Moving to North Lauderdale, FL means settling into a 4.7 square mile residential city in north-central Broward County where the median home value runs around $274,000 and nearly half of residents were born outside the United States. There's no beach, no downtown core and no hotel inside the city limits. What you get instead is 17 city parks, three Publix-anchored plazas, and a Caribbean and Latin food scene that punches far above the population. This guide covers cost of living, neighborhoods, schools, the job market, climate and the first two weeks.
North Lauderdale at a Glance: A Small City Inside a Big Metro
North Lauderdale is a landlocked suburb of 44,794 people packed into 4.70 square miles, which works out to roughly 9,692 residents per square mile (2020 census data). It was incorporated on July 10, 1963, uses ZIP codes 33068 and 33319, and answers to area codes 754 and 954. Margate sits to the north, Coral Springs to the northwest, Tamarac to the west and south, Fort Lauderdale to the east and Pompano Beach to the northeast.
The city has an origin story almost nobody uses. The land was grazing pasture for the Anderson Dairy Farm and crop ground for the Lena Lyons Stringbean Farm before Morris Lapidus, the architect behind the Fontainebleau and the Eden Roc in Miami Beach, laid it out as the first city he ever planned and nicknamed it the City of Tomorrow (City of North Lauderdale). You can still read his hand in the curving Boulevard of Champions and the odd beacons scattered around town.
Think about the geography in rings, because that's how residents actually live here. Inside the city, everything is a five to eight minute drive: the parks, the plazas, the restaurant run along McNab Road and Kimberly Boulevard. Ten to fifteen minutes gets you Tamarac, Margate and Coconut Creek. Twenty to thirty minutes gets you Sawgrass Mills, Pompano Beach and Fort Lauderdale beach. The Atlantic is about 12 miles east.
The Cost of Living in North Lauderdale
Housing is the reason people move here from elsewhere in Broward. Livability puts the median home value at $274,184, median monthly rent at $1,650, median property tax at $2,217 and median income at $63,822, using data released in November 2025 by Applied Geographic Solutions (Livability). The Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance's read on the 2023 American Community Survey is close, at a household median income of $63,423 across 15,491 households and 16,305 housing units (Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance).
Florida charges no state personal income tax, which is the single biggest budget swing for anyone arriving from the Northeast (Florida Department of Revenue). Spend the savings carefully, because two South Florida line items catch newcomers out. Property insurance is the one to quote before you make an offer rather than after, and cooling a house from May through October costs real money on a 59 inch rainfall, high humidity climate.
The everyday stuff is cheap here in a way it is not five miles east. A full lunch on Kimberly Boulevard runs single digits, groceries come from a Publix or a Caribbean butcher rather than a specialty market, and parking is free at every plaza in the city. That gap between housing cost and lifestyle cost is the actual argument for North Lauderdale over Coral Springs or Fort Lauderdale.
Where to Live in North Lauderdale, Neighborhood by Neighborhood
The city divides into six recognizable areas, and they differ more than 4.7 square miles suggests. Price climbs from the Boulevard of Champions townhomes up through the single family blocks in the northwest. School zoning, commute direction and whether you want a yard will decide this for you faster than any listing photo.
Kimberly Village and North Lauderdale Estates: Yards and Walkable Parks
Kimberly Village and North Lauderdale Estates run along Kimberly Boulevard between Rock Island Road and US 441, and they hold most of the city's single family stock with spacious yards. Bicentennial Park at 6100 Kimberly Boulevard is walkable from most of it, which is the whole point of the area rather than a destination in itself. The Jack Brady Sports Complex and the Jerry Resnick Aquatic Center sit at the edge. If you want a pool five minutes away and Little League fields within walking distance, start here.
The Boulevard of Champions Corridor: The Lowest Entry Price in the City
The Boulevard of Champions corridor is the curving spine Lapidus drew, running west from US 441 between McNab Road and Kimberly Boulevard. Housing is a mix of townhomes and single family, including the Hunters Run and Highlands of Tam O'Shanter communities, and some of it backs onto water. This is where the lowest entry prices in North Lauderdale sit. The tradeoff is townhome living and an association, so read the documents before you fall in love with a floor plan.
Silver Lakes and Tam O'Shanter: Zoning and a Fast Run Northwest
Silver Lakes and Tam O'Shanter occupy the northwest quadrant around Tam O'Shanter Boulevard and Southgate Boulevard, anchored by Silver Lakes Park at 7600 Tam O'Shanter Boulevard and Silver Lakes Middle School. The park is a neighborhood green space rather than an afternoon out, good for a walk with a dog and little else, and that suits the people who live around it. The area is quieter and more suburban than the 441 side, and it is the shortest run to Coral Springs and the Sawgrass Expressway.
