Hollywood, FL

What Hollywood is actually like

Hollywood was founded by Indiana developer Joseph W. Young, who began platting the city in 1920 as one of South Florida’s signature 1920s land-boom projects and was elected its first mayor when Hollywood formally incorporated on November 28, 1925 (Source). Young’s crews reportedly used some 1,500 trucks and tractors to clear land and grade streets, and the city’s yacht basins were laid out by George Washington Goethals, the chief engineer of the Panama Canal — on the night Hollywood’s new street lights were first switched on, passing ships are said to have mistaken the glow for Miami on fire (Source).

The defining turn in Hollywood’s identity was the development of Hollywood Beach and its oceanfront Broadwalk, a roughly 2.5-mile paved promenade running the length of the barrier-island beach that today carries restaurants, hotels, ice-cream parlors, bike-rental shops, a farmer’s market, a children’s playground, and the open-air Hollywood Beach Theatre bandshell (Source). The young city weathered a major setback early on — the catastrophic 1926 Miami hurricane badly damaged Hollywood just a year after incorporation — but rebuilt, and the Broadwalk itself has remained the city’s civic and tourist anchor for nearly a century.

Hollywood is now one of Broward County’s largest cities, with a 2020 Census population of 153,067 (a 2022 Census Bureau estimate put it slightly lower, at 152,650), and one of its most ethnically mixed, with residents identifying as 39.9% Hispanic or Latino, 37.2% non-Hispanic white, and 16.5% non-Hispanic Black (Source). The most visible recent addition to the skyline is the guitar-shaped tower of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, which opened in 2019 and, together with the Broadwalk and Young Circle’s ArtsPark, anchors Hollywood’s current identity as both a working, family-oriented Broward suburb and a long-running beach resort town (Source).

Home values in Hollywood

Redfin put Hollywood’s median sale price at $495,752 as of July 2026, or $348 per square foot — both figures move monthly, so check Redfin’s Hollywood market page for the current numbers (Source). Zillow’s Home Value Index (ZHVI) for Hollywood specifically, a separate measure of the typical home value, was $433,845 as of January 31, 2026, down 6.0% over the past year (Source) — Broward is a meaningfully different, and historically somewhat less expensive, market than Miami-Dade. RentCafe’s Hollywood rent-trends page put the average apartment rent at $2,347 a month as of August 31, 2026, with studios averaging $1,765, one-bedrooms $2,005, and two-bedrooms $2,618 (Source). One factor that is confirmed and directly relevant here, given Hollywood’s significant stock of older beachfront and Intracoastal condo towers: Florida’s 2022 post-Surfside law, SB 4-D, requires condo and co-op associations in buildings three stories or taller to complete a Structural Integrity Reserve Study at least every 10 years (associations formed before July 1, 2022 owed their first by December 31, 2025) and bars waiving reserve funding for big-ticket items it flags — roof, load-bearing structure, plumbing, electrical, waterproofing, and any component over $25,000, among others (Fla. Stat. §718.112(2)(g), §719.106(1)(k)) (Source). Buyers looking at Hollywood’s older beachfront towers should ask sellers for the building’s SIRS and reserve-funding status before closing.

Getting around

Walk Score rates Hollywood 52 overall (“Somewhat Walkable”), with a Transit Score of 35 and a Bike Score of 53, and calls out Parkside, Royal Poinciana, and Lawn Acres as its most walkable neighborhoods — central Hollywood and the beach corridor generally score well above the city’s western, more car-dependent neighborhoods (Source).

Hollywood FAQ