Miami Beach is now America's most unequal housing market

By Fusion Staff  |  December 10, 2015 | 3:39pm
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Miami Beach is home to Pitbull, Ricky Martin, fish allegedly swimming in the street, and according to real estate site Redfin, America’s most unequal housing market.

Their report compares the average price of the top-5% of homes with the bottom-95%. The average price for a Miami Beach luxury home was $6.32 million, more than 12-times the average price for the rest of the city.

It’s the second quarter in which the city of 90,000 earned the “most unequal” title. In fact, nine of the 20 most unequal cities were in south Florida, “where the luxury real estate market isn’t driven by the local economy,” Redfin said. “The median income in Miami-Dade County is only $43,000, and there’s no high-paying oil or tech industry.”

For the past few years, a surge in foreign buyers have driven prices skyward on Miami Beach, although the trend has subsided recently as the U.S. dollar has strengthened, meaning international buyers can’t get as much for their money.

Here’s Redfin’s unequal cities chart. Among cities with more than one million people, Atlanta was the most unequal.

Rob covers business, economics and the environment for Fusion. He previously worked at Business Insider. He grew up in Chicago.

 
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