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Buying Coral Gables Key Biscayne Luxury Real Estate Market Summary Miami Beach Selling

South Florida Luxury Home Buyers Have Plenty of Buying Opportunities

According to Forbes’ America’s Most Expensive ZIP Codes, South Florida luxury real estate is not faring too badly, compared with states like California.  Granted, California has more expensive ZIPS according to the statistics used by Forbes and almost all of those ZIP codes show a decrease in price, but still, only four South Florida ZIPs made the top 500 list and only one, Fisher Island’s 33109 made the top 100 list.

Others on the list included Key Biscayne 33149 at number 199, Coral Gables 33146 at number 363 and Miami Beach 33154, which includes Indian Creek Village, Bay Harbor Islands, Bal Harbour, and Surfside, at number 494.

These South Florida cities have a high inventory, which will put a downward pressure on prices.  The only city that did not see a decrease in it’s median home price was Coral Gables.

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Buying Luxury Real Estate Selling

Which Florida Cities Will Rank As Most Expensive in 2009?

Last year, Forbes’ 500 most expensive zip codes list included 11 in Florida, including the number 1 most expensive zip, 33109 in Miami Beach, with a median sales price of $3,850,000!  Miami Beach also ranked #369 with zip code 33154 which had a median home price of $745,900.  The list was based on sales between July of 2007 and June 2008, so it will be interesting to see what changes this year’s list holds for Florida cities.  Stay tuned, the list should be out in the next couple of months and I will post the results with a more detailed analysis.

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Buying Coral Gables Luxury Real Estate Selling

Luxury Real Estate – Coral Gables in the Top 5 of Fastest Moving Luxury Neighborhoods

A recent Forbes article rated Coral Gables, FL as one of the fastest moving luxury neighborhoods in terms of days on gables-white-house2market.  Forbes’ rating system, which is based on the 500 most expensive zip codes,  is better than other housing indexes which cover too broad of an area to give an accurate picture of what is happening in a specific neighborhood,  but their assessment also has some flaws.  For example,  for Coral Gables, which was rated number 5 by Forbes, the zip code they used was 33146.  Don’t get me wrong, 33146 is an expensive zip code, but Coral Gables, which extends significantly further South from the better known business and restaurant district which is their formal downtown, has 7 zip codes!  Based on an MLS search today, there were 69 Active listings ranging in price from $13.5 million down to $395,000 in the 33146 zip code.  14 of those listings were waterfront.  However, there were a total of 261 Active MLS listings in the Gables, South of US 1.  The most expensive listing was $49.5 million and was in the 33143 zip code, which also had higher closed sales prices.  Having Forbes rate Coral Gables the 5th fastest moving luxury market, with an average of 66 days for the top 10 zips vs 115 days average for the whole 500 index,  is great news for Coral Gables, but it doesn’t tell the story for luxury real estate in the Gables.  There were several zips and luxury price ranges which had significantly longer days on market.  When pricing your luxury home for sale or making an offer on your purchase of one, make sure you check with a local luxury expert.