The McNab Road Spine: Where the City Actually Happens
McNab Road is not really residential. It's the main street: Arena Shoppes at the corner of Rock Island Road, the Shoppes at Western Woods at 81st Avenue, Broward Meat and Fish, and a dense run of Caribbean, Latin and seafood kitchens in between. Living within a few blocks of it means you can do a grocery run, a school pickup and dinner without touching a highway. It also means traffic noise, so look at which way the bedrooms face.
The State Road 7 Corridor: Bus Access and the Shortest Drive East
The State Road 7 and US 441 corridor forms the eastern edge, shared with Lauderdale Lakes and Tamarac, and it carries most of the city's apartment stock. Cypress Lakes Town Center anchors the grocery run on this side. Broward County Transit runs frequent service up and down 441, so this is the one part of North Lauderdale where a household can realistically manage with a single car. It's also the shortest drive to I-95 and downtown Fort Lauderdale.
Broadview and the Southwest Corner: Built for Turnpike Commuters
Broadview and the southwest corner sit around Broadview Community Park at 7001 Southwest 17 Street and Broadview Elementary, backing onto Tamarac. The housing stock is older, the streets are quiet, and the park is one of the emptiest in the city on a weekday morning. What sells this corner is the Florida Turnpike ramps, which put Plantation, Sunrise and Miami-Dade within a manageable commute.
Schools and How Zoning Actually Works Here
North Lauderdale has no public high school inside its limits, and any honest moving guide has to lead with that. Broward County Public Schools counts three elementary schools, two middle schools and six charter schools in the city, and zero public high schools (Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance). Most of the city is zoned to Coconut Creek High School, with other sections going to Boyd Anderson, Northeast and Piper.
Inside the city, students attend North Lauderdale PK-8, Silver Lakes Middle School, and Broadview, Morrow and Pinewood elementary schools. Somerset Preparatory Academy Charter High at North Lauderdale is the charter high option in town. Verify the assignment for a specific address with Broward County Public Schools before you sign anything, because boundaries in this part of the county do not follow city lines.
The city also has a track record with families worth knowing. America's Promise Alliance named North Lauderdale one of its 100 Best Cities for Youth in both 2012 and 2013, a recognition tied to the parks and youth programming rather than to test scores.
The Job Market and Getting Around
North Lauderdale's unemployment rate was 3.4 percent in 2024, with a median age of 37 and 47.9 percent of residents holding some college or a degree (Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance). The largest employers based inside the city are Broward Meat and Fish, Bravo Supermarket, Publix, Home Depot, Walmart, Ross, Teleperformance and the City of North Lauderdale itself, which tells you the local economy is retail, food distribution, municipal work and one contact center.
Most working residents commute out. The Turnpike ramps in the southwest corner serve Plantation, Sunrise and Miami-Dade. The Sawgrass Expressway to the northwest opens up Coral Springs and Parkland. Going east on Commercial Boulevard or Cypress Creek Road puts you on I-95 for downtown Fort Lauderdale in roughly 25 to 35 minutes, though the I-95 corridor is meaningfully slower at rush hour than any map estimate suggests. Tri-Rail and Brightline both connect the region if you would rather not drive into Miami or West Palm Beach.
Plan on two vehicles unless you're living on the 441 corridor. The city is genuinely flat and its parks connect to sidewalks, but grocery, work and school trips here are car trips.
Climate, Hurricane Season and What Summer Really Feels Like
North Lauderdale averages an 84 degree high and a 68 degree low with about 59 inches of rain a year and no snow at all. The Koppen classification is tropical rainforest bordering tropical monsoon, which makes South Florida the only region in the 48 contiguous states classified that way. Elevation is around 10 feet.
Hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30, with peak activity in September and October (NOAA National Hurricane Center). Being 12 miles inland cuts storm surge risk substantially, but it does nothing about wind, rain or multi-day power outages, and the city publishes its own hurricane resources for residents. What actually shapes daily life from June through September is less the rare direct hit and more the ordinary pattern: near-daily afternoon thunderstorms, humidity in the high 80s, and outdoor plans that need to finish before 1 p.m.
November through January is the payoff. Highs in the upper 70s, lows near 60, about two inches of rain a month and low humidity. If you're timing a move for comfort rather than for a lease date, aim for that window and check the best time to visit North Lauderdale for the month-by-month detail. Humidity is also the reason a lot of newcomers regret using a garage as long-term storage, and why climate controlled storage is worth the difference for anything wooden, upholstered or paper.
Groceries, Furniture and the First Two Weeks
Broward Meat and Fish at 8040 W McNab Rd is the store that will orient you fastest. It's a Caribbean and Latin grocery with a full butcher and fish counter carrying goat, oxtail, snapper, salted cod and provisions, plus the seasonings the local kitchens actually cook with. It's also one of the largest private employers in the city. Weekend mornings get busy, so go on a weekday if you want to browse rather than queue.
