An owner in a 38-story Brickell tower opened a letter earlier this year and found a $45,000 bill attached to a unit they already owned free and clear. It was not a scam and it was not optional. It was a special assessment, the catch-up cost of a building that had voted for over a decade to waive the structural reserve funding Florida law now requires. In a separate Miami-Dade building, only 16 years old and nowhere near its official inspection milestone, owners received a $21 million assessment after an early inspection turned up problems nobody had budgeted for.
Neither number shows up in the headline figure everyone repeats about Miami real estate. That figure is the countywide median home price, and in July 2026 MIAMI REALTORS put single-family homes at $685,000, up 3.79% from a year earlier. It is a real number. It is also describing a different property type, moving for different reasons, than the condo those Brickell owners hold. Before you trust a comp built on that county median, it helps to know which of Miami's markets you are actually standing in.
A Seller's Market and a Buyer's Market, Same County, Same Month
Miami-Dade's single-family homes sat at 4.8 months of supply as of July 2026, which MIAMI REALTORS classifies as a seller's market. Existing condos in the same county, the same month, sat at 12 months of supply, a buyer's market by a wide margin. Single-family inventory actually fell 22.82% year over year to 4,275 active listings even while sales rose for an 11th consecutive month. Condo inventory fell too, down 11.79% year over year to 11,324 listings, but it started from a much higher base, so the buyer's-market math held anyway.
Price direction split along the same line. Single-family median sale price reached $685,000 in July 2026, continuing a run MIAMI REALTORS traces back 173 of the last 176 months. Condo median sale price fell to $400,000 over that same month, down 1.48% year over year, even as condo sales climbed 11.4%. More buyers closed on condos and prices still slipped. That only makes sense once you understand what is pushing owners to sell into a falling market.
| Metric (July 2026) | Single-Family | Existing Condo |
|---|---|---|
| Months of supply | 4.8 (seller's market) | 12.0 (buyer's market) |
| Median sale price | $685,000 (+3.79% YoY) | $400,000 (-1.48% YoY) |
| Active listings | 4,275 (-22.82% YoY) | 11,324 (-11.79% YoY) |
| Closed sales | +5.6% YoY | +11.4% YoY |
Why Owners Are Selling Into a Falling Price
The condo side of this split traces back to the 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside. The legislative response, known as SB 4-D, phased out the option for condo boards to waive structural reserve funding and set milestone inspection deadlines at 25 years for coastal buildings and 30 years for everything else. Boards that spent a decade keeping dues low by underfunding reserves are now facing the bill all at once, and assessments in some northeastern Miami-Dade towers have run as high as $400,000 per unit.
Financing tightened right alongside it. As of August 3, 2026, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac eliminated the limited review and streamlined review options for new condo loan applications, and by Sotheby's own count only 21 of 2,397 condominium buildings across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach carry FHA approval. That narrows the buyer pool for older buildings at the exact moment those buildings need buyers most, which is why sellers keep cutting price to move units before the next assessment lands.
New construction sidesteps the reserve catch-up entirely. Towers like Baccarat Residences, Cipriani Residences Miami, and Aston Martin Residences in Brickell are new enough that they are not inheriting a 30-year deferred maintenance bill, and buyers there pay a real premium per square foot for that clean slate rather than a discount.
If you are looking at any Miami condo built before the mid-1990s, or one approaching its 25 or 30-year milestone, three documents matter more than the listing price:
- The Structural Integrity Reserve Study, which shows whether the building's reserves are actually funded
- The milestone inspection report, including a Phase 2 follow-up if the initial inspection flagged concerns
- A written disclosure of every current, pending, and anticipated special assessment
Buyers also get a real tool here. Under the disclosure rules in effect this year, you have seven business days after receiving the association's governing documents to cancel the contract with no penalty. That window only protects you if it starts counting from the day you actually receive the paperwork, not the contract date, so push for those documents early rather than waiting for the inspection period to close.
