Miami Housing Market: Priced by Global Capital, Carried by Local Incomes

Data as of July 2026

Every other page in this series could end with one sentence about who has the leverage. Miami cannot, and pretending otherwise would be the single most misleading thing we could do. In the same county, in the same month, single-family prices rose while condo prices fell, single-family supply tightened to 4.9 months while condo supply sat at 12.3, and a third of all buyers paid cash while the local median household earned $76,184.

That is the story: a market priced by global capital and carried by local incomes. The price-setting buyer at the top of Miami is a cash buyer, often a foreign one, who is indifferent to the mortgage rate this page’s engine assumes. The household that actually lives and works here faces the widest gap between what a home costs and what a job pays of any city we have studied. This page holds both facts at once.

Three scope notes before the numbers. First, “Miami” here means Miami-Dade County unless a figure says otherwise. This is the second county-or-city-first page in the family, following the Chicago precedent, because search intent and the property-type split are both cleanest at the county level, and the tri-county metro blend dilutes exactly the condo story that makes Miami different. The City of Miami, Brickell, and Miami Beach appear as sub-lenses; Broward and Palm Beach appear only as labeled contrast rows, since Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach are their own markets. Second, because the two segments move in opposite directions, this page runs the full affordability engine twice, once for a single-family example and once for a condo, and publishes two Market Balance Score bands instead of one blended figure. Third, the latest full official local period is the MIAMI REALTORS June 2026 release from July 17, 2026.

The market scorecard

Miami market scorecard, MIAMI REALTORS June 2026 Miami-Dade statistics (released July 17, 2026), with 2025 to 2026 insurance, rent, and tax data; mortgage rate as of June 2026

Median sale price, single-family

▲ up over the stated period, favors sellers: $695,000

Miami-Dade County, June 2026 , up 3.73% year over year, from $670,000

Up 3.73% year over year to $695,000 (Miami-Dade, June 2026) into 4.9 months of supply, a seller's market. Single-family has appreciated in 172 of the last 175 months.

Median sale price, condo

▼ down over the stated period, favors buyers: $431,000

Miami-Dade County, June 2026 , down 3.15% year over year, from $445,000

Down 3.15% year over year to $431,000 (Miami-Dade, June 2026) with 12.3 months of supply. The opposite direction from single-family in the same month, which is why this page never leads with a blended median.

Months of supply, condo

▼ down over the stated period, favors sellers: 12.3 months

Miami-Dade County, June 2026 , down from 12.9 in April and 13.7 in January 2026

12.3 months is still deep buyer's territory, more than double the balanced line, but it is easing from 13.7 in January and 12.9 in April. The level favors condo buyers; the trend is slowly moving away from them.

Citizens Property Insurance rate change, Miami-Dade

▼ down over the stated period, favors buyers: down 13.9%

Miami-Dade County, effective June 1, 2026 , effective June 1, 2026, the first statewide cut in a decade

Citizens cut Miami-Dade rates 13.9% effective June 1, 2026, its first statewide cut in a decade. Real moderation, but from an extreme base: Miami is still the most expensive insurance market in this series.

All-cash share of sales

● unchanged over the stated period: 38.1%

Miami-Dade County, June 2026

Market structure, not a direction: 38.1% of June 2026 sales closed without a mortgage (48.5% of condos). A high cash share means financed buyers face stiffer competition.

Rent-to-income ratio

● unchanged over the stated period: 45.42%

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach MSA, 2025

45.42% of income to rent, the worst of any US metro, with 63.1% of renters cost-burdened. A level with no sourced year-over-year change, so no direction is claimed here.

A colored triangle shows whether the change favors buyers: green favors buyers, red favors sellers. A gray dot marks a metric that is neutral for buyers (its direction is in the subtitle). Direction and color are descriptive of each metric's own stated period, not a forecast. Sources are listed in the source registry at the end of the page.

The scorecard is the market in six tiles, and it deliberately does not resolve into a single mood. The condo price falling and the Citizens insurance cut point toward buyers and are green. The single-family price rising points the other way and is red, and so does condo months of supply, because although 12.3 months is deep buyer’s territory, the trend is easing from 13.7 in January, so that leverage is slowly shrinking. Two tiles carry a gray dot rather than a direction: the cash share is market structure, not a buyer or seller signal, and the rent-to-income burden is a level with no sourced year-over-year change, so we do not invent one.

Is Miami a buyer’s or seller’s market right now?

Both, depending on what you are buying, which is why this page publishes two bands. Single-family reads balanced and tilted toward sellers, on 4.9 months of supply and listings down 22.74% year over year. Condo reads a clear buyer’s market, on 12.3 months of supply and 85 days to contract. A blended Miami band would describe neither segment honestly.

FinExplained Market Balance Score (beta): Single-family

Balanced market balanced, leaning to the seller-favorable edge

Direction basis: The measurable single-family inputs (4.9 months of supply, 52 median days to contract, a 95% sale-to-list ratio, and active listings down 22.74% year over year) land in the balanced band, tilted toward sellers by the sharply falling inventory. The honest read is a single-family market that still favors sellers on supply while losing momentum on time: days to contract stretched from 42 to 52 even as listings fell more than a fifth. The price-cut input is missing and its weight is renormalized, so read the band beside the metrics.

