Everyone Wants to Move Here

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Editor’s Note

This month’s cover story is about the next wave of condominiums and townhomes rising, or soon to be rising, in and around the downtown. It looks at some of the market dynamics at play: the skyrocketing price tags for single-family homes in the Gables, the downsizing of empty nesters here in the city, the need to provide housing for young families that want to move here, and so forth.

The simple fact is that there are no longer any affordable single-family homes in the Gables, not for anyone earning less than $100,000 a year. The same can be said for other parts of Miami-Dade, but here in the Gables the phenomenon is more pronounced: starter homes now start at over $1million. So, if you are a young professional just starting out, your options are to rent or to buy a condominium.

Prices are already on the rise for these homes-in-the-sky as well, and the ones we feature in our roundup are more on the luxury end of the spectrum. But other, more affordable options are either here or on their way, especially in the North Gables.

The good news in all this is that anyone who already owns a home here is sitting in the proverbial cat-bird seat. The valuation of homes in the last half-decade has risen astonishingly fast. According to figures compiled by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices EWM Realty, between 2019 and 2023, the median price of a single-family home in the Gables more than doubled, from $941,000 to $2,020,000. By comparison, prices of condos and townhomes in the Gables rose at half that pace, by about 50 percent, from $428,000 to $625,000. Both sets of prices have leveled off and come down a little bit, but the median price of a single-family home remains almost four times as much as the median price of a condo or townhome.

The net result is that the average new resident’s ticket to the City Beautiful will come in the form of a vertical dwelling – a mid-rise condominium or a three-story townhome. These buildings are and will be clustered near the downtown or in the Merrick Park district, and should provide a population of sufficient density to support a thriving, culturally rich downtown – one more reason to live here and never leave.

JP Faber
Editor-In-Chief
Coral Gables Magazine