For the ordinary weekly shop, the city runs on three plazas. The Shoppes at Western Woods at 8140 W McNab Rd is the Publix for the western half of town, with a full deli and butcher counter. Cypress Lakes Town Center at 1297 S State Road 7 is the equivalent on the eastern side, with about 20 stores around its Publix. Arena Shoppes at McNab and Rock Island covers the discount end with Ross, Rainbow and Dollar Tree across 137,002 square feet of neighborhood center, and parking at all three is free surface parking with no walk from the car.
Furnishing a place cheaply is easy if you know where to go. The Salvation Army Family Store at 7707 Commercial Blvd in Tamarac is the best of the near options for actual furniture rather than clothing, about ten minutes southwest. The Women in Distress Thrift Store at 1372 N State Road 7 in Margate opens 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and turns furniture over fast, so go early in the week, and Goodwill Margate sits a mile up the same road. The North Lauderdale shopping guide covers the rest of the retail map. If your closing date and your move-out date do not line up, a 10×10 storage unit holds roughly a one-bedroom's worth of furniture in the gap, and a 5×10 unit covers the boxes and seasonal gear that a smaller apartment cannot absorb.
The Tamarac Community Farmers Market at Veterans Memorial Park, 7825 Southgate Blvd, runs Sundays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. year round with produce, baked goods, smoked fish, spices and handmade goods. Eight minutes west, and it's one of the few markets in Broward that keeps going through the summer instead of stopping in May.
The Food Scene Is the Reason People Stay
North Lauderdale is unusually Caribbean even by Broward standards, and the census explains the restaurants. As of the 2000 census the city had the ninth highest share of Jamaican residents of any place in the United States at 11.47 percent, the 31st highest Haitian share at 6.7 percent and the 38th highest Trinidadian and Tobagonian share. Nearly half of residents today were born outside the country. That is why a 4.7 square mile suburb has Trinidadian, Jamaican, Haitian, Salvadoran, Mexican and Polish kitchens within a few blocks of each other.
Tabanka: a Trini Kitchen at 1645 S State Rd 7 is the one genuinely destination restaurant inside the city limits, and it pulls a Broward-wide Trini crowd on weekends. Order the doubles first, because they sell out on busy days, then work through the curry chicken, curry goat and roti. It's counter service with island decor and no pretension. Le Gout Des Caraibes sits directly beside it at 1639 S State Rd 7, cooking Haitian griot, tassot, legume and diri ak djon djon, and the two together make a one-stop Caribbean crawl.
The Dutch Pot Jamaican Restaurant at 6029 Kimberly Blvd opens at 7 a.m. seven days a week, which makes it the most reliable early breakfast in the city if ackee and saltfish is your idea of one. The steam table runs oxtail, brown stew chicken, curry goat and escovitch fish, and it thins out after 8 p.m., so go earlier for the full spread. For a cheap family dinner, La Brasa Grill at 7730 W McNab Rd sends out charcoal rotisserie chicken by the half or whole with yuca, plantains and green sauce, and a whole bird with sides feeds three or four.
Two more are worth the detour. El Rinconcito Salvadoreno #1 at 8029 Kimberly Blvd makes pupusas revueltas and loroco to order with curtido on the side, which means a wait at peak lunch and the cheapest full meal in town. Krakus Polish Deli at 7306 Southgate Blvd is half deli counter and half small market, cutting kielbasa to order and selling pierogi and bigos for takeout, and it is the single most surprising thing in a heavily Caribbean city. The North Lauderdale restaurant guide goes deeper, and weekend eaters should see the North Lauderdale brunch guide for the sit-down options in Tamarac and Coral Springs.
Parks, Recreation and the City Calendar
The city maintains 17 passive and active parks across more than 150 acres (City of North Lauderdale Parks and Recreation). Hampton Pines Park at 7800 Hampton Blvd is the best of them and the best free thing to do in the city. You can fish or paddle the lake, rent a two-person paddleboat or a kayak, use either playground, play sand volleyball or walk the fitness trail, and seven pavilions around the lake rent out with grills, water and electric. Book a pavilion early for any weekend gathering, because they go fast, and fishing needs a Florida license.
Families settling in tend to find the city pool first. At 701 SW 71st Avenue, the Jerry Resnick Aquatic Center spreads across 13 acres and holds a junior Olympic pool, a water playground and two tube slides, with heat in the cooler spring and fall months. Put its March through October calendar in your phone, because this is not an amenity you can count on year-round. The Jack Brady Sports Complex is immediately next door, so a swim and a playground trip fold into one stop. Sign-ups for city soccer, basketball, baseball and cricket leagues run out of the North Lauderdale Sports Complex on the same block. Cricket is genuinely rare in Broward and worth flagging to anyone relocating from the Caribbean or South Asia.
