Renting vs buying in Miami
Miami is the market on this site where the arithmetic is least of the story: the tax rate takes a paragraph to explain, insurance is the second-largest line after the mortgage, flood cover is a separate policy no calculator here includes, and the typical home fell in value last year. Here is the arithmetic anyway — and then, carefully, the part it misses.
The short answer
The typical home in the City of Miami was worth $582,621 in June 2026, down 0.7% on the year, and a three-bedroom rents for about $3,725 a month. Run those against each other at the 2% appreciation the calculator opens with and buying looks reasonable. Run them at zero, which is closer to what this market has actually done, and it does not — which is the single most useful thing this page can tell you.
The tax is not the problem; the insurance is. A homesteaded buyer pays about 1.83% of the price, or $10,673 a year — high by national standards but unremarkable for Florida, and Florida has no state income tax to set against it. Homeowners insurance is modelled here at $6,060 a year, roughly three times what the Charlotte pages on this site carry, and it does not cover flood. In a city with a mean elevation of six feet, that second policy is the line item that decides affordability, and it is priced off an elevation certificate rather than a postcode.
Most of what is for sale here is a condominium, which makes the fee input below the one to take seriously. Since Florida's 2022 structural reserve law an association may no longer waive reserve funding, and Miami-Dade holds more of the affected stock than anywhere in the state. The reserve study and the last two years of board minutes will tell you more about the true cost of a Miami purchase than every number on this page put together.
The calculator opens with real City of Miami figures and every one is editable. Three things specific to this market: the tax rate is the homesteaded rate a buyer actually pays, not the millage; the condominium fee defaults to zero, which is right for a house and wrong for most of the market; and no flood premium is included anywhere. All three are explained in the questions below.
Your situation
Compare like for like — the rent on somewhere you would actually be willing to live, not the cheapest listing in the city. Drop the price to around $300,000 and the rent to a one-bedroom figure to compare apartments instead, and put the condo fee in under Assumptions.
20.0% down. The renter starts with this plus closing costs — $121,428 — invested instead.
The single biggest lever. Buying costs a lot to enter and a lot to exit, and only time amortizes that away.
Assumptions — every one of them editable
Miami's typical value fell 0.7% over the year to June 2026, and the county's condominium market is still absorbing the 2022 reserve legislation — Aventura, almost entirely condominium, fell 7.9%. Try zero, and try negative.
What the renter earns on the down payment they never spent. This is the comparison's hidden lever — a renter who spends it instead of investing it does far worse than this model shows.
Florida forbids its counties and cities from controlling rents at all. The statute allowed a narrow exception — a declared housing emergency, a specific finding, and a referendum — and the legislature closed even that in 2023. There is no cap, no guideline and no prospect of one, so any rent-growth figure you enter here is a forecast rather than a legal ceiling.
Roofs, furnaces, fences, hail. Averaged out it is a real cost even in the years nothing breaks.
Zero is right for a single-family house and wrong for most of what is for sale inside the city limits. $850 a month is a reasonable middle for a building with funded structural reserves; an older mid-rise facing its first milestone inspection can be far more, and can add a special assessment on top.
Commission and legal fees, charged against the price you eventually sell at. The owner's net worth below is after this comes off.
Net worth, side by side
The buyer's line is home value minus what is still owed minus the cost of selling, plus anything they invested in months when owning was cheaper. The renter's line is one portfolio: the down payment and closing costs they never spent, plus the monthly difference whenever renting is cheaper.
