Murano at Portofino

What is actually in the building

Before any number: this is Murano at Portofino, 1000 South Pointe Drive. It is not Murano Grande, which is a separate building at 400 Alton Road with its own, much smaller assessment history. The two are confused constantly, including in comparables put in front of buyers, and the difference between them is measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars per home. If a figure is quoted to you for “Murano”, establish which one it belongs to before you do anything else.

The county returns 191 folios for 1000 South Pointe Drive. 189 are homes. One is a commercial parking folio and one is a reference folio carrying no dwelling.

The homes are large. They run 1,008 sq ft to 4,784 sq ft, with a median of 2,190 — nearly double the median of the typical building in my index. The mix reflects that: 23 one-bedrooms, 67 two-bedrooms and 99 three-bedrooms. More than half the building is three-bedroom stock, which is rare anywhere in Miami Beach and rarer still in South of Fifth.

Two floorplans dominate the top of the building: 34 homes at 3,365 sq ft and 34 at 2,618, together 36.0% of the stock. The 3,365 plan is where the records get set — every one of the building’s five largest sales is that floorplan.

For 2026 the county assesses the homes between $594,296 and $10,061,409, median $2,304,423.

The price record

Over four years the building is down 3.4% per square foot. Both ends rest on five or more qualified sales, so the figure stands — but on samples this size I would call that flat rather than falling.

The 2025 row deserves a note before anyone reads a collapse into it. Median price that year was $2,900,000 against $5,250,000 in 2023 — but the median home sold in 2025 was 1,445 sq ft, against 2,786 sq ft in 2023, a 48.1% smaller home, on five transactions. That is the mix moving, not the market. The per-foot column, which controls for it, shows $1,727 against $1,986.

The four-year band runs $1,284 to $3,060 per square foot, median $1,918, and there is not a single anomalous sale in it. On a building where individual homes trade for millions, that is a genuinely trustworthy record.

Liquidity: 35 qualified sales against 189 homes, about one home in 22 per year.

What the assessment did to the record — and what it did not

The Real Deal reported on 19 July 2022 that owners here faced a $60 million special assessment, at $66,000 to $322,000 per unit, and on 19 December 2024 that a second phase of $27.2 million had been approved. Those figures are that publication’s reporting, not the county’s — the tax roll records ownership and sales, not association assessments — and I have cited both articles below with their dates so you can read them yourself.

Set against the county’s own numbers, the scale is real. A per-unit charge of $66,000 to $322,000 is 2.9% to 14.0% of the median assessed home in this building. That is not a maintenance bump; at the top of that range it is a material fraction of the asset. And the range is wide, because these charges follow each unit’s share of the common elements. Establish your specific number, in writing, before you make an offer. It is the single most consequential figure at this address and it is not on the tax roll.

Now the part that surprised me. I expected the sale record to show the damage. It does not.

Splitting the four-year record at 19 December 2024, the date the second phase was approved: the 19 qualified sales before it cleared a median $1,961 per square foot; the 16 after it cleared $1,918. That is a difference of 2.2% — well inside what samples of that size produce on their own.

And on 13 May 2026, seventeen months after that approval, a 3,365 sq ft home sold for $10,300,000 — $3,061 per square foot. It is the highest price the building has ever recorded and the highest rate, beating the $9,300,000 paid for the same floorplan in May 2019. A second home on that plan cleared $7,400,000 the following month.

I want to be careful about what that does and does not mean. It does not mean the assessment is costless — every buyer since 2022 has been able to price it in, and a price that already reflects a known liability is not the same as a price unaffected by one. It does not mean your unit’s share will be at the bottom of the range. And thirty-five sales cannot separate a 2% move from noise.

What it does mean is that the public record contains no evidence of the collapse this building’s reputation implies. The trophy floorplans have kept trading, and they have kept setting records. Anyone using the assessment as a lever to argue this building is broken is arguing against the transaction record, and you are now in a position to say so.

Who this building suits, and who it does not

It suits a buyer who wants genuine space in South of Fifth and is willing to do the homework the assessment demands. A median home of 2,190 sq ft and 99 three-bedrooms is a proposition very few buildings on this peninsula can match, and the per-foot record here has been steadier through a well-publicised assessment than most people would guess.

It suits badly a buyer who wants a clean, simple purchase. There is a live assessment history here with two phases, the per-unit range is wide, and the diligence is not optional. If you do not want that conversation, this is not your building.

It also suits badly anyone who cannot absorb an unexpected six-figure charge. That is the honest read of a $66,000 to $322,000 per-unit range with a second phase already approved: it is a building for owners with reserves.

If you are selling here, two things will decide your outcome. First, be ready with your unit’s exact assessment position — what has been levied, what has been paid, what remains — because an informed buyer will ask and an uninformed one will assume the worst end of the published range. Second, do not accept comparables from Murano Grande, and do not accept the argument that the assessment has broken this building’s pricing. The record says the opposite: 19 sales before the December 2024 approval at a median $1,961 per square foot, 16 after at $1,918, and an all-time record of $10,300,000 set in May 2026. That is the evidence, and it is public.

Interested in selling at Murano at Portofino?

Learn more about selling your condo at Murano at Portofino with Josh Stein.

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