The numbers
The holding cost nobody budgets
A house costs something every year whether you are in it or not. The lines that make up the bill, where they are large, and the two that are invisible until the first year's end.
Florida · United States
Miami
The American market that became a global one in five years: no state income tax, the finance and technology money that moved south, and a waterfront that trades in a currency Europeans have learned to watch. Miami is bought fast, taxed annually and sold without sentiment.
The Ranesta Index
€18,000 to 35,000
Prime band, per m²
€60,000
Trophy, per m²
4.0 to 5.5%
Gross yield
40%
Sold off-market
3.5%
Cost to acquire
2.4%
Cost to hold, a year
Editorial estimate of prime asking bands, September 2026. Not a valuation. Typical entry €4.0 m, trophy from €80 m. Prime marketing time about 150 days.
Where exactly
Miami Beach: the islands and the waterfront
Star, Hibiscus and Palm Islands, the Venetians, North Bay Road: the waterfront estates with a dock on the bay. The trophy market, priced by the linear foot of seawall.
Fisher Island and Key Biscayne
The private island reached by ferry with the highest average income in the country, and the key across the causeway with its beach and its families.
Coconut Grove and Coral Gables
The canopy: the old Grove on the bay with the sailing club and the Gables with its Mediterranean revival houses and the schools. Where the families who moved from New York actually live.
Brickell, Edgewater and the new towers
The vertical market: branded residences on the water with a view of the bay, bought by the numbers and let by the season.
The short version
A market that taxes you for staying
Miami is the inverse of London. The door is cheap: two to three per cent in closing costs and no transfer tax on the buyer. The house is expensive to keep: about two per cent of its value in property tax every year, plus windstorm and flood insurance that can add another one per cent on the water. A ten-million house on North Bay Road costs a quarter of a million a year before anybody turns the lights on. The holding instrument with the Miami profile is the first thing the desk runs.
The market has been transformed since 2020 by the arrival of finance and technology firms from New York and California, and the buyers who came with them. Prices on the islands doubled, Fisher Island became a market for nine-figure apartments, and the Grove and the Gables filled with families who were going to stay a winter and stayed.
It trades quickly. A house priced correctly closes in six weeks; a house priced badly sits in the portals for a year, because everything here is listed. Off-market is forty per cent at the top, driven by the island estates and by sellers who do not want their divorce in the Multiple Listing Service.
Worth knowing
Buyer's costs
Title insurance, closing and legal of two to three per cent; the buyer's agent fee is now negotiable and often still absorbed by the seller
Annual property tax
About two per cent of the assessed value every year, the highest holding cost on this list
State income tax
None, which is the reason the market exists in its current form
Capital gains
Federal long-term rate of 20 per cent plus 3.8 per cent; withholding of 15 per cent for foreign sellers
Insurance
Windstorm and flood cover on waterfront property is expensive and getting more so
Speed
Thirty to forty-five days from contract to closing is normal
Who is buying
Americans from the north-east and the west coast first, then Latin Americans who have always been here, and Europeans and Canadians for the winter. The financial families on the islands and Fisher Island are the top of the market.
What the desk is working on
Waterfront on the islands with a dock and a seawall in good repair, houses in the old Grove, and apartments on Fisher Island. The desk requires an insurance quote before it lets a client offer on the water.
Buying notes
Contract with a deposit into escrow, inspections, title search and closing in about six weeks. Buyer's costs are low. Property tax is reassessed at the purchase price, so the annual bill is known on the day of closing. Foreign sellers face a fifteen per cent withholding at exit, recoverable against the actual tax. Insurance is the diligence item nobody from Europe expects.
The hotspot vote
In Miami
Questions buyers ask
Yes, on the assessed value, which resets to the purchase price when you buy. Add insurance on the water and the holding cost of a Miami estate is the highest on this list by a distance. The yield or the appreciation has to pay for it.
At a price, and the price is rising. Windstorm and flood policies on a bay-front estate can run to one per cent of value a year and some carriers have left the state. Get the quote before the offer, not after.
Fisher for the security, the ferry and the country club, at apartment prices that pass the best houses; the Beach for a house with a dock and a street. Different lives, similar money.
Federal capital gains of just under 24 per cent after a year, a fifteen per cent withholding on the price at closing that is reconciled against the actual tax, and no Florida state tax. The exit instrument with the Florida profile has the detail.
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