Show the year-by-year figures
| Year | Owner | Renter | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $96,970 | $144,531 | −$47,561 |
| 2 | $113,521 | $168,404 | −$54,883 |
| 3 | $130,666 | $192,014 | −$61,348 |
| 4 | $148,435 | $216,043 | −$67,608 |
| 5 | $166,860 | $240,868 | −$74,008 |
| 6 | $185,974 | $266,523 | −$80,549 |
| 7 | $205,814 | $293,042 | −$87,227 |
| 8 | $226,418 | $320,460 | −$94,042 |
| 9 | $247,825 | $348,815 | −$100,990 |
| 10 | $270,079 | $378,147 | −$108,068 |
| 11 | $293,226 | $408,497 | −$115,271 |
| 12 | $317,315 | $439,908 | −$122,593 |
| 13 | $342,396 | $472,425 | −$130,029 |
| 14 | $368,526 | $506,096 | −$137,570 |
| 15 | $395,763 | $540,969 | −$145,207 |
| 16 | $424,168 | $577,098 | −$152,930 |
| 17 | $453,809 | $614,536 | −$160,727 |
| 18 | $484,756 | $653,340 | −$168,584 |
| 19 | $517,084 | $693,570 | −$176,486 |
| 20 | $550,873 | $735,289 | −$184,416 |
| 21 | $586,209 | $778,561 | −$192,353 |
| 22 | $623,182 | $823,457 | −$200,275 |
| 23 | $661,888 | $870,046 | −$208,158 |
| 24 | $702,432 | $918,406 | −$215,974 |
| 25 | $744,923 | $968,615 | −$223,692 |
| 26 | $789,478 | $1,020,755 | −$231,277 |
| 27 | $836,221 | $1,074,914 | −$238,693 |
| 28 | $885,287 | $1,131,182 | −$245,896 |
| 29 | $936,816 | $1,189,656 | −$252,840 |
| 30 | $990,962 | $1,250,437 | −$259,475 |
- The rate is fixed for the life of the loan, so there is no renewal to model — but nothing here credits you for refinancing into a lower one either.
- Mortgage insurance of $117 a month is charged to the owner until month 27, when the lender has to drop it, and then the owner's outlay falls by that much.
- Neither household is credited with tax on their investments, and the buyer's gain on a principal residence is tax-free while the renter's portfolio may not be.
Questions people actually ask
Is it worth buying in Miami right now?
The typical home in the City of Miami is worth about $582,621 and a three-bedroom rents for roughly $3,725 a month. At 6.67% on a 30-year fixed loan with 20% down the mortgage alone is about $2,998 a month; add $889 in property tax and $505 in homeowners insurance and the owner's month is nearer $4,390 before a single condominium fee or a dollar of flood cover. The honest complication is that Miami's typical value fell 0.7% over the year to June 2026. The 2% appreciation this calculator opens with is a long-run figure, not a description of this market — set it to zero and see what the answer looks like, because that is a fairer starting point for Miami in 2026.
Why is the tax rate here 1.83% when Miami is charged 19.7342 mills?
Because of Florida's homestead exemption, not because of any assessment lag. Florida assesses at full market value and a purchase resets the assessment to what you paid, so unlike Ontario or North Carolina there is no frozen base year to correct for. What there is instead is an exemption: $25,000 of taxable value comes off for every taxing authority, and a second $25,000 comes off for all of them except the school board, which levies 6.4990 of the total. Run that against a $582,621 house and the bill is about $10,673, which is 1.83% of the price rather than the 1.97% the millage implies. The exemption is not automatic — you file for it with the county property appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy, and forgetting is a common and expensive mistake.
Why is the seller's tax bill so much lower than the figure here?
Save Our Homes. A homesteaded property's assessed value may rise no more than 3% a year — or the change in the consumer price index, whichever is lower — for as long as the same owner keeps the exemption, and it resets to full market value the January after a sale. A neighbour who bought in 2012 may be paying a third of what you will on an identical house. If you already own a Florida homestead you can port up to $500,000 of the accrued benefit to the next one, which is worth more than almost any negotiation on the price. And note the corollary in a falling market: your assessment resets to what you paid, so buying after a decline locks in a lower base than the people around you have.
What are the closing costs, and why do they get bigger if I put less down?