Beta: this score has not yet been backtested against historical market data, and the bands may be recalibrated. Read it alongside the metrics below, not instead of them.

Input	Reading	Normalized (0-100)	Weight applied
Months of supply	4.9 months	46	35%
Days on market	52 days	57	24%
Sale-to-list ratio	95%	33	24%
Year-over-year inventory change	-22.74%	78	18%

SINGLE-FAMILY band. Months of supply: Miami-Dade single-family, June 2026, 4.9 months (below the 6-month balanced line).

Days on market: 52 median days to contract, up from 42 a year earlier.

Sale-to-list ratio: a PROXY, and the substitution has a direction. MIAMI REALTORS publishes no sale-to-list ratio, so this input uses the median percent of ORIGINAL list price received (95%, June 2026, native primary) in place of one. The two measure different things: percent of original list is computed from the first price asked and absorbs every reduction made since, while a sale-to-list ratio compares the sale price to the CURRENT list price after those reductions. The substituted figure therefore reads LOWER than a true sale-to-list ratio would, so this band is published more buyer-favorable than a true ratio would make it, and correcting the basis would move it toward seller-favorable. Disclosed rather than substituted silently.

Price-cut share: NOT SOURCED per property type. MIAMI REALTORS does not publish a per-type price-cut share, so this input is dropped and its 15% weight renormalizes across the other four (the Austin precedent). Sourcing a per-type figure from Redfin Data Center is a BACKLOG item; it is the weakest-sourced of the five inputs and is disclosed rather than estimated.

Year-over-year inventory change: single-family active listings down 22.74%. FALLING inventory is seller-favorable and correctly scores ABOVE 50 on the normalizer, which is what pulls this band up.

THE CAVEAT THAT MATTERS: this band describes SINGLE-FAMILY ONLY. Read it beside the condo band, never as a Miami-wide verdict. Miami is the most divergent market in this series, which is why the page publishes two bands instead of one blended figure that would misrepresent both segments.

How this score works

Each input is normalized onto a 0-100 scale where higher means more seller-favorable: months of supply maps 0 months to 100 and 9 or more to 0; days on market maps 0 days to 100 and 120 or more to 0; sale-to-list maps 90 percent to 0 and 105 percent to 100; price-cut share maps 0 percent to 100 and 60 percent or more to 0; year-over-year inventory change maps a 40 percent rise to 0 and a 40 percent fall to 100. The design weights are months of supply 30 percent, days on market 20 percent, sale-to-list 20 percent, price-cut share 15 percent, and inventory change 15 percent; when an input is unavailable its weight is redistributed proportionally. Bands: below 40 reads as a buyer's market, 40 to 60 balanced, above 60 a seller's market. We show the band rather than a decimal because the inputs do not support decimal precision. The score is in beta and has not yet been backtested against historical market conditions; read it alongside the underlying metrics, never instead of them.

FinExplained Market Balance Score (beta): Condo

Buyer's market a clear buyer's market

Direction basis: The measurable condo inputs (12.3 months of supply, 85 median days to contract, a 94% sale-to-list ratio, and active listings down 11.47%) land firmly in the buyer band, driven by a months-of-supply reading that sits past the top of the normalizer's range. The honest read is a genuine condo buyer's market with real negotiating room, tempered by two facts the index cannot see: inventory is now falling rather than building, and the discount concentrates in older buildings whose assessments and financing status can erase the price saving. The price-cut input is missing and its weight is renormalized.

Beta: this score has not yet been backtested against historical market data, and the bands may be recalibrated. Read it alongside the metrics below, not instead of them.

Input	Reading	Normalized (0-100)	Weight applied
Months of supply	12.3 months	0	35%
Days on market	85 days	29	24%
Sale-to-list ratio	94%	27	24%
Year-over-year inventory change	-11.47%	64	18%

One input exceeds the scale's calibrated range (Months of supply), so the score is clamped at the bottom of what it can express. Read this band as a ceiling, not a point.

CONDO band. Months of supply: Miami-Dade condo, June 2026, 12.3 months, more than double the 6-month balanced line and the deepest buyer-side reading in the ten-city series.

Days on market: 85 median days to contract, up from 68 a year earlier.

Sale-to-list ratio, and THE TWO DISTORTIONS ON THIS BAND, which point OPPOSITE WAYS. First, a substitution: MIAMI REALTORS publishes no sale-to-list ratio, so this input uses the median percent of ORIGINAL list price received (94%, June 2026, native primary) in place of one. Percent of original list is computed from the first price asked and absorbs every reduction made since, so it reads LOWER than a true sale-to-list ratio would, which means the true reading sits SELLER-ward of the published band. Second, the clamp stated at the top of this card: months of supply (12.3) runs past the buyer-side end of the calibrated range, so the band is a ceiling and the true reading sits BUYER-ward of it. These are two different inputs and they do not interact mechanically, but they pull the band in opposite directions and NEITHER HAS BEEN MEASURED. The net effect is therefore UNKNOWN: we cannot say the two cancel, and we cannot say which is larger. Read this band as a number carrying two disclosed distortions of unknown net, not as a point estimate.

