miami housing: my spreadsheet says run, my heart says 'eh, maybe'

so i’m staring at this Zillow tab, the ac is rattling like a dying lawnmower, and i’m pretty sure the humidity outside is a solid 110%. my brain, a former strategy consultant’s brain, keeps making pivot tables about whether i should just bite the bullet and buy a shoebox in Wynwood or keep feeding the landlord’s coke habit. let’s unpack this hot mess.

first, the numbers hit different here. median rent for a one-bedroom is floating around $2,300 last i checked. that’s not an anomaly, that’s the floor. i saw a ‘studio’ in Little Haiti that was basically a converted laundry room listed for $1,800. the listing said ‘charming’ and ‘vest-pocket size.’ my guy, it’s a closet with a sink. but that’s miami. meanwhile, the median single-family home price is treading water around $600k, which feels like a fantasy novel price for a city that floods when a kid sprinkles his lemonade too vigorously.

*the great rent vs. buy matrix (my sad version)
*the ‘i’m never leaving’ fantasy: you need 20% down. on that $600k median, that’s $120k. that’s more than my entire freelance earnings for the last three years, and i once sold a blood orange photo series to a tech bro in brickell. the mortgage payment itself would be roughly the same as rent, maybe $100 less, but then there’s property tax (hello, 1.1% of assessed value), insurance that jumps every time a hurricane so much as sneezes near the gulf stream ($4k/year easy), and hoa fees that could fund a small nations military. oh, and maintenance? i can barely fix my own sink. i’d be paying a guy named ‘chuchy’ $150 an hour to unclog my toilet.
*the ‘i might flee to austin’ plan: renting gives you mobility. you can leave when the developer buys your building to turn it into a ‘luxury wellness experience’ with a cryotherapy chamber instead of a lobby. the downside? your rent goes up 25% annually, your landlord never fixes the balcony door that won’t lock, and you’re essentially paying for the privilege of having zero equity. it’s like buying a gym membership for your life and never going, but the trainer (landlord) is really, really demanding.

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‘dude, my cousin bought in 2021. he said the only thing he owns outright is the mold in his shower.’ - a guy named rick at the beachside bar last tuesday, pointing at a condo tower that looks like a stacked glass brick.

safety is the other elephant in the room that’s also probably carrying a knife. the real talk? it’s neighborhood-dependent in a way that feels like a psychological minefield. you can feel totally safe walking down main street in coral gables at midnight and then five blocks over in parts of allapattah, you’re actively checking your six. the data shows violent crime is above national average, but again, it’s patchy. your best bet is to stalk local subreddits like a creep: r/miami has threads that are more useful than any realtor’s spin.

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‘just don’t buy ground floor or anything built before 1992. the ‘sinking city’ thing isn’t a myth, it’s a spreadsheet.’ - overheard at whole foods, two women in lululemon debating seawalls.

the job market is this weird, lopsided thing. if you’re in tourism, hospitality, healthcare-there’s work. but the ‘creative class’ or ‘knowledge economy’ salaries haven’t kept pace with this insane cost of living. i have a friend, graphic designer, making what i made in chicago in 2015, and her rent is 40% higher. the influencer economy is real here, sure, but that’s not a stable career path unless you’re born with a ring light in your hand.

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‘my landlord tried to raise my rent $500. i told him i’d turn my unit into an onlyfans and he’d have to evict a content creator. he kept the rent the same.’ - a legend from the miami reddit discord.

so where does that leave a person? i keep circling back to the ‘sweat equity’ angle. buying feels like you’re buying a ticket to a very expensive, very leaky lottery. but renting feels like you’re permanently paying a ‘being-landlorded’ tax. the weather? it’s a participant. it’s not just hot, it’s a participant. it’s a wet dog that sits on your chest for 8 months a year. and your neighbors are a blender of retired new yorkers, crypto bros in pastel polo shirts, and south american families who’ve been here for generations and look at you like you’re the weird invasive species.

if you’re coming from a midwestern city with a $1,200 rent, brace for impact. do the math. run the numbers including that 5% annual maintenance buffer. stalk zillow for three months. and for the love of all that’s holy, flood zone. look it up. that ‘waterfront view’ might mean your future condo is a future aquarium.

miami’s not a place you move to-it’s a place you negotiate with. you trade financial sanity for sun, traffic for a certain weird freedom, and long-term stability for the chance to say you live here. i haven’t decided. i’m probably going to sign another lease, but i’m doing it while staring at this map, wondering which patch of sand i’ll eventually drown in.

yep, that’s the magic box. zoom out. see all the blue? that’s not a pool. that’s the future.

some days i think i’d be happy in one of these old little buildings. $1800, no pool, but a courtyard with a broken fountain. then i remember the landlord would be the guy who lives in buenos Aires and communicates via a angry whatsapp voice note at 3am.

and then i look at these glass towers, with their ‘smart home’ locks and postage-stamp balconies, and i know someone is paying $4k a month to live in a vertical coffee table. the madness is the point.

useful links for the desperate:
r/miami a unabashedly real local subreddit
yelp for the ‘miami inspectors you actually trust’ rabbit hole
the ‘miami rental market report’ by a local data nerd who gets it
* the city’s flood map tool (because ‘oh, that’s a hundred-year floodplain’ is code for ‘i’ll see you after the next direct hit’'

anyway. i’m gonna go check my AC filter for the 400th time. this city will break you, financially and spiritually, one monsoon season at a time.

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