South Florida by the numbers: What a year for residential real estate

“South Florida by the numbers” is a web feature that catalogs the most notable, quirky and surprising real estate statistics.

Who remembers 2021? It’s been a while, but that sure was quite a trip around the sun! While the country faced enormous challenges with the Covid pandemic, inflation, and ever-widening political divides, Miami residential real estate broke record after record, and seemed to only grow stronger with each passing month. Domestic buyers fleeing high taxes and costs of living joined a re-invigorated pool of international buyers to create unprecedented levels of demand. While rock-bottom inventory and skyrocketing rents remain major problems to address, let’s take a moment to bask in the glory of 2021’s red-hot sales pace in this month’s “South Florida by the numbers.”

$30.3 billion

Total dollar volume of condo and single-family homes sold in Miami-Dade County during 2021, by far the highest in history, according to the Miami Association of Realtors. The volume of homes and condos sold also broke new records by unit count during the year.

4,837

Total number of South Florida condo sales of $1 million or more in 2021, a 166.4 percent increase from 2020, according to a Keyes/Illustrated 2021 Luxury Market Report. In Miami-Dade County alone, the number of $1 million condo transactions more than tripled, year over year.

430

In Miami-Dade and Broward counties, total number of $1 million-plus single-family home sales in 2021, including 262 in Miami-Dade and 168 in Broward.

365

Total number of 2021 “super prime” sales (over $10 million) in South Florida, according to the Serhant Year-End 2021 Signature Report. This breaks down to 107 super-prime sales in Palm Beach County (nearly doubling from 2020, with a median price of $18 million) and 258 in Miami-Dade (up 134.5% from 2020, with a median price of $15 million.) Combined, super-prime sales in Palm Beach and Miami in 2021 surpassed the number of sales in the three prior years combined.

259,480

Number of new Florida residents in 2021, representing the largest growth in homebuyer migration in the country. As Florida’s new residents seek housing, they’re snatching up available inventory and driving up home prices, putting locals in a precarious situation.

This column is produced by the Master Brokers Forum, a network of South Florida’s elite real estate professionals where membership is by invitation only and based on outstanding production, as well as ethical and professional behavior.