Price-cut share: NOT SOURCED per property type, identical treatment to the single-family band. The input is dropped and its 15% weight renormalizes across the other four; sourcing a per-type figure is a BACKLOG item.

Year-over-year inventory change: condo active listings down 11.47%, a fifth straight monthly decline. Falling inventory scores above 50 on the seller-favorable normalizer, which is the one input pulling this band UP; the months-of-supply reading overwhelms it.

THE CAVEAT THAT MATTERS: this band describes CONDOS ONLY, and even within it the older non-compliant segment (blacklisted buildings, six-figure assessments) is genuinely distressed while new and compliant buildings hold value. One condo number cannot capture that split either.

How this score works

Each input is normalized onto a 0-100 scale where higher means more seller-favorable: months of supply maps 0 months to 100 and 9 or more to 0; days on market maps 0 days to 100 and 120 or more to 0; sale-to-list maps 90 percent to 0 and 105 percent to 100; price-cut share maps 0 percent to 100 and 60 percent or more to 0; year-over-year inventory change maps a 40 percent rise to 0 and a 40 percent fall to 100. The design weights are months of supply 30 percent, days on market 20 percent, sale-to-list 20 percent, price-cut share 15 percent, and inventory change 15 percent; when an input is unavailable its weight is redistributed proportionally. Bands: below 40 reads as a buyer's market, 40 to 60 balanced, above 60 a seller's market. We show the band rather than a decimal because the inputs do not support decimal precision. The score is in beta and has not yet been backtested against historical market conditions; read it alongside the underlying metrics, never instead of them.

Read both cards with the caveat they disclose. Neither band uses a price-cut share: MIAMI REALTORS does not publish one by property type, so that input is dropped and its 15% weight is renormalized across the other four, exactly as the Austin pilot handles a missing input. Sourcing a per-type figure is on our backlog. And note what pulls the single-family band up: inventory falling more than a fifth year over year is seller-favorable on this index even though days to contract are lengthening, so the band and the momentum are pointing slightly different ways.

What changed

Refreshed July 26, 2026. What moved was how this page describes two of its own figures, not the figures themselves. Two metric labels were corrected: both had been named “sale-to-list ratio” when what they actually carry is the median percent of the original list price received, which is a different measure. Separately, the condo band’s disclosure was rewritten so that the two known distortions on that band are stated together in one place rather than as two caveats a reader had to reconcile. No market figure changed, no Balance Score input changed, and neither band moved: single-family stays 51.1 and balanced, condo stays 24.5 and a buyer’s market.

No MIAMI REALTORS figure could change. June 2026 remains the newest published Miami-Dade release, and the next one lands around August 17, 2026. So the June 2026 baseline below stands unchanged from the July 15 edition:

• The single-family median rose 3.73% year over year to $695,000 while the condo median fell 3.15% to $431,000, the two segments diverging in the same month.
• Days to contract lengthened for both types, single-family from 42 to 52 and condo from 68 to 85, a leading signal that momentum is fading even without inventory relief.
• Active listings fell in both segments, single-family down 22.74% and condo down 11.47%, a fifth straight monthly condo decline.
• Total sales rose 14.3% to 2,107, a tenth straight monthly gain, and sales above $1 million rose 29.1%.
• Citizens Property Insurance cut Miami-Dade rates 13.9% effective June 1, 2026, its first statewide cut in a decade.
• Condo months of supply eased from 13.7 in January to 12.3 in June, improving for sellers while remaining deep buyer’s territory.

Why do single-family and condo prices move in opposite directions?

Because condos in Florida carry a set of legal and financial liabilities that single-family homes simply do not have. Post-Surfside inspection and reserve law, six-figure special assessments, record association fees, and mortgage blacklisting have gutted demand for older condos while houses sit untouched by any of it.

The blended median is more misleading in Miami than in any city we have studied. Averaging a tightening seller’s market against a correcting buyer’s market produces a number that describes no actual buyer’s experience. So we do not publish one.

How bad is the Miami condo crisis, really?

It depends entirely on the building, and the honest answer needs two different words. The older non-compliant segment is genuinely distressed: owners there face six-figure assessments on units that financed buyers cannot purchase. The broader condo market is correcting, not collapsing. County-wide distressed sales, meaning bank-owned plus short sales, were just 0.5% of June 2026 transactions, which is precisely why we scope the harsher word narrowly.

Miami-Dade is the epicenter rather than a satellite of Florida’s condo reckoning. Champlain Towers South in Surfside, whose 2021 collapse triggered the entire regulatory framework, is in this county.

The rules as they stand today, under HB 913, effective July 1, 2025: Structural Integrity Reserve Studies apply to buildings of three or more habitable stories, with four-family dwellings of three or fewer habitable stories exempt; the initial study deadline was December 31, 2025; milestone inspections happen at 30 years, or 25 years for buildings within three miles of the coast, and repeat every 10 years; and reserves may now be funded through a special assessment, a line of credit, or a loan with majority approval. Associations gained some flexibility to pause or reduce reserve funding temporarily, for budgets adopted on or before December 31, 2028, after which the study must be updated before funding resumes.

