Miami Market Update $2,000,000 – $5,000,000

At the very outset of the Covid-19 pandemic and its resulting shutdown, real estate felt like it would stop moving. People were afraid to leave their houses, they could not go to their offices, parents were suddenly homeschooling their children – you were all there, so you get the picture. It was an incredibly uncertain time economically, and that kind of environment can certainly flummox the real estate market. In fact, it has done so in many places, which so many people trying to move out of extremely urban environments like Manhattan and move into more suburban areas where, if everyone has to be home, there is more space. That desire for space, coupled with the ability to work remotely from anywhere has begun driving more and more people from condos downtown and from urban centers in other states to Miami’s elite suburbs, such as Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, and Pinecrest.

I just looked our TrendGraphix report for Areas 41, 50, and 51 in Miami-Dade County. That is realtor-speak for the area encompassing Coral Gables and Coconut Grove, the Ponce-Davis section, and Pinecrest, down to Palmetto Bay. I looked back at single family home sales between $2,000,000-$5,000,000 from July 2019 through July 2020, which is the last month for which we have data. The graphs are very telling as to what has been happening in these Miami markets!

Looking at homes for sale, closed sales, and pending sales by month, the last half of 2019 was pretty smooth sailing in this market. We averaged just over 17 closed sales, and almost the exact same number of pended listings each month, with active listings averaging at 388 each month, while in the past 3 months of 2020 the active listings have hovered around 365. Jump just a few months forward, to January and February and it looked like we were in for a steep increase in closed sales, with February reaching 26 closings in this specific market. March and April of 2020 saw a steep decline in closings and listings going pending, down to 6 closings per month and as few as 10 pending sales in April – we had reached the heart of the worldwide shutdown. May is when we turned a corner: people realized that they wanted and needed these larger properties with work-from-home areas, nooks for kids to participate in online school, and outdoor space because we were all solely entertaining outside. Closed sales climbed during these months, reaching 35 closings in the month of June, by far the highest number of closed sales in the past 12 months. That is pretty amazing for this new pandemic world, and we are still feeling this upswing in activity throughout this luxury real estate market.