: how to position the property, which renter to reach and how we would market it
What it does not promise
- A promised rent or lease date
- A tenant before one has applied and been approved
- A rent for your property published anywhere
Prepared by hand by a licensed BreakThru Realty broker. Nothing is generated automatically and no rent for your own property is published.
Is a Seasonal Lease Worth It? Compare It on Your Figures
Set an annual lease beside a seasonal one, with the costs only a seasonal lease carries. Your own figures, nothing prefilled as a market rate, nothing sent anywhere.
A hypothetical illustration: four months at $30,000 a month gross $120,000, against $180,000 for twelve months at $15,000. Furnishing, utilities, cleaning between stays and the empty months decide which route nets more for a given home.
An illustration with figures you enter, not an estimate for your property. BreakThru Realty does not publish a rent or a value for a specific property; your strategy is prepared by a licensed broker and given to you in writing. The calculator on this page runs in your browser with the figures you enter and sends nothing anywhere.
How the Leasing Is Run
- Your goals first. Income, timing, the months you will be away, what the property must be protected from and how involved you want to be. One conversation before any analysis.
- The written strategy. The closed and active leases that compare, the annual, furnished and seasonal routes, the renter check and the costs of each, in writing.
- Preparation. Only what renters at this level pay for: repairs, furnishing and the inventory, photography and video, each with its cost and your approval.
- Marketing. The approved plan goes live: the property page, the advertising and the MLS. You receive a written update every week.
- Qualification and showings. Every renter is identified before a showing, every showing has a licensed agent present, and every application is screened on the same written criteria.
- The lease and the handover. Terms negotiated, the association approval obtained, the deposits collected, the lease signed and the property handed over with an inspection and photographs.
Taxes on a Seasonal Lease
Florida treats a lease of six months or less as a transient rental. State sales tax, any county surtax and the county's tourist development tax apply to the rent, and the owner, or an agent on the owner's behalf, registers to collect and remit them with the Florida Department of Revenue and, in counties that collect their own tourist development tax, with the county tax collector. The rent is also taxable income. Your CPA confirms what applies to you; the strategy lists the registrations to complete before the first lease.
A Seasonal Lease Is Not a Vacation Rental
Under Florida law a home rented more than three times a year for stays shorter than 30 days or a calendar month, or advertised that way, is a vacation rental. It needs a state license, and many cities add their own registration and rules. A seasonal lease of a month or more falls outside that definition, and the seasonal strategy on this page works with lease periods of that length.
Check Your Homestead Exemption First
If the home carries your Florida homestead exemption, check before leasing it. Under section 196.061 of the Florida Statutes, renting all or substantially all of a homestead counts as abandoning it once it has been rented for 30 days a year in two consecutive years, which can end the exemption and the cap on its assessed value. The statute has exceptions, including for military service. Ask your county property appraiser or your attorney before you sign a seasonal lease.
Furnishing and the Inventory
A seasonal renter expects the home ready to live in: linens, a working kitchen, outdoor furniture, technology that works. The inventory lists every item and its condition, is signed at the start of the lease and checked with photographs at the end, so a missing or damaged item is a matter of record rather than memory.
Between Seasons
The months between leases are the ones owners forget to plan: who checks the home after a storm, who runs the air conditioning and the water, who meets the pool service. You can look after the property yourself, arrange it with neighbors or vendors, or choose management.
Before You Ask: The Objections Owners Raise
- Will seasonal tenants wear the home down?
- More turnover means more wear, which is why the inventory, the deposit and the inspections at the start and the end of every lease matter more on a seasonal lease. The strategy prices the extra cleaning and upkeep in, so the comparison with an annual lease is honest.
- Can I still use the home myself?
- Yes. The lease periods are planned around your own dates first, and the strategy shows what the remaining months could earn.
- What if my association allows only one lease a year?
- Then the strategy is built around one longer season or an annual lease, rather than several short ones. We read the association's documents before any marketing.
Get My Luxury Rental Strategy
Three short steps: your goal, the property and the lease you have in mind. A licensed broker calls you within one business day and prepares your strategy in writing. You are not committing to lease.
This is an online form on this page, in four short steps. First, what you would like to accomplish: find a qualified tenant; explore seasonal rental income; discuss leasing and ongoing management. Second, the property address and city, its kind and, if you know them, its bedrooms, bathrooms and size. Third, when it is available, furnished or not, the lease term you have in mind, whether it is on the water, any association rental rules and, optionally, the rent you have in mind and whether to compare leasing with selling. Last, your name and an email address or a phone number. It asks for no documents.
Your request is with a licensed BreakThru Realty broker, who calls you within one business day to confirm the details, checks your property against the closed leases and the renter requests on file, and prepares your luxury rental strategy in writing. No figure is shown here or published, and asking commits you to nothing.
Prefer to talk? (786) 914-1017 · sales@breakthrurealty.com
What Happens After You Ask
- Within one business day. A licensed broker calls you to confirm the property's details and what must stay private. No figure is shown on this website and nothing is published.
- The renter check. The broker reviews the renter requests on file against your property and tells you privately what they show.
- In writing. Your luxury rental strategy is prepared from the closed and active leases and your own figures, and gone through with you.
- Your decision. Representation is discussed only if you ask for it. The fee for the service you choose is set out in writing before anything is marketed.
Asking for a strategy costs nothing and commits you to nothing. You hear from us about the strategy you asked for, and about the market only if you ask.
Who Is Responsible, and What You Can Check
| Responsible broker | Tyson E. Sam, Founder and Broker of Record, Florida real estate license 3565210 |
|---|---|
| License verification | Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation public license search |
| Rental data | BeachesMLS closed and active leases; every published figure has a methodology |
| Research | South Florida Rental Market Report: what homes, condos and apartments actually leased for, monthly |
| What we do not publish | Testimonials, lease counts we cannot document, or a rent for your own property |
Questions Owners Ask
- How do I rent my Florida home seasonally while I am away?
- Check your association's rental rules, your homestead exemption and your insurance, register for transient rental tax if the lease is six months or less, furnish and inventory the home, and price it from the seasonal leases that closed nearby. A brokerage can then market it, qualify the renter, prepare the lease and inspect the home at the start and the end. BreakThru Realty prepares a written seasonal strategy before any of that begins.
- What is a seasonal rental in South Florida?
- A furnished lease for part of the year, most often the winter months, usually quoted as a total for the stay rather than a monthly rent. It is longer than a vacation rental and shorter than an annual lease, and in Florida a lease of six months or less is taxed as a transient rental.
- Do I pay tax on a seasonal rental in Florida?
- Yes, in most cases. Rent for a stay of six months or less is a transient rental, subject to state sales tax, any county surtax and the county tourist development tax, which the owner or an agent collects and remits. The rental income is also taxable. Your CPA confirms what applies to you.
- How far ahead should I list a seasonal rental?
- Months ahead of the season you want to fill. Renters planning a winter in South Florida often begin looking well before it, so a home photographed, priced and listed early meets more of them. The strategy sets the date from your own calendar.