The costs are real. Reported assessments in towers built between 1975 and 1995 run $30,000 to $75,000 per unit, exceed $100,000 for combined roof, concrete, and waterproofing work, and have reached about $400,000 in some coastal high-rises. In neighboring Broward, The Summit in Hollywood Beach levied a $56 million assessment averaging close to $99,000 per unit, a concrete illustration of the scale.

For a while, the escape hatch was a developer buyout: a bulk purchase and termination that converted building distress into land value, often returning owners more than an individual sale would. That path narrowed sharply. On October 14, 2025 the Florida Supreme Court declined to review the Biscayne 21 case, leaving in place an appellate ruling that a declaration’s original unanimous-termination requirement cannot be amended down to the statutory 80% threshold. Holdout owners are now much harder to overcome, which makes forced terminations riskier across Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.

One dated change is still ahead: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac eliminate the limited-review option for many condo loans beginning August 3, 2026, which tightens condo financing further. Treat it as a signal to watch rather than a current condition.

Who actually sets the price in Miami?

Cash buyers, and that single fact reframes everything else on this page. In June 2026, 38.1% of all Miami-Dade sales closed without a mortgage, including 48.5% of condo sales. At the top of the market it is close to total: 83% of condos priced above $2,000 per square foot sold for cash in 2025, along with 53.5% of homes between $1 million and $5 million.

Much of that money comes from outside the country. Foreign buyers accounted for 15% of South Florida residential dollar volume in 2025, seven times the US average of 2%, buying $4.4 billion of real estate, up from $3.1 billion the year before. About 51% of those purchases were all-cash, condos were the preferred property type, and Miami-Dade captured roughly 73% of the region’s foreign dollar volume. Buyers from Mexico recorded the highest median purchase price at $934,000, followed by Brazil, Colombia, Canada, and Argentina.

This is the honest caveat on every affordability figure that follows. Our engine computes what a financed buyer needs, using a 6.49% 30-year fixed rate and a 28% front-end ratio. In Miami that describes a buyer competing against people who are not using a mortgage at all, cannot be outbid on financing terms, and do not need an appraisal to come in. The math below is correct, and it also understates the competitive reality.

What does it actually cost to own in Miami?

Two answers, because there are two markets. We run the full engine twice: a single-family example at the $695,000 Miami-Dade June 2026 median, and a condo example at the $431,000 median, both at 20% down and the 6.49% rate.

The single-family example carries about $5,200 a month in principal, interest, taxes, and insurance, rising to about $5,779 with 1% annual upkeep. Insurance alone is $792 a month, the largest such line in this series, and property tax at the derived 1.55% new-buyer rate adds $898. At 10% down the payment rises to about $5,639 before upkeep.

The condo example carries about $2,924 in principal, interest, taxes, and insurance, or about $3,824 once the $900 association fee is counted, and about $4,183 including upkeep. At 10% down it is about $3,196 before the fee. The fee is the line that matters most here: it is a representative all-condo figure, and Miami-Dade high-rise association fees run above a median of $1,900 a month, so a Brickell or Miami Beach tower can cost far more to carry than this example suggests.

Below 20% down, add PMI on top of these payments. Our sources do not publish a Miami PMI average, so we leave it unquantified rather than guess. Run either example with your own numbers in the mortgage calculator or itemize closing costs in the buyer closing cost calculator.

Does buying reset my property tax in Miami?

Yes. Florida’s Save Our Homes cap resets to full market value when a home sells, the same mechanic the Tampa study covers, so a new buyer is assessed at the purchase price rather than inheriting the seller’s capped value. The seller’s advertised tax history does not transfer.

Florida publishes no single effective rate, so ours is derived: Miami-Dade runs about 17.59 total mills, and netting the $51,411 homestead exemption for the 2026 tax year lands the new-buyer effective rate near 1.55% of purchase price, which is what both worked examples use. On the $695,000 example that is roughly $10,300 to $11,100 a year. The City of Miami combined rate runs higher, about 20.03 mills, so a buyer inside city limits pays above this county-average derivation.

Two qualifications matter. A buyer who does not file for homestead, or who buys as an investor or second-home owner, pays closer to 1.7% to 2.0%, and about 76% of foreign buyers use the property as a vacation home or rental, so they forfeit both the exemption and the cap. And Florida property tax law is unchanged as of mid-2026: HJR 1F, which would appear on the November 3, 2026 ballot as Amendment 3 and would need 60% approval to expand the non-school homestead exemption, is pending, not law. Three consolidated lawsuits challenge its ballot title, with a hearing held July 29, 2026. Model your bill under today’s rules. The property tax calculator shows what a different rate does to a monthly payment.

Why is Miami insurance so expensive?

Because this is the national maximum, and one number cannot describe it. Florida’s statewide average runs about $8,458 a year, roughly three times the national average. Coastal Miami-Dade single-family homes routinely run $9,000 to $18,000, with a sourced coastal example at $12,200 for a $300,000 dwelling with a $2,500 hurricane deductible. Our single-family example uses $9,500, a county midpoint reflecting the inland-to-coastal mix.

