Sell or Rent Out Your Davie Home? The Florida Tax Math
Should you sell your Davie home or rent it out?
In Davie, the sell or rent decision turns on a Florida tax detail most owners never run. Rent your home for more than 30 days in two consecutive years and you lose the Homestead Exemption and the Save Our Homes cap, so the county reassesses the property at full market value and your tax bill climbs. Selling instead protects your capital gains exclusion and lets you carry your Save Our Homes savings to your next Florida home.
You locked a mortgage rate far below what the market offers today, so holding the house and renting it feels like the obvious play. Before you become a landlord, run the Florida math, because the state treats a rented former homestead very differently from one you sell.
Here is what I walk owners through when they ask me whether to sell the Davie house or keep it as a rental.
What a Davie single family home is worth now
I pulled six years of closed single family sales for Davie from the MLS, and the direction is hard to argue with. The median single family home in Davie, Florida sold for $800,000 in the first half of 2026, up from $610,000 in 2021, based on my own MLS closed sales pull, an increase of 31.1 percent. The average single family sale price rose even more, up 42.2 percent over the same window, per my MLS pull.
| Year | Closed single family sales | Median sale price | Median price per sqft | Median days on market | Source |
|—|—|—|—|—|—|
| 2021 | 834 | $610,000 | $276.85 | 14 | my MLS pull |
| 2022 | 629 | $695,000 | $341.91 | 13 | my MLS pull |
| 2023 | 607 | $745,000 | $352.14 | 26 | my MLS pull |
| 2024 | 533 | $825,000 | $375.09 | 30 | my MLS pull |
| 2025 | 570 | $780,000 | $376.65 | 38 | my MLS pull |
| 2026 (first half) | 291 | $800,000 | $390.22 | 29 | my MLS pull |
Every figure above is Davie single family, closed sales, from my own Matrix pull dated July 29, 2026. The public portals blend condos and townhomes into their Davie number and show something closer to $510,000, so do not be thrown when a Zillow headline reads lower than your neighbor’s actual sale. For the current live figure, the median single family sale price in Davie is davie_stat segment=”sfh” field=”median_sales_price” label=”1″]. You can read the full picture in my [Davie real estate market guide.
That equity is exactly why the sell or rent question is live. A home you have owned for years carries a large gain, and how you take that equity out changes your tax bill by a serious amount.
The Florida tax trap when you rent out your homestead
Here is the part that catches owners off guard. Your Homestead Exemption and your Save Our Homes assessment cap, which the Florida Department of Revenue limits to about 3 percent a year, both exist because the home is your primary residence. Rent the whole house for more than 30 days in two consecutive years and the property loses that status. The county then reassesses it at full market value, and the Save Our Homes cap that held your taxable value down for years disappears. You can confirm how the exemption and the reassessment work with the Broward County Property Appraiser.
On a long held Davie home, that reset can swing your annual property tax by thousands of dollars, because your assessed value has been capped well below market for years. Owners who only compare the rent check to the mortgage payment miss this entirely. The rent has to cover the new, higher tax bill too, and that math often looks very different once the homestead protection is gone.
What the tax math looks like if you sell
When you sell a primary residence, federal law lets you exclude up to $250,000 of gain if you file single and up to $500,000 if you are married filing jointly, as long as you owned and lived in the home for at least two of the last five years, per the IRS. A long tenure Davie owner clears that test easily. Any gain above your exclusion is taxed at the federal long term capital gains rate of up to 20 percent depending on your income, per the IRS, and Florida adds no state income tax on top.
Selling also keeps your Save Our Homes benefit in play. If you buy another Florida homestead, you can port up to $500,000 of your accumulated Save Our Homes savings to the new home, which lowers the taxable value on your next house. I show what you actually net from a sale, after commission, taxes, and payoff, in my Davie seller net sheet, and I break down the capital gains picture for long tenure owners in my guide on selling a Davie home you have owned 20 years.
What the tax math looks like if you rent it out
Renting can still win, but only after you count the costs most owners skip. Beyond the reassessed property tax, you take on landlord insurance, maintenance, vacancy risk, and the work of managing a tenant. You also start depreciating the home over 27.5 years for tax purposes, per the IRS, which lowers your taxable rental income each year but comes back later.
