Little Havana and west Miami
West of the river, on the flat inland ground — the cheapest housing inside the city limits, the lowest ownership rate, and the neighborhood most people picture when they picture Miami.
One guide west of the river, on ground that is flat, inland and — by the standards of this city — high enough not to be the first thing to flood. Little Havana is the best known: Southwest 8th Street, the Cuban exile community that settled here from 1959 onward, and a housing stock of 1920s bungalows and small pre-war apartment buildings that has stayed the cheapest inside the city limits. Beyond it, West Flagler and Flagami run out toward the county line in a grid of single-storey houses.
This is where the city's affordability and its preservation arguments meet head on. Little Havana has the lowest home-ownership rate of any part of Miami, which means most of the people who give the neighborhood its character do not own the buildings they are in; it was named a National Treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2017, and the fight over upzoning in East Little Havana has been running since. Two practical checks. Whether the property is in a designated historic district or has any local protection, because that constrains what you can do to it. And the age and construction of the roof and windows — most of this stock predates the 1994 wind code, and an insurer will price that difference more sharply than any figure on this site.