Condo owners pay differently. The individual HO-6 policy averages about $2,280 a year, which is the figure our condo example uses. The building’s master policy is separate and larger: Miami-Dade high-rise association insurance averaged $377 per unit per month in 2025, up 25% year over year, and it is the single biggest driver behind association fees passing a $1,900 monthly median. We deliberately do not add the master policy on top of the association fee in our math, because the fee already includes it, and counting both would double-count insurance.

There is genuine relief at the margin. Citizens Property Insurance filed an average 8.7% statewide cut effective June 1, 2026, its first in a decade, with Miami-Dade down 13.9% and Broward down 14.1%. Citizens has shed policies from a 1.42 million peak in October 2023 to roughly 385,000 by the end of 2025, and tri-county plus Monroe policies fell 56% year over year. That is moderation from an extreme base, not affordability.

What income do you need to buy in Miami?

More than almost anyone here earns, by the widest margin in this series. Our engine says the $695,000 single-family example requires about $222,858 a year at 20% down under a 28% front-end ratio, and the $431,000 condo example about $125,306 on a principal, interest, taxes, and insurance basis.

Set that against what households actually earn: $76,184 in Miami-Dade County and $80,625 across the metro, both from the 2024 American Community Survey. The single-family gap is roughly $146,674 a year, the widest we have measured in any city. Two lines drive it beyond the price itself: insurance at the national maximum and a tax basis that resets on sale.

Third-party estimates land in the same territory from different angles. Redfin estimated about $143,000 in October 2023, an older vintage against a lower price. ISG World estimated $160,000 to $215,000 in July 2026 against a roughly $652,110 average house, a lower price basis than our county median. Our figure sits above both, mostly because we carry the full insurance and tax load explicitly rather than a generic payment. On the condo side, note that a lender counts association dues in the housing ratio, so including the $900 fee the requirement rises to roughly $163,900, well above the PITI-basis figure the chart shows.

Test your own numbers in the home affordability calculator, the how much can I borrow calculator, and the DTI calculator.

Is it cheaper to rent or buy in Miami?

Renting is dramatically cheaper on the monthly number, and Miami is simultaneously the worst rental market in the country for affordability. Both are true, and together they define the trap.

Against a sourced metro rent of about $2,665 a month (Zillow’s rent index, March 2025), owning the single-family example costs about $3,114 more per month, and owning the condo example about $1,518 more once the association fee is counted. Rent measures here disagree by method and scope and we never average them: Zumper’s City of Miami median was about $3,050 in September 2025, down 8% year over year, and a Zillow and WalletHub read runs near $3,150. One-bedrooms run about $2,600, with a wide neighborhood spread from roughly $2,100 in East Little Havana to $4,700 in Edgewater.

Here is why that matters more in Miami than anywhere else in this series. Renting is the cheaper monthly option, but rent consumes 45.42% of income at the metro level, the highest ratio in the country, with 63.1% of renters cost-burdened. The usual advice, rent while you save the down payment, runs into arithmetic: there is very little left to save. Southeast Florida does have the largest multifamily pipeline in the country at 36,290 units under construction as of Q4 2025, roughly 9% of stock, which should ease rents over time. Run your own comparison in the rent vs buy calculator, which has both a Miami single-family and a Miami condo preset, or read the ten-city rent vs buy comparison.

Is the demand behind these prices still growing?

Not from domestic migration, and this is the demand-side risk under the whole cash floor. Miami-Dade lost about 72,300 net domestic migrants in 2024 to 2025, leading Florida in domestic out-migration, while gaining about 54,200 international migrants. The international inflow no longer fully offsets the domestic exodus, so the county lost more than 10,000 residents overall, and Florida’s international migration fell about 56.6% in 2025.

That composition is the point. Miami-Dade structurally loses domestic residents and gains international ones, and it is the international and wealth-migration money that holds the top of the market up. If that flow slows further, whether through currency and political dynamics in Latin American origin countries or through US visa and immigration policy, the cash bid that sets Miami prices weakens. Nothing in the current data shows that happening yet, so treat it as the risk to watch rather than a forecast.

The employment picture is genuinely strong. Miami-Dade unemployment was 3.1% in April 2026, the lowest of any Florida county, and the Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall metro division read 2.6% in May 2026, tied for the lowest among the 37 largest US metro divisions. The metro added 42,600 jobs, up 1.5%, as of June 2025. The affordability crisis here is not weak employment. It is a high-wage finance inflow layered over a large low-wage tourism and hospitality base, with a record 28.23 million visitors and $22.0 billion in spending in 2024 supporting roughly 209,000 tourism jobs.

Which Miami submarkets fit your budget?

What about flood risk and sea level?

Two different timeframes, and they deserve different language. What is observed: Miami Beach king-tide flooding has increased more than 400% since 2006, FEMA’s Risk Rating 2.0 has raised coastal flood premiums, and the FEMA 50% rule constrains renovating older coastal homes once repair cost exceeds half the structure’s value. Miami Beach is spending heavily on a stormwater and road-raising program.

What is potential: long-horizon sea-level projections. Miami is the US urban area with the most asset value exposed, but the market currently prices climate risk only at the margin, not at the core. Research on climate gentrification finds higher-elevation flood-prone areas appreciating faster; one Miami-Dade study estimated about $465 million of value lost to tidal-flood exposure between 2005 and 2016, and First Street estimated Miami Beach lost about $337 million in relative value between 2005 and 2017. Those are real but marginal against a market this size. The core has not repriced for a 2050 horizon, and we are not going to tell you it has.

