Ten Years That Changed Miami-Dade and Broward

If you bought a single-family home in Miami-Dade in early 2016 and sold it this year, you roughly doubled your money and then some. If you bought a condo in an aging Broward building in 2021 and tried to sell it this year, you may have taken a loss on a property in the same county, in the same decade, in what everyone still describes as one of the strongest housing markets in the country.

Both of those things are true at once. That contradiction is the most important thing happening in South Florida real estate right now, and it is almost entirely absent from the headline numbers.

Here is what the decade actually looked like.

Market briefThe headline number, and why it hides the story

Miami-Dade single-family home median sale prices rose from $270,000 in January 2016 to $699,990 in January 2026 — an increase of 159.3% over ten years, according to MIAMI REALTORS®. Median prices in that segment have now risen year-over-year in 171 of the last 174 months.

That is an extraordinary run by any measure. It is also, taken alone, misleading — because "the market" is not one market. It is at least two, and they have been moving in opposite directions for roughly three years.

Market briefAct One: 2016 to early 2020 — the steady climb

The second half of the last decade was, in retrospect, the calm part. Prices rose consistently but at a rate that buyers could plan around. Inventory was reasonable. Days on market were normal. Deals closed on schedule with financing contingencies intact.

The defining feature of this period was that it was predictable. A buyer could look at a property, take a week to decide, and reasonably expect it to still be available. That expectation would not survive what came next.

Market briefAct Two: 2020 to 2022 — the compression

The pandemic-era migration into South Florida compressed several years of price movement into roughly twenty-four months. Remote work untethered high earners from expensive northern metros, and Florida's tax structure did the rest.

The effect on transactions was structural, not just numerical. Inventory collapsed. Properties went under contract in days. Inspection periods shortened, appraisal contingencies were waived, and cash became the default competitive posture rather than an advantage. Buyers who behaved normally — took a weekend to think, asked for a standard inspection period — simply lost, repeatedly.

That period also planted the problem that defines the market today: a large number of condominium purchases were made quickly, by buyers who did not read association financials, in buildings whose deferred maintenance had not yet come due.

Market briefAct Three: 2022 to 2026 — the split

Two things happened almost simultaneously.

Mortgage rates rose sharply, which cooled transaction volume everywhere. That was national and unremarkable.

The second thing was specific to Florida, and it is still working through the market.

Following the 2021 Surfside collapse, Florida enacted mandatory milestone structural inspections under § 553.899 and structural integrity reserve study requirements under § 718.112(2)(g), together with restrictions on an association's ability to waive reserve funding. Buildings that had deferred capital maintenance for decades were required to inspect, quantify, and fund it.

The consequences flowed downhill to individual owners in three forms: sharply higher monthly dues, special assessments, and — for buildings that could not demonstrate adequate reserves — loss of conventional financing eligibility. Condominium master insurance premiums rose steeply over the same period, and those costs pass directly into association budgets.

Layer on tightened agency guidelines, with Fannie Mae raising minimum reserve allocation requirements from 10% to 15% in 2026, and a building's warrantability status became a live question in a way it had not been for a generation.

The practical result: two properties in the same city, at the same price, can now have completely different buyer pools. A single-family home is financeable by anyone. A unit in a 40-year-old oceanfront building with an unfunded reserve study may be cash-only.

Market briefWhere the two markets stand in 2026

The current numbers make the divergence hard to miss.

Source: MIAMI REALTORS® + RWorld / BeachesMLS monthly statistics; Florida Realtors SunStats for months of supply.

Under the conventional reading, six to nine months of supply is a balanced market, below that favors sellers, and above it favors buyers. Broward single-family at 4.6 months is a seller's market. Broward condo at 11.0 months is not. Those are two different economies operating inside the same county lines, and a buyer treating them as one will misprice both.

Days on market tell the same story. Broward single-family homes were reaching contract in a median of 33 days as of April 2026, while condos took 61 days to contract and 96 days to close.

Market briefWhat has not changed: cash, and where the buyers come from

Two structural features of this market have persisted through the entire decade.

Cash dominance. In June 2026, 37.1% of all Broward closed sales were cash, against roughly 25% nationally. Within the condo segment specifically, cash made up 53.4% of transactions — more than half — compared with 23.8% for single-family. That gap is the financing problem rendered as a statistic. When conventional lending narrows in a building, cash is what remains.

In-migration. MIAMI REALTORS® Research reported a 6% increase in out-of-state driver license exchanges in Broward County in 2025, with New York, California, and New Jersey the leading origin states. The relocation demand that accelerated in 2020 did not reverse.

And at the top of the market, momentum has actually increased. Broward sales of properties at $1 million and above rose 33.9% year-over-year in July 2026. The luxury tier is not participating in the condo correction, because the buyers in it are not financing-constrained.

Market briefWhat this means if you are buying

If you are buying a single-family home, you are in a tight, competitive market with under five months of supply. Expect to compete. The leverage available to you is mostly structural rather than price-based — closing timeline, deposit size, inspection period, and financing strength.

If you are buying a condominium, you have more negotiating room than at any point in a decade, and more ways to get hurt. The price is the smallest part of the analysis. What matters is the reserve study, the milestone inspection status, the assessment history, the percentage of the budget consumed by insurance, and whether the building is warrantable. A discounted unit in a building facing a six-figure assessment is not a discount.

Two questions decide most of it. What has the association actually funded against what its reserve study says it needs? And can a conventional lender finance a purchase in this building today?

Neither question is answered by the MLS listing.

Market briefWhat this means if you are selling

Single-family sellers are in the stronger position of the decade's back half, but pricing discipline still matters — the market is tight, not indiscriminate.

Condominium sellers face a real decision. Broward condo prices declined 3.77% year-over-year as of July 2026, and condo inventory sat at 11 months of supply in April. Meanwhile the underlying cost pressures — insurance, reserve funding, aging buildings — are structural rather than cyclical. They are not scheduled to reverse.

If your building has an assessment history or an open milestone question, disclose it and price with it in hand. Buyers and their lenders will find it during due diligence. Discovering it late is what kills deals at the closing table, and Florida law requires disclosure of known facts that materially affect value and are not readily observable.

Market briefWhat this means if you are investing

The decade's lesson for investors is that the purchase price stopped being the main variable. Operating cost certainty replaced it.

A condominium acquired at an attractive cap rate, in a building whose dues are about to rise 40% and which faces an assessment inside three years, is not the deal the spreadsheet says it is. The analysis has to model the building's financial trajectory, not just the unit's rent.

That is a due diligence problem before it is a math problem — and it is the reason my investment analysis process starts with association documents rather than with returns.

If you own a condominium unit that is carrying a special assessment and you are weighing whether to sell, the mechanics of who owes what at closing are covered separately in selling a condo that carries a special assessment.