How to Avoid Rental Scams in South Florida (2026)

How to avoid rental scams in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach: warning signs, how to check who owns a rental, safe ways to pay, where to report.

Here's how to avoid rental scams: see the apartment in person, confirm the person renting it owns or manages it, and never pay by wire transfer, gift card or cryptocurrency. In South Florida, you can check who owns a property on the county property appraiser's website and report fraud to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Florida's Attorney General.

The extra steps are worth it here. In the FTC's Consumer Sentinel data for 2024, Florida had the highest per-capita rate of reported fraud of any state, and the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area ranked first among U.S. metro areas, with 2,793 fraud and other reports per 100,000 people. Floridians reported losing $866.1 million to fraud that year. Those figures cover every kind of fraud, not only rentals, but the Florida Attorney General has issued several consumer alerts about rental scams.

What do rental scams look like in South Florida?

Most follow a handful of patterns that the FTC and the Florida Attorney General describe:

• Hijacked listings: a scammer copies the photos, description or virtual tour of a real rental and posts it with their own contact details.
• Fake listings: ads for places that aren't for rent or don't exist, often with surprisingly low rent or amazing amenities.
• The absent owner: the person says they're out of the country and can't show you the place, but wants money now.
• Pay to see it: the Attorney General has warned about scammers who ask for cash up front to view a property, or to hold it as a deposit.
• Fees, then silence: scammers often ask for an application fee or security deposit, and the listing disappears once you pay, the Attorney General says.
• Fake self-guided tours: the FTC warns that scammers copy listings from landlords who use self-tour services and set you up with a self-guided tour to look legitimate.
• The credit-score pitch: a supposed landlord asks for a screenshot of your credit score and steers you to a paid credit-monitoring service. The FTC notes that most landlords pull your credit themselves.
• Renting what they don't own: someone rents out a home they have no right to. Under a 2024 Florida law, knowingly renting or leasing property to someone when you have no lawful ownership or leasehold interest in it is a first-degree felony (s. 817.0311).

What are the warning signs of a rental scam?

• You're asked to pay by wire transfer, gift card or cryptocurrency. The FTC says that's the same as sending cash.
• You're asked to pay before you've seen the place or signed anything, or to leave the listing site to pay, which the Attorney General calls a major red flag.
• The rent is a lot cheaper than other rents in the area.
• The owner can't meet you or show you inside, or only writes by email or text, sometimes from a foreign phone number.
• You're pushed to decide fast, before someone else takes it.
• You're asked for your Social Security number, a photo of your driver license or your pay stubs before you've agreed to rent.
• The same photos appear in another listing under a different name, or the home is listed for sale rather than for rent.

It helps to know what normal prices look like. In our October 2026 data on 410 purpose-built rental buildings, a one-bedroom in a newer Miami-Dade building started at a median $2,603 in base rent, and only 6 of the 289 buildings that advertised a one-bedroom price outside income-restricted programs started below $1,850. Income-restricted apartments can cost less, but they come with income limits you must qualify for. A newer one-bedroom advertised far below these figures deserves extra checking.

How can you check who owns a rental in South Florida?

Public records make this quick:

• Look up the address on the county property appraiser's website: the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser, the Broward County Property Appraiser or the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser. Each shows the owner of record. The FTC suggests the same check on city or county tax records.
• If the owner is a company, look it up on Sunbiz, the Florida Division of Corporations' database, to see who runs it, and compare those names with the person you're dealing with.
• Search the address together with the owner's or company's name. If other ads show the same place under a different name, that's a sign of a scam, the FTC says.
• Run a reverse image search on the listing photos, as the Attorney General suggests, and ask for more photos. A real owner can usually send them easily.
• If someone other than the owner or a building's own leasing staff wants a fee to rent you a place, ask for their Florida real estate license number and check it with the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
• For an apartment building, contact the leasing office using details from the company's own website, not the ones in the ad, and confirm that the unit and the price are real.

How do you avoid rental scams when paying a deposit or fee?