What should buyers do with this market?

A framework, not marching orders: this is an educational read of the data, not personalized advice.

• If you are buying a condo, diligence is the whole decision. Before you go under contract, read the Structural Integrity Reserve Study, the milestone inspection report, the reserve balances, the master insurance policy, and every pending or approved special assessment, and confirm the building’s Fannie Mae and FHA eligibility with your lender. A cheap unit in a blacklisted building with a pending six-figure assessment is not cheap.
• Expect to compete against cash. With 38.1% of sales closing without a mortgage, a financed offer is structurally weaker. Get fully underwritten rather than pre-qualified, keep contingency periods tight where you safely can, and understand that an escalation clause does not help if the seller simply prefers a buyer with no appraisal and no financing contingency.
• Model the tax at your purchase price, not the seller’s bill, because Save Our Homes resets on sale. File for homestead if you qualify.
• Quote insurance before you make an offer, not after inspection. It is the largest line after the mortgage, and roof age and elevation move it enormously.

What should sellers do?

• Single-family sellers hold real leverage, with 4.9 months of supply and listings down 22.74%. But days to contract stretched from 42 to 52, so price to today rather than to last spring.
• Condo sellers need pricing realism. At 12.3 months of supply and 85 days to contract, the market is the buyer’s. If your building is compliant, well-reserved, and financeable, say so prominently and price to that advantage.
• If your building is older and non-compliant, understand what you are selling into: your buyer pool is substantially cash-only. Run your net in the seller net proceeds calculator.

What should renters do?

• The monthly math favors renting decisively, by about $3,114 against the single-family example and about $1,518 against the condo example including its fee.
• But the down-payment path is genuinely hard here. At 45.42% of income going to rent, saving the $152,900 to $173,750 the single-family example needs at closing is a multi-year project on a local salary. Be honest with yourself about the timeline rather than treating buying as imminent.
• Watch the supply pipeline. 36,290 multifamily units under construction across Southeast Florida is the one structural force working in your favor.

What should current homeowners do?

• Protect your homestead and Save Our Homes cap, and look into portability if you move within Florida, because the accumulated cap benefit is often the largest single asset in a long-tenured Florida homeowner’s housing position.
• If you own a condo, treat assessment risk as a live budget item, not a tail risk, especially in a building over 30 years old or within three miles of the coast.
• Reshop insurance after the Citizens cut. Rates moved for the first time in a decade, and the private market has re-entered. Refinancing near 6.49% is marginal unless you bought at the rate peak; find your break-even in the refinance calculator.

What should investors consider?

• Cash yields, not leveraged ones, are the relevant math in a market where half your competition pays cash. Stress the numbers in the rental property ROI calculator.
• Association fee drag is the condo killer. A $900 monthly fee against a $431,000 unit is a structural headwind, and high-rise medians above $1,900 are worse.
• You will pay the non-homestead rate, closer to 1.7% to 2.0%, with no Save Our Homes cap.
• The termination arbitrage narrowed after Biscayne 21: a bulk-buyout thesis that depends on overcoming holdout owners is materially riskier than it was in 2024.

Three scenarios for the next 12 months

No single price forecast here. Instead, three scenarios with the signals that would confirm or break each.

The split persists (the base case). Single-family stays tight and modestly appreciating while condo supply grinds down slowly from 12.3 months without prices recovering. Confirmation: single-family listings stay down year over year while condo months of supply stays above 10. Invalidation: condo supply falls below about 8 months with prices stabilizing, which would mean the reckoning is clearing faster than expected.

The cash floor thins. International inflows keep shrinking, following the 56.6% drop in Florida’s international migration in 2025, and the top of the market loses its marginal bidder. Confirmation: the foreign-buyer share falls in the next MIAMI REALTORS international report and $1 million-plus sales stop growing. Invalidation: cash share holds near 38% and luxury volume keeps rising.

Carrying costs ease enough to matter. The Citizens cut broadens, more private capital re-enters, and voters approve Amendment 3 in November. Confirmation: further filed rate decreases plus a 60% yes vote on November 3, 2026. Invalidation: the ballot-title litigation forces a rewrite that confuses voters, or the measure fails the 60% threshold, leaving Florida tax law unchanged.

What to watch next month

• The MIAMI REALTORS July 2026 Miami-Dade statistics, released around August 17.
• The August 3, 2026 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac limited-review elimination, and what it does to condo financing volume.
• The outcome of the HJR 1F ballot-title litigation heard July 29, 2026, and then the November 3 vote itself against the 60% threshold.
• Census migration estimates, for whether the domestic outflow accelerates or the international inflow recovers.
• Further Citizens rate filings, for whether the June 2026 cut was the start of a trend or a single move.

Run your own numbers

Every dollar figure on this page came from our tested calculator engine at stated assumptions, and each of these tools lets you swap in your own: rent vs buy, mortgage, home affordability, how much can I borrow, buyer closing costs, seller net proceeds, refinance, DTI, property tax, and rental property ROI. Miami is the epicenter of the Florida condo reckoning that our Tampa housing market study covers on the other coast, where the same reserve laws hit a smaller, less coastal condo stock. Compare the rest of the series: Austin, Phoenix, Chicago, Denver, Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Dallas-Fort Worth, and for how metro costs shape long-term plans, the FIRE number by metro study.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Miami housing market crashing in 2026?

