The Dangers of Generalizing The Miami Real Estate Market

Many of our readers ask us: “How is the market doing?” followed by “We read in article XYZ that the Miami market is not that healthy anymore“. This is not a good question to ask and even worse advice to give. The Miami market cannot be seen as a whole! If you follow our blogs you will be getting tired of reading this, but you will be surprised how many people are not aware of this.

The Miami real estate market offers different products (homes, condos, townhomes etc) in different areas, which all behave in a different manner. You cannot look at the Brickell condo market and extrapolate these finding to the Coral Gables home market or the Coconut Grove townhome market.

Our newest Coconut Grove listing at 3600 Toledo Street got 260 Zillow views the first day of publishing, a highly trafficked brokers open and multiple showings per day. With only 7 months of inventory this  $1,075,000 Coral Gables listing will be under contract very soon!

The Brickell market is currently seeing high levels of inventory. Many media talk (negatively) about the Brickell condo market, which often seems to be seen as “Miami”. I have several families relocating to Miami at the moment, many of them looking at the Grove. They seem however hesitant to buy after they read a report on “Miami’s” high levels of inventory. Funnily enough the Coconut Grove home market of $1M to $2M homes, ranges between 7 to 9 months of inventory, which is a very low level of inventory. Again, one needs to look at the specific product in a specific area to know what is going on with the market. Some of our listings are getting a lot of traction, while others move slower.

Also important to keep in mind is that it is summer at the moment (at the moment this blog was published). Summer months are slow months in Miami. The fact that homes are not selling as fast as three months ago does not mean the market has softened. As a rule of thumb, I always prefer the primary markets over the secondary markets. These latter markets are those that are mostly bought by investors or second home owners while the primary markets, bought by the end-user as a first home, tend to be less volatile and less sensitive to market changes.

We warn buyers for areas with high levels of inventory and we like to educate them on how the market moves. However, every market has great deals as long as you buy at the right price. Right now the luxury market is softening, yet we still see a lot of big sales happening. It all depends on the specific product and the price tag.

Read our 2017 Miami Real Estate Report to see the 2017 results and 2018 forecasts for the most important Miami sub-markets across several price ranges.

Coming Soon:
The 2018 Miami Real Estate report with forecasts for 2019 is coming up in Q3 2018

Coming Soon:
The Luxury Miami Real Estate Market which covers all properties of $3M+