Miami's $10M+ Sales Are Setting a Record — and Buyers Below Still Have Leverage

A client called me last week genuinely discouraged. He'd read a headline about Miami setting another luxury sales record and decided he'd waited too long — that the market had run away from him while he was busy being careful. He was ready to stop looking.

I told him what I'll tell you: the headline is true, and it has almost nothing to do with the price band he's shopping in.

Here are the actual numbers. Miami-Dade logged 194 home sales of $10 million or more through August 2026 — already 14.1% above the 170 the county recorded in all of 2025. At that pace, the year finishes near 291 sales at that level, which would blow past the prior record of 230 set in 2021 during the pandemic buying frenzy. The $30 million-plus single-family segment roughly doubled in the first half of the year.

Now look at the last two cards together, because that's the entire point of this piece. The county is setting an ultra-luxury record and carrying roughly thirteen months of condo supply at the same time. Six months is balance. Thirteen is a buyer's market by any definition anybody uses.

Same county. Same month. Opposite conditions.

Why the Top of the Market Stopped Behaving Like the Rest of It

One reason, and it isn't complicated: the buyers setting those records aren't borrowing money.

Cash made up about 37.8% of all Miami-Dade closed sales in August, and roughly 50.5% of existing condo sales. Half. Nationally that figure isn't close. When rates sit above 6.7%, a financed buyer watches thirty or forty thousand dollars of purchasing power evaporate. A cash buyer reads the same headline and feels nothing, because the Federal Reserve has no vote in a wire transfer.

That's why the two halves of this market have decoupled. Rate pressure lands entirely on financed buyers — which is most of the condo market and most of the single-family market under $3 million — while the tier that doesn't need a lender keeps transacting as though nothing changed.

What a Record Year Actually Tells You

I don't want anyone dismissing these numbers either. They matter — just not the way most people read them.

They confirm the migration is structural, not seasonal. Three straight years of this, through rate hikes, through insurance repricing, through condo legislation that scared half the market. The corporate and executive relocation wave into South Florida is the engine under it, and companies don't relocate headquarters on a whim or unwind them in a quarter.

They tell you where the pressure moves next. Money that lands at the top doesn't sit there. Executives who follow those companies down aren't all buying at $10 million — they're buying at $900,000 and $1.4 million and $2.6 million, near the offices, in the neighborhoods that were quiet three years ago. Miami passing New York in $30M+ sales is the visible tip of something much wider.

And they explain why the condo discount is temporary. Elevated condo supply in Miami-Dade is a carrying-cost problem — milestone inspections, reserve funding, insurance repricing — working its way through older buildings. It's real, and it's pricing in right now. It is not a verdict on whether people want to live here. The demand side of this market just set a record.

Where You Have Leverage and Where You Don't

The median Miami-Dade single-family home sits near $699,990 with supply around 4.3 months. That's not a buyer's market — that's tight. Which is exactly why I keep steering people toward the condo side right now, where the numbers are genuinely on their side. The leverage in Miami condos is real, and most buyers are using about a third of it.

How I'd Buy Into This Market

Shop the condition, not the headline. A record year at the top doesn't change what you should pay for a unit in a building with a pending assessment. Underwrite the association before you underwrite the unit — reserve study, two years of board minutes, milestone status, insurance declarations. If a listing agent can't produce those quickly, that delay is information.

Negotiate the monthly number. A $40,000 price cut feels like winning. An $800 monthly dues increase eats it in just over four years and then keeps going for as long as you own the place. Where there's a known assessment, I push for a credit at closing instead of a price reduction — identical dollars to the seller, but yours at the table rather than financed across thirty years.

Use cash pressure to your advantage, not your discouragement. Half of condo closings are cash, so a financed offer has to compete on certainty rather than price alone. Full underwriting before you shop, tight and realistic timelines, clean contingencies. I've had financed clients beat cash offers that were higher, purely because the seller believed we'd actually close.

Don't confuse cheap with inexpensive. The steepest discounts in this market usually sit on the buildings with the biggest problems behind them. As the condo market works through this turnaround, the best values I'm finding are the well-run 1990s and 2000s buildings nobody writes about — funded reserves, inspections completed, conventionally financeable, and still sitting in a buyer's market because the whole category got painted with one brush.

Buy the Home. Then Protect It.

Here's where my two licenses stop being separate jobs.

In a market where half the buyers are paying cash, the financed buyer's instinct is to stretch — bigger down payment, thinner reserves, more house. I understand the impulse. I also know what it costs.

I ask every client the question that makes a room go quiet: if your income stopped tomorrow, how long does this home stay in your family? If the answer comes back in months, we fix that before we talk about closing dates. I ask because I've been on the other side of it. When I lost my mother in 2012, shortly after I moved to Los Angeles to build something new, I learned exactly what it costs a family when nobody finished the paperwork in time.

So negotiate hard while the condo market gives you room. Take the credits. Buy the honest building over the cheap one. And close with reserves still in the bank — because nobody gets to buy protection on the day they need it.

That's the whole philosophy. Buy the home. Protect the family. Build the legacy.

If you're reading record headlines and wondering whether Miami still has room for you, it does — and I'll show you exactly where. Call me at (305) 791-0812 or visit HomeWithAgu.com. Let's build something real.

Written by

Agu Ukaogo

South Florida Luxury Realtor & Wealth Protection Strategist. FL Real Estate License: SL3588365. Bridges real estate transactions with life insurance and wealth protection that keeps homes in families. HomeWithAgu.com · (305) 791-0812