No. Single-family is a seller’s market with 4.9 months of supply and prices up 3.73% year over year (Miami-Dade, June 2026). The older non-compliant condo segment is falling hard, but county-wide distressed sales were only 0.5% of transactions, so this is a segment correction, not a market-wide crash.

Why are Miami condos falling when houses are rising?

Because condos carry liabilities houses do not. Post-Surfside inspection and reserve requirements under HB 913, special assessments running $30,000 to $100,000 and more per unit, record association fees, and Fannie Mae blacklisting have gutted demand for older buildings. Single-family homes face none of it.

How much income do I need to buy a house in Miami?

Our engine computes about $222,858 a year for the $695,000 single-family median at 20% down under a 28% front-end ratio, and about $125,306 for the $431,000 condo median on a PITI basis. Third-party estimates run $143,000 (Redfin, October 2023) and $160,000 to $215,000 (ISG World, July 2026).

Why is Miami so expensive relative to local incomes?

Because prices are set by cash and foreign buyers rather than local wages. 38.1% of June 2026 sales closed without a mortgage, 83% of condos above $2,000 per square foot sold for cash, and foreign buyers were 15% of South Florida dollar volume, against a Miami-Dade median household income of $76,184.

Is Miami a cash buyer’s market?

Yes, more than any other major US metro. 38.1% of Miami-Dade sales were all-cash in June 2026, including 48.5% of condos, and the Miami metro led all US metros at 43.0% in the first half of 2025 against a 32.8% national average.

What are Miami condo special assessments?

Charges levied by an association for structural repairs and reserve funding. In Miami-Dade towers built between 1975 and 1995 they run $30,000 to $75,000 per unit, exceed $100,000 for combined roof, concrete, and waterproofing work, and have reached about $400,000 in some coastal high-rises.

Is my Miami condo on the Fannie Mae blacklist?

482 Miami-Dade buildings are on the ineligible list, the most of any Florida county, though that count carries medium confidence and should be verified. Only a lender check confirms a specific building’s current status, and eligibility can change.

How high is Miami home insurance?

Among the highest in the nation. Florida’s statewide average is about $8,458 a year, coastal Miami-Dade single-family homes commonly run $9,000 to $18,000, and condo association insurance averaged $377 per unit per month in 2025. Citizens cut Miami-Dade rates 13.9% effective June 1, 2026.

Will the Florida property tax amendment lower my Miami bill?

Possibly, but it is not law. HJR 1F appears as Amendment 3 on the November 3, 2026 ballot, needs 60% approval, and faced a ballot-language lawsuit heard July 29, 2026. Florida property tax law is unchanged as of mid-2026, so budget under today’s rules.

Should I buy a condo in Miami?

Only after reviewing the Structural Integrity Reserve Study, the milestone inspection report, reserve balances, the master insurance policy, Fannie Mae and FHA eligibility, and any pending assessments. New and compliant buildings carry far less risk than pre-1994 stock, and the price difference often reflects exactly that.

How does the Miami condo market compare with Tampa?

Both face the same Florida reserve and milestone laws, but Miami is the epicenter and Tampa is a satellite. Miami-Dade has the most blacklisted buildings of any Florida county, the highest assessments, and by far the most coastal 30-plus-year stock.

Is Miami underwater by 2050?

Long-run sea-level exposure here is the highest of any US urban area, and king-tide flooding in Miami Beach is up more than 400% since 2006. But the market currently prices climate risk only at the margin, through elevation premiums, not at the core. Long-horizon projections are not priced in today.

Methodology

Where the numbers come from. Every market figure on this page is transcribed from a named source with its geography, period, and confidence level in the source registry below, and is never presented without its period. Where sources differ, a Zillow rent index and a Zumper city median, a statewide insurance average and a coastal quote, we show them with their scopes rather than averaging them.

Why Miami-Dade County, and where other scopes appear. This is the family’s county-first page, following the Chicago city-first precedent: search intent and the property-type split are both cleanest at the county level, and the tri-county metro blend dilutes the condo story that makes Miami different. The City of Miami, Brickell, and Miami Beach appear as sub-lenses; South Florida appears for the foreign-buyer profile; the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach MSA appears for rent, income, and Case-Shiller; Broward and Palm Beach appear only as contrast rows.

Why two worked examples. Single-family and condo diverge so sharply in Miami that one blended example would describe no actual buyer. We run the full engine twice, at the $695,000 single-family median and the $431,000 condo median, sharing the rate, tax basis, upkeep, rent anchor, income denominator, and closing-cost band, and differing only in price, insurance, and the association fee. This is the first page in the series to do so.

Why two Balance Score bands. For the same reason. A blended band would misrepresent both segments in the most divergent market we have studied, so the same beta card renders twice, one per property type, each with its own inputs and its own beta disclosure. Neither band carries a price-cut share, because MIAMI REALTORS does not publish one by property type; that input is dropped and its weight renormalizes across the remaining four, per the Austin precedent, and is disclosed on both cards.