The city calendar is small and consistent. Hampton Pines Park becomes a haunted forest every Halloween. Each April, roughly 11,000 filled plastic eggs go out across the sports complex, and North Lauderdale Days brings a free festival with concerts, vendors, the pool opened to the public and fireworks. For the wider regional list, the things to do in North Lauderdale guide covers the ten and thirty minute rings.
What Is Walkable, What Needs a Car, and What Closes
Very little in North Lauderdale is walkable in the way a newcomer from a northern city means it. Sidewalks run along McNab Road and Kimberly Boulevard, and the parks connect to their neighborhoods, but crossing US 441 on foot is unpleasant and the plazas are built for cars. The nearest genuinely walkable strips are the Promenade at Coconut Creek about 15 minutes north, where free parking and an outdoor loop of shops and restaurants make an evening on foot possible, and Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale about half an hour southeast.
Closing days matter more here than in a bigger city, because there are not many backups. Taqueria El Jovenazo Jr at 7130 Kimberly Blvd, the closest thing the city has to a late kitchen at 11 p.m. on Fridays, is closed Tuesdays. Casa De Amore in Tamarac is closed Mondays and holds reservations only 15 minutes past the booked time. Flanigan's Seafood Bar and Grill at 5450 N FL-7 on the North Lauderdale and Tamarac line is the only place in the city open past midnight, running until 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday.
Two more practicalities. Golf does not exist inside the city limits, and the closest is Colony West Golf Club at 6850 NW 88th Ave in Tamarac, ten minutes west and fully public with two courses. And if you're bringing a boat or an RV, read the deed restrictions before you sign, because driveway rules are what buyers discover after closing rather than before. Greater Fort Lauderdale carries roughly 300 miles of inland waterways (Visit Florida), so boat ownership here is normal, and both boat storage and RV parking in North Lauderdale exist for the version of that problem an association creates.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is North Lauderdale a good place to live?
North Lauderdale suits people who want Broward County access at a lower housing cost and don't need a downtown. You get 17 parks, three grocery-anchored plazas, an excellent international food scene and a 25 to 35 minute drive to the beach. The honest tradeoffs are no public high school in the city, almost nothing walkable, and a summer that keeps you indoors between 1 p.m. and evening.
What is the cost of living in North Lauderdale?
Housing sets the number. Livability puts the median home value at $274,184 and median rent at $1,650 a month, with median property tax at $2,217, on data released in November 2025. Florida has no state income tax, which helps. Budget separately for property insurance and for cooling a house from May through October, since those two items surprise most newcomers to South Florida.
What is the average income in North Lauderdale?
The Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance reports a household median income of $63,423 from the 2023 American Community Survey five year estimates, and Livability's November 2025 data release puts median income at $63,822. The two agree closely. Median age is 37, unemployment was 3.4 percent in 2024, and 47.9 percent of residents have some college or a degree.
Is it better to live in North or South Florida?
South Florida, including North Lauderdale, trades seasons for year-round warmth, and it costs more in housing and insurance than most of North Florida. You get no freeze, no snow, an international job market, and beaches 12 miles east. You also get hurricane season from June through November and daily summer thunderstorms. North Florida gives you cooler winters, cheaper housing and far less traffic.
What is hurricane season in Fort Lauderdale?
Per the NOAA National Hurricane Center, the Atlantic season opens June 1 and closes November 30, and the busiest stretch lands in September and October. Roughly 10 feet of elevation and about 12 miles of distance from the coast keep storm surge off the worry list for North Lauderdale, though wind, rain and power outages stay firmly on it. Assemble a supply kit before June arrives, and read your homeowners or renters policy closely enough to know whether wind is covered separately.
Storage in North Lauderdale While You Get Settled
Value Store It runs two facilities in town, both month to month with no long term contract, both open seven days a week, and both with individual door alarms on the units. Our North Lauderdale facility is the one with the widest size range. It starts with 5×5 lockers for boxes and holiday bins and 10×5 spaces for a dorm's worth, steps up through 5×15 units and 10×15 units that swallow a two bedroom, and tops out at 10×20 units and the 10×30, the largest size in the city, for a whole house or a small business inventory.
The North Lauderdale II location covers the same ground with a vehicle option attached. Sizes there start at a 5×5 at the second site and run through 5×10 units there, a 10×5, 10×10 units at the second facility, 10×15 space and the 10×20 there, with climate controlled units at North Lauderdale II for anything the humidity would ruin and car storage for a second vehicle that will not fit in the driveway. Truck rental and packing supplies are available at both.
If you're still working out how much space a three bedroom actually needs, run the numbers with the storage unit size calculator and work through the moving checklist before your truck arrives. Reserve online, pick up the keys the day you land, and change the size later if the estimate was wrong.
