By Josh Stein — Miami real estate sales associate, Florida license SL3057661. Selling Miami luxury property since 2002, with more than $1 billion closed.On Fisher Island one home in thirty-two changes hands in a year. In the Upper Eastside it is one in fourteen. That is a spread of more than two to one in how often anything at all becomes available — and it is a number no listing portal publishes, because portals show you what is for sale today, never how unusual it is that anything is for sale at all.
I took four years of qualified recorded sales from the Miami-Dade roll and set them against the number of homes in each set. Here is how often a Miami condominium actually trades, and what that changes about how you buy one.
Key Takeaways
- Fisher Island is the tightest of the eleven — one recorded sale a year per 32 homes, or about 3.1 per cent annual turnover.
- The Upper Eastside is the loosest at one in 14, roughly 7.1 per cent.
- Most of Miami clusters between one in 21 and one in 23 — Surfside, North Miami Beach, Hallandale Beach, Coconut Grove and North Bay Village are all within two points of each other.
- Tight turnover changes what a comparable is. Where one home in thirty trades a year, a specific line may come up once a decade.
- Turnover is not inventory. Inventory is what is listed now; turnover is how often the building lets anyone in.
- These are averages across four years, drawn from the buildings with a full county pull — not a reading of today, and not every building in each neighbourhood.
How often does anything actually come up?
Turnover here is simple arithmetic: four years of qualified recorded sales, divided by four, set against the number of homes. Nominal transfers are excluded, so intra-family reorganisations and deeds in lieu of foreclosure do not inflate the count.
A higher bar means a tighter market — more homes for each sale in a year.
| Neighbourhood | Homes tracked | One sale a year per | Annual turnover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fisher Island | 234 | 32 homes | 3.1% |
| Hollywood | 288 | 31 homes | 3.2% |
| Key Biscayne | 289 | 27 homes | 3.7% |
| Surfside | 407 | 23 homes | 4.3% |
| North Miami Beach | 470 | 23 homes | 4.3% |
| Hallandale Beach | 715 | 23 homes | 4.3% |
| Coconut Grove | 893 | 22 homes | 4.5% |
| North Bay Village | 544 | 21 homes | 4.8% |
| Coral Gables | 474 | 17 homes | 5.9% |
| Design District | 205 | 17 homes | 5.9% |
| Upper Eastside | 43 | 14 homes | 7.1% |
The cluster in the middle is the ordinary Miami condominium market: somewhere around one home in twenty-two trading each year, which is roughly a 4.5 per cent annual turnover. The interesting cases are the ends.
What a tight market does to a buyer
At one sale per thirty-two homes a year, a specific line in a specific building might come to market once a decade. If that is the thing you want, you are not really negotiating against other buyers. You are negotiating against the calendar, and the calendar does not come down on price.
It also changes what counts as evidence. In a market that turns over that slowly, last year’s sale down the hall is not a comparable — it is a historical curiosity from a different market. Two or three sales in a building over four years cannot establish a price; they can only establish a range, and a wide one.
The practical consequence is that in tight buildings you should expect to wait, expect thin comparable evidence, and expect the seller to know both of those things.
And what a looser market gives you back
At one in fourteen there is nearly always something available. Patience costs you less, comparable evidence is thicker, and you can afford to walk away from a specific unit because another will come.
That is not the same as saying looser is better. High turnover in a newly delivered building often means early buyers reselling quickly, which is exactly the pattern that produces weak resale records. Turnover tells you about availability and liquidity; it says nothing on its own about whether owners did well.
Read the two together and the picture sharpens: a tight market with long holds and strong resales is scarcity; a loose market with short holds and weak resales is churn. They look nothing alike on the ground and nearly identical in a listing feed.
The limits of this measurement
These are the buildings for which I hold a complete county pull, not every association in each neighbourhood, and the sets differ in size — Coconut Grove rests on 893 homes and the Upper Eastside on 43. A single building cannot represent a neighbourhood, so the homes column is printed beside every figure rather than tucked into a footnote.
Turnover also moves with the cycle. A market with rising inventory loosens; a market where financing tightens can seize up within a year. These are four-year averages, which is long enough to be stable and long enough to hide a recent change.
And a sale is not always a move. Some transfers between related parties are qualified and legitimately count as sales while representing no real change in occupancy. That noise is small at this scale, but it is there.
Verified 4 September 2026Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser, four years of qualified sales3 sources
Turnover is the share of homes in a building or neighbourhood that change hands in a year. It matters because it tells you how often anything becomes available. In a market at one sale per thirty-two homes a year, a particular floor plan may only come up once a decade, which changes both how long you wait and how much comparable evidence exists to price it. Of the eleven measured here, Fisher Island — roughly one recorded sale a year per 32 homes, about 3.1 per cent. Hollywood is close behind at one in 31 and Key Biscayne at one in 27. All three are dominated by long-established buildings. Not by itself. High turnover in a recently delivered building usually reflects early buyers reselling, which is normal. It becomes a signal worth investigating when it appears alongside a weak resale record, because that combination suggests churn rather than demand. Months of inventory measures what is listed right now against the current pace of sales. Turnover measures how often homes trade at all, over years. Inventory can swing sharply in a quarter; turnover describes the underlying character of a building. Yes. Search the building on the Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser site, open a folio and read its sales history, then repeat across the units. Count the qualified sales over a fixed period and divide by the number of homes. It is public and free.Miami condo turnover — frequently asked questions
What is condo turnover and why does it matter?
Which Miami neighbourhood has the lowest condo turnover?
Is high turnover a bad sign in a condominium?
How is this different from months of inventory?
Can I check turnover for a specific building?
Sources
- Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser — folio sales histories across the condominium buildings covered, pulled 4 September 2026. Four years of qualified sales.
- Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser — the public search behind every figure here.
- Josh Stein Realtor neighbourhood guides — the building sets each figure is drawn from.
Josh Stein · Florida real estate sales associate, license SL3057661 · selling South Florida since 2002 · more than $1 billion closed.
Want the turnover and resale record for one building before you commit? Ask me and I will pull the folios.