Florida taxes the loan as well as the house, and that is unusual. The documentary stamp on the deed — 60 cents per $100 in Miami-Dade, the only county in the state that differs, plus a 45-cent surtax a single-family dwelling escapes and a condominium does not — is the seller's by convention. What is yours is a second documentary stamp on the promissory note at 0.35% and a non-recurring intangible tax on the mortgage at 0.2%. On a $466,097 loan that is $2,564, and because it is charged on the borrowing rather than the price it rises as your down payment falls. With a settlement fee around $850, an owner's title policy, an inspection at about $700 — in Florida that is really three reports, the general one plus wind mitigation and four-point, and the insurer wants the last two before quoting — and recording, the buyer's side comes to roughly $4,904 before lender fees.
How long do I have to stay for buying to beat renting?
Getting in is about $4,904 and getting out is roughly 6.1% — commission plus the seller's deed stamp — or about $35,540 on this house, and more if you are selling a condominium, which pays the surtax a house does not. The carrying cost is $16,733 a year in tax and insurance that a renter does not pay, before any association fee or flood policy. But the variable that decides the crossover here is appreciation, and this market fell last year. Run it at zero and at −2% as well as at 2%; if the answer flips between them, the honest conclusion is that nobody knows, not that buying wins.
The calculator opens with a $0 condominium fee. Is that realistic in Miami?
For a house, yes. For most of what is actually for sale inside the city limits, no — Miami's housing stock is majority condominium, and this is the input most likely to be wrong for you. An $850-a-month fee is a reasonable middle for a building that has funded its structural reserves; an older mid-rise facing its first funded reserve study can be far more, and can hand you a five- or six-figure special assessment on top. Since Florida's 2022 law an association may no longer vote to waive reserve funding, and buildings over three storeys and thirty years old must pass a milestone inspection. Read the reserve study and the last two years of board minutes before you read anything on this page.
Does this include flood insurance?
No, and that omission is the point rather than an oversight. The $505 a month here is homeowners insurance, which does not cover flood anywhere in the United States; flood is a separate policy, written through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private carrier, and priced off the elevation certificate rather than the address. Miami has a mean elevation of about six feet, much of Brickell, Edgewater and the Grove waterfront sits in a mapped special flood hazard area, and a lender will require the policy where FEMA maps say so. Get a quote on the specific property before you commit to anything: this is the line item that most often turns an affordable purchase into an unaffordable one in South Florida.
Does Florida have rent control?
No, and Miami is not permitted to introduce it. Florida forbids its counties and cities from controlling rents at all. The statute allowed a narrow exception — a declared housing emergency, a specific finding, and a referendum — and the legislature closed even that in 2023. There is no cap, no guideline and no prospect of one, so any rent-growth figure you enter here is a forecast rather than a legal ceiling. That cuts both ways for the decision on this page. Miami rents rose steeply in the early 2020s with no statutory brake and have flattened since as supply arrived — but a renter here has no legal floor under them either, so the rent-growth figure in the calculator is a forecast rather than a ceiling.
Which Miami are we talking about?
The City of Miami: 36 square miles, about 450,000 people, and the municipality whose millage and Zillow index every figure on this page describes. It is not Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Hialeah, Doral or Key Biscayne — those are separate cities with their own councils, their own tax rates and their own rows on this site's Miami-Dade comparison. It is also not Kendall, Westchester or The Hammocks, which are unincorporated county with no municipal government at all, and it is not the 6.1-million-person metro that most national coverage means. If the address you are looking at is not inside the city limits, the tax figure here is the wrong one for it.
Which figures here are estimates
The prices, rents and millage above come from published sources, each one listed below with the period it describes, and the tax figure is derived from that millage through Florida's own exemption rules. These do not:
- The association fee, at $850 a month — no authority publishes a Miami average, and a building that has funded its structural reserves and one that has not are not comparable
- Home insurance at $505 a month, which is a mainland Miami-Dade average for a single-family policy and excludes flood entirely
- The bedroom split of the rent figure, which applies the same 0.86 / 1.00 / 1.24 ratios as the four Florida metro layers to a single all-homes index
- The utilities an owner pays over a renter, at $160 a month
- Maintenance at 1% of the home's value a year
- Every forward-looking rate: appreciation, rent growth, cost inflation and the return on the invested difference
- The private mortgage insurance rate, which is priced per borrower by credit score rather than published as a schedule
- Both the insurance and the tax rate as they apply to any particular address — these are figures for the municipality, and the spread inside it is the largest of any city on this site
If you want the payment side on its own — the biweekly plan, prepayments, the month mortgage insurance stops and the two taxes Florida charges on the loan — the mortgage calculator covers it in more detail. To work out where rather than whether, start with the neighborhood guides, or compare the city against the other twenty-three municipalities of Miami-Dade.