What we computed ourselves. Monthly payments, PITI, income needed, cash to close, the escrow split, and the rent-versus-own gaps are computed by the FinExplained calculator engine (decimal-precise, tested) from the stated assumptions, for both examples. PMI below 20% down is disclosed and excluded. Golden tests pin every published figure for both examples and both bands, so a silent change would fail our build.

The property tax rate is derived, and it resets on sale. Florida publishes no single effective rate, so we compute about 1.55% from Miami-Dade’s roughly 17.59 total mills net of the $51,411 homestead exemption. Save Our Homes resets to full market value on sale, so the modeled figure is the new buyer’s actual basis. HJR 1F is presented as pending throughout and never as enacted.

The insurance figures and the double-count we avoided. The single-family example uses $9,500, a county midpoint between the $8,458 statewide average and the $12,200 sourced coastal figure; a circulating $15,460 county average is an upper-bound illustration only. The condo example uses the $2,280 HO-6 policy. We do NOT also add the $377 per unit per month master policy, because the $10,800 annual association fee already embeds that pass-through.

Charts. Every chart states its geography and period and carries a text description. Two charts were deliberately not built for lack of sourced series: a cross-metro rent-burden comparison (no sourced peer values, so the Miami figure renders against the 30% threshold instead) and a long-run monthly price series (MIAMI REALTORS publishes monthly synopses, not a back-series). Miami stays out of our cross-city tax-compare chart family, as Atlanta, Charlotte, and Dallas-Fort Worth do, because its story is cash-versus-income price formation rather than the tax rate level; the insurance chart is a within-Miami scope range for the same reason.

Source registry

Every figure used on this page, with value, geography, period, source, and confidence:

Assumptions and limitations

• The single-family example assumes a $695,000 Miami-Dade median home; the condo example assumes $431,000. Both assume 20% down unless stated, a 30-year fixed at 6.49%, the derived 1.55% new-buyer homesteaded tax rate, 1% annual upkeep, and Florida buyer closing costs of 2% to 5%. Insurance is $9,500 a year on the house and $2,280 on the condo, and the condo carries a $10,800 annual association fee.
• The 1.55% tax rate is DERIVED, not published: it comes from roughly 17.59 Miami-Dade mills net of the $51,411 homestead exemption. Confirming it against a specific TRIM notice is a labeled data gap. Non-homestead buyers pay closer to 1.7% to 2.0%, and roughly 76% of foreign buyers forfeit the exemption and the cap.
• HJR 1F / Amendment 3 is pending, on the November 3, 2026 ballot with a 60% threshold. Florida property tax law is unchanged as of mid-2026 and nothing on this page assumes it passes.
• The $377 per unit per month master policy is NOT added on top of the association fee in our math, because the fee already embeds it. The $900 monthly fee is a representative all-condo figure; Miami-Dade high-rise medians run above $1,900 a month.
• The condo income-needed figure is on a PITI basis, matching the engine. A lender would also count association dues, which raises the requirement to roughly $163,900.
• The 482 Fannie Mae ineligible count carries MEDIUM confidence and is flagged for verification. Eligibility is building-specific and changes; only a lender check confirms a given building.
• Neither Balance Score band uses a price-cut share, because no per-property-type figure is published; the input is dropped and its weight renormalized, disclosed on both cards.
• Neither band’s sale-to-list input is a sale-to-list ratio. MIAMI REALTORS publishes no such ratio, so both bands use the median percent of ORIGINAL list price received, which is measured from the first price asked and so absorbs every reduction made since. It reads lower than a true sale-to-list ratio would, which means both bands are published more buyer-favorable than a true ratio would make them. On the condo band that runs opposite to the clamp, which makes that band a ceiling in the other direction; the two are not measured, so their net is unknown. Both cards state this.
• Rent measures are kept separate by method and scope and never averaged. The engine uses the $2,665 Zillow metro index figure; Zumper’s $3,050 City of Miami median is shown as the range.
• Submarket figures are directional Zillow, Redfin, Zumper, and brokerage reads, labeled low confidence, and their year-over-year changes are not quoted in our prose.
• Climate: king-tide flooding frequency and the FEMA rules are OBSERVED; long-horizon sea-level projections are POTENTIAL and are labeled as such. The market has not repriced for a 2050 horizon.
• Everything here is educational analysis of market data, not financial, investment, tax, or legal advice, and not a recommendation to buy, sell, or rent any property.

Data freshness

This edition carries the MIAMI REALTORS June 2026 Miami-Dade statistics released July 17, 2026, with 2025 to 2026 insurance, rent, and tax data and a June 2026 mortgage rate. It was first published July 15, 2026 and was last refreshed July 26, 2026, when two metric labels were corrected and the condo band’s disclosure was rewritten; no market figure moved, because June 2026 is still the newest published Miami-Dade release. The page refreshes monthly and the next update is planned for around August 17, 2026, when the July statistics publish. The August 3, 2026 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac limited-review change, the November 3, 2026 vote on Amendment 3, a new Citizens rate filing, or a swing greater than 10% in inventory or price triggers an off-cycle update. Corrections follow our corrections policy and are logged in the changelog.