• Pay only after you've seen the apartment, in person or on a live video tour with the building's staff, and have the lease or a written agreement in front of you.
• Pay the company that owns or manages the building, through its own office or resident portal, by a method you can trace. The Attorney General suggests a credit card, since a fraudulent charge is easier to dispute.
• Never wire money, buy gift cards or send cryptocurrency for a rental.
• Get a receipt for every payment, and keep copies of the listing, your messages and the lease.
• Know what's normal. In our data, application fees run $50 to $150 per applicant, admin fees are usually $300 or $350, and most published deposits are $500 to $2,000. Some buildings take a holding fee: The Park at Kendall and Palmetto Station charge $500 and apply it to the deposit.
• Expect paperwork on the deposit. A Florida landlord with five or more units must tell you in writing, in the lease or within 30 days, where your deposit is held, and must keep it in a Florida financial institution or post a surety bond (s. 83.49). You must also be told, in writing, the name and address of the landlord or its agent (s. 83.50).

Our guides to apartment application requirements and Florida security deposit law cover what a real landlord can ask for, and the first apartment checklist covers the rest of the process.

Why does MiaRent list only buildings that lease their own apartments?

Every building on MiaRent is a purpose-built rental: one company owns the whole building and leases its apartments through its own leasing office. We don't list condos rented out one unit at a time by individual owners, where you deal with each owner or their agent separately.

That makes the checks above simpler. The owner is a company on public record, you tour with the building's own staff on site, and you apply and pay through the building's own leasing process. Before a building goes on MiaRent, we check how it leases, and our research file records the evidence, such as the owner's own leasing website. Our Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County pages list every building on MiaRent by county.

MiaRent itself is free for renters. We don't own or manage any building, we're not a party to your lease, and we never ask for payment details, Social Security numbers, income documents or credit information. If you book a showing through us, we pass your request to the building's leasing office, and you deal with the building from there.

Scammers can still copy a real building's photos or pose as its staff, so the same rules apply: confirm through the building's own contact details, and pay only the building. Three buildings in our files mention self-guided tours, The Rise at Plantation Walk, The Kavista Apartments and The Pomelo. Book a tour like that through the building's own system, not through a link someone sends you.

What should you do if you've been scammed?

• Call your bank, card issuer or payment service right away and ask them to stop or reverse the payment.
• Report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and to the Florida Attorney General at MyFloridaLegal.com or 1-866-9NO-SCAM (1-866-966-7226).
• Report it to your local police and to the website where the ad was posted.
• If the scam happened online, you can also file a complaint with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at IC3.gov.
• If you gave out your Social Security number or bank details, use the FTC's IdentityTheft.gov to report it and get a recovery plan.
• Keep everything: the listing, screenshots, messages, receipts, and the phone numbers and email addresses the scammer used.

For everything else about renting here, from rents and fees to Florida's renter rules, see our guide to renting in Miami and South Florida.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Frequently asked questions

How can you tell if a rental listing is fake?

Search the address with the owner's name, run a reverse image search on the photos, and check the owner of record on the county property appraiser's site. Red flags include rent far below the going rate, an owner who can't show the place, pressure to decide fast, and requests to pay by wire, gift card or cryptocurrency.

Should you pay a deposit before seeing an apartment?

It's safest not to. The Florida Attorney General advises visiting the property, if possible, before signing a contract or sending payment, and warns about anyone who asks for a cash deposit just to see a property. If you can't visit, take a live video tour with the building's staff and pay the company directly.

What payment methods do rental scammers ask for?

Wire transfers, gift cards and cryptocurrency, according to the FTC, which says paying that way is the same as sending cash. The Florida Attorney General suggests paying by credit card, which makes a fraudulent charge easier to dispute.

Is it illegal to rent out a property you don't own in Florida?

Yes. Under s. 817.0311 of the Florida Statutes, knowingly renting or leasing property to someone when you have no lawful ownership or leasehold interest in it is a first-degree felony.

Where do you report a rental scam in Florida?

To the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, the Florida Attorney General at MyFloridaLegal.com or 1-866-9NO-SCAM, your local police, and the website where the ad appeared. You can report online fraud to the FBI's IC3.gov as well.