That later cost is depreciation recapture. When you eventually sell, the depreciation you took, or could have taken, gets taxed at a federal rate of up to 25 percent, per the IRS, and that piece is not erased by the primary residence exclusion. There is also a clock. The Section 121 exclusion only applies while you still meet the two of the last five years test, so rent too long and you lose the chance to shield that gain at all.
If your real goal is to hold the property as a long term investment, a 1031 exchange can defer the tax when you later trade it for another investment property. One more practical note for buyers moving up: when you apply for the next mortgage, lenders generally count only part of your projected rent, often around 75 percent, toward your qualifying income, so confirm the exact figure with your lender before you count on it.
The lock in effect is real, which is why so many owners even consider this. The Federal Housing Finance Agency estimates that rate lock in has frozen between 1.3 million and 1.72 million home sales and pushed prices about 5.7 percent higher, in FHFA Working Paper 24-03. A Realtor.com survey found that 82 percent of owners who feel stuck point to their low rate as the reason. Keeping a cheap mortgage is a genuine advantage. It just has to beat the full, honest cost of becoming a Florida landlord.
How to keep your Save Our Homes savings when you sell
1. Confirm your current homestead status with the Broward County Property Appraiser before you list, so you know the assessed value and cap you are working with.
2. Sell and close on your Davie home as your primary residence, which preserves the capital gains exclusion.
3. Buy your next Florida homestead and establish it as your primary residence.
4. File Form DR-501T with the county property appraiser within three tax years to port up to $500,000 of your Save Our Homes benefit to the new home.
5. File for Homestead Exemption on the new property by March 1 to lock the cap going forward.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will I lose my homestead exemption if I rent out my Davie home?
Yes, if you rent the whole home for more than 30 days in two consecutive years, you lose the Homestead Exemption and the Save Our Homes cap. The county then reassesses the property at full market value, which usually raises your property tax well above what you paid as an owner occupant. Short term rental of 30 days or less in a year generally does not trigger the loss, but confirm your situation with the Broward County Property Appraiser.
How long can I rent my Davie home and still avoid capital gains tax?
You keep the Section 121 exclusion as long as you owned and lived in the home for at least two of the last five years, per the IRS. That means you can rent it for a limited stretch and still sell with the exclusion intact. Rent it longer than three years and you fall outside the window, so the timing is the whole decision.
What taxes do I owe if I rent my Davie home and then sell it?
You owe depreciation recapture on the depreciation you took or could have taken, at a federal rate of up to 25 percent, per the IRS, even if your remaining gain qualifies for the primary residence exclusion. Gain above the exclusion is taxed at the long term capital gains rate of up to 20 percent. Florida charges no state income tax on the sale.
Is it smarter to keep my low mortgage rate and rent the house out?
Sometimes, but only after the full math. Davie single family homes sold at a median of $800,000 in the first half of 2026, per my MLS pull, so the equity at stake is large. A cheap mortgage helps, but the rent has to cover the reassessed property tax, insurance, maintenance, and vacancy, and you give up the capital gains exclusion if you rent too long. Run both scenarios with real numbers before you decide.
Talk to a Davie Real Estate Expert
If you are weighing whether to sell your Davie home or rent it out, the answer lives in your specific numbers, not a general rule. Anthony Spitaleri is a Davie native and Broker Associate, REALTOR® with Coldwell Banker Realty who built livingindavieflorida.com, and he runs the full sell versus rent math, including the homestead reset, before any owner commits. Schedule a free 15 minute strategy call and walk into the decision with every number known.
Anthony Spitaleri
Broker Associate, REALTOR® | Coldwell Banker Realty
Creator of Living in Davie, Florida
Davie, Florida | Serving Davie, Weston and surrounding Broward markets
954-235-5783
Florida License BK3281907
@livingindavieflorida
Written by Anthony Spitaleri, Broker Associate, REALTOR® with Coldwell Banker Realty and a Davie native. More about Anthony