Sources
- Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), all homes, mid-tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted — city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value for the 35th to 65th percentile of each municipality's market, computed on one method across all twenty-four, The same series and month the Charlotte, Orlando and Palm Beach pages use, so all four American layers can be read against each other, Year-over-year change to June 2026
- Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes, smoothed — city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: Asking rents across the whole rental stock for the twenty-two municipalities Zillow indexes
- Table 1 — Comparison of Taxes Levied, county and municipal governments, fiscal years 2024-25 and 2025-26: Miami-Dade · Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight · retrieved Supports: The adopted 2025-26 millage rate for Miami-Dade County and every municipality in it, The county's own components: countywide 4.5740, Fire/Rescue 2.3965, Library 0.2812 and the Unincorporated Municipal Service Area at 1.9090, Municipal rates from Sunny Isles Beach's 1.7000 to Biscayne Park's 9.3000
- 2025 millage rates and taxing authorities, Miami-Dade County · Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: A published combined rate for unincorporated Miami-Dade of 16.9317 mills, Its components: school district 6.4990, countywide 5.7361, regional water districts 0.3911, Fire Rescue 2.3965 and UMSA 1.9090 — which this layer's stack reproduces exactly
- About Fire Rescue · Miami-Dade Fire Rescue · retrieved Supports: The Fire Rescue district covering the unincorporated county and twenty-nine municipalities, Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Hialeah and Key Biscayne operating their own fire departments and lying outside the district
- Documentary stamp tax · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A Miami-Dade deed rate of 60 cents per $100 rather than the 70 cents charged in every other county, A Miami-Dade surtax of 45 cents per $100, not due on a document transferring only a single-family dwelling, 35 cents per $100 on a promissory note, statewide
- Annual estimates of the resident population for incorporated places, 2020 to 2024 · United States Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program · retrieved Supports: 2020 census counts and 2024 estimates for each municipality, Miami at 487,014 and Hialeah at 235,388; Golden Beach at 1,034
- Average cost of home insurance in Florida, 2026 · MoneyGeek · retrieved Supports: A Miami-Dade County average of about $6,045 a year — below Palm Beach County's $6,614, A Florida average of about $3,815 and a national average of about $2,543
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey · Freddie Mac · retrieved Supports: 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 6.67%
- Documentary stamp tax · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: 70 cents per $100 on a deed, in every county except Miami-Dade, which charges 60 cents plus a 45-cent surtax, 35 cents per $100 on a promissory note or other written obligation to pay money
- Governmental leasehold intangible personal property tax and the non-recurring intangible tax on mortgages · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A non-recurring intangible tax of 2 mills — 0.2% — on the obligation secured by a mortgage on Florida real property
- Property tax exemptions and additional benefits · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A $25,000 homestead exemption applying to all taxing authorities and a second $25,000 applying to all but the school district, The Save Our Homes assessment limitation of 3% or the change in CPI, whichever is lower, Portability of up to $500,000 of accrued Save Our Homes benefit to a new homestead, The 1 March filing deadline
- Chapter 2023-17, Laws of Florida — preemption of rent control · The Florida Senate · retrieved Supports: The repeal of the referendum exception that had allowed a local rent control ordinance in a declared housing emergency
These are estimates built from published figures, not a lender quote, a pre-approval or financial advice. Rates, premiums and provincial rules change; confirm anything you plan to act on with a mortgage professional and read the sourcing methodology.