The Single-Family Side Isn't One Market Either
Even inside the tight, seller-favoring half of this split, Miami-Dade single-family homes do not move as one market. Q1 2026 closed-sale data, measured against Q1 2025, shows how far apart neighborhoods a few highway exits from each other can behave.
Coconut Grove posted the sharpest jump: 58 single-family closings in Q1 2026, up 26.1% from 46 in Q1 2025, with a median sold price of $3.0 million, up 37.9% year over year, and $1,087 per square foot, the highest of the group. Marketing time stretched to 66 days from 29, which tracks with a higher price tier where buyers move more deliberately once they commit.
Palmetto Bay offered the value play in the same county over the same quarter, with 64 closings at a median sold price of $1.05 million and $478 per square foot, roughly 68 days on the market. Kendall moved fastest of all, 83 closings with days on market falling to 31 from 42 and sellers giving up just 5.0% from list price, the narrowest discount in the group.
Coral Gables and Pinecrest, often compared directly by relocating families, told their own diverging story over the trailing twelve months ending in March 2026. Coral Gables closed single-family sales at a median of $2.0 million, up 4.6% year over year. Pinecrest's median sat higher at $2.535 million but fell 6.0% year over year after a stretch of strong gains, a cooling that a countywide median would never surface.
| Neighborhood (Q1 2026 vs. Q1 2025) | Closed Sales | Median Sale Price | Median $/SqFt | Median Days on Market |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coconut Grove | 58 (+26.1%) | $3.0M (+37.9% YoY) | $1,087 | 66 |
| Palmetto Bay | 64 | $1.05M | $478 | 68 |
| Kendall | 83 | — | — | 31 |
What This Means If You're Comparing Neighborhoods Right Now
If you are shopping single-family, treat "Miami" as at least five separate markets rather than one. A Coconut Grove comp can run over $600 per square foot higher than a Palmetto Bay comp a few exits down US-1, and both are technically the same county median. Pull your comps from the actual neighborhood, not the countywide figure your portal search returns.
If you are shopping condo, months of supply favor you almost everywhere in Miami-Dade right now. But the number that predicts your real future cost is not the sale price. It is the building's reserve funding percentage and inspection status. A condo priced $50,000 below its neighbors is not a discount if the building is sitting on an unfunded reserve that will show up as an assessment within a year or two of closing.
For investors and cash buyers, the leverage cuts differently again. Cash purchases represented 38.7% of all residential sales in Miami-Dade in May 2026, and nearly half of condo transactions closed the same way, which means financed buyers are often competing against offers that don't need an appraisal contingency or a condo-warrantability review at all. Knowing which segment you're bidding into, and who else is bidding alongside you, changes how you should structure an offer before you ever write one.
A Few Questions Worth Settling Before You Write an Offer
Does a low HOA fee mean a condo is the safer buy? Not on its own. A low monthly fee paired with an underfunded reserve study is a signal that the bill hasn't arrived yet, not that it isn't coming. Ask for the SIRS and the milestone inspection status before comparing dues across buildings.
Will single-family inventory loosen up soon? Limited land and zoning constraints in Miami-Dade have kept new single-family construction well behind demand for years, and nothing in the current data points to that easing quickly. The 4.8-month supply figure from July 2026 reflects a structural condition, not a temporary lull.
Does the single-family versus condo split show up inside the house market too? Yes. Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, and Kendall each posted meaningfully different price direction, price per square foot, and days on market in the same recent stretch, even though every one of them counts as a single-family sale in the countywide number.
Every one of these markets rewards a buyer who knows which building's reserve study to request or which neighborhood's comp actually applies to the block they're considering. That is the kind of detail a countywide median will never hand you, and it's exactly the kind of groundwork the Melissa Miller Group walks clients through before an offer goes in. If you're comparing Miami neighborhoods or weighing a condo against a single-family purchase, reach out for a conversation grounded in the building-level and block-level data your decision actually depends on.
