Which South Florida city is cheapest to buy into per square foot?

Of the 44 cities in this table, Vero Beach has the lowest condo sale price per square foot, at $144, against $1.81 a month in rent per square foot. Palm Beach is the dearest, at $1,079. Figures computed from BeachesMLS on September 22, 2026.

What is a typical rental yield in South Florida?

We deliberately do not publish a citywide yield, because the homes that sell and the homes that rent in the same city are often different stock: inland, lease-restricted, fifty-five-plus condos dominate many cities' sales while newer coastal units dominate their rentals, and dividing one median by the other produces a figure far above anything an owner actually collects. A yield only means something for a specific property, once its taxes at the reassessed value, its insurance, its association dues and a realistic vacancy are taken off the rent. Ask us for that analysis on any listing and we will run it.

Why is price per square foot better than median price for comparing cities?

Because a median price mixes size with value. A city of large houses and a city of small condos can have the same median and nothing else in common. Per square foot strips the size out and leaves the thing you are actually comparing, which is what the market charges for space. It is still not a like-for-like comparison of quality, age, view or condition, which is why the page reports condos and houses in separate columns rather than one blended number.

Where do these figures come from?

Every figure is computed from BeachesMLS listing, sale and lease data through the Spark API and is never typed by hand. Sale figures are the medians of closings in the previous ninety days; rent figures are the medians of the rentals listed on the day of the run; days to lease is the average time active rentals have been advertised. The full method is on the market data methodology page, and this edition's figures are published as JSON beside the table.

How current is this table?

These figures were computed on September 22, 2026. The table is frozen when it is built so that every city is measured at one moment and the cities can honestly be compared with each other. For today's figures for one city, open that city's housing market report or its rental page.

Can I use these figures?

Yes, with attribution to South Florida Investor Market Index, BreakThru Realty and a link to this page. The JSON behind the table is published so the numbers can be checked.

South Florida Investor Market Index by City

Name: South Florida Investor Market Index
Creator: BreakThru Realty
License: https://www.breakthrurealty.com/terms-of-service

What a square foot costs to buy and what it earns to rent, in each of the 44 cities BreakThru Realty covers. Condos and houses are measured separately, alongside how long a home takes to lease and to sell, which way rents have moved over a year, and how much inventory each market is holding. Computed from BeachesMLS on September 22, 2026.

What the Figures Show

A condo square foot costs most in Palm Beach, at $1,079 to buy against $6.88 a month to rent.
It costs least in Vero Beach, at $144 to buy.
The midpoint across the 44 cities measured is $273.50 a square foot.
Homes lease fastest in Parkland, at 42 days on the market.
Of the 44 cities where a year-over-year comparison was possible, 22 show higher leased rents than a year ago.

Buying and Renting a Square Foot, by City

Ranked by condo sale price per square foot, dearest first. City names link to that city's live rental market.

City	County	Condo, sale per sq ft	Condo, rent per sq ft	House, sale per sq ft	House, rent per sq ft	Days to lease	Days to sell	Rent vs. a year ago	Months of inventory
Palm Beach	Palm Beach	$1,079	$6.88/mo	$3,248	$12.85/mo	112 days	131 days	+12.5%	7.8
Bal Harbour	Miami-Dade	$1,054	$6.06/mo	$3,553	$6.94/mo	204 days	92 days	-8%	15.1
Coconut Grove	Miami-Dade	$968	$7.38/mo	$1,149	$4.41/mo	62 days	118 days	+50.8%	11.1
Key Biscayne	Miami-Dade	$849	$5.34/mo	$1,973	$6.33/mo	135 days	79 days	+8.2%	6.2
Brickell	Miami-Dade	$584	$4.38/mo	$857	$3.35/mo	76 days	124 days	-1.4%	19.5
Miami Beach	Miami-Dade	$552	$4.48/mo	$1,129	$4.86/mo	219 days	110 days	+3.8%	14.0
Coral Gables	Miami-Dade	$539	$3.46/mo	$952	$4.44/mo	72 days	72 days	+6%	5.6
Sunny Isles Beach	Miami-Dade	$438	$3.99/mo	$1,131	$5.23/mo	188 days	136 days	-16.4%	20.7
Pinecrest	Miami-Dade	$432	$2.55/mo	$824	$3.91/mo	99 days	85 days	-2.4%	5.2
South Miami	Miami-Dade	$401	$3.76/mo	$725	$3.30/mo	116 days	75 days	0%	5.1
Lauderdale-by-the-Sea	Broward	$398	$3.34/mo	$486	$3.89/mo	95 days	140 days	+8.7%	9.9
Fort Lauderdale	Broward	$382	$2.77/mo	$435	$2.88/mo	80 days	112 days	-2.1%	11.5
Miami	Miami-Dade	$360	$3.70/mo	$415	$2.35/mo	145 days	96 days	-6.9%	13.0
Jensen Beach	Martin	$359	$2.85/mo	$317	$2.02/mo	277 days	121 days	+5.9%	9.3
Doral	Miami-Dade	$345	$2.60/mo	$426	$2.32/mo	62 days	95 days	0%	7.8
Jupiter	Palm Beach	$339	$3.50/mo	$474	$2.82/mo	123 days	77 days	0%	4.4
Parkland	Broward	$324	$2.87/mo	$379	$2.50/mo	42 days	41 days	+12.1%	2.5
Aventura	Miami-Dade	$321	$2.76/mo	$642	$2.93/mo	122 days	120 days	+3.6%	17.6
Weston	Broward	$295	$2.17/mo	$416	$2.47/mo	53 days	65 days	+3.7%	4.2
North Palm Beach	Palm Beach	$294	$2.56/mo	$741	$3.38/mo	90 days	96 days	-17.2%	11.0
Palm Beach Gardens	Palm Beach	$284	$2.55/mo	$428	$2.64/mo	104 days	74 days	+7.5%	3.4
Boca Raton	Palm Beach	$279	$2.45/mo	$456	$2.87/mo	73 days	73 days	+4.5%	6.2
Wellington	Palm Beach	$268	$2.99/mo	$316	$2.72/mo	89 days	67 days	-0.7%	5.1
Hutchinson Island	St. Lucie	$266	$2.67/mo	$478	$2.27/mo	201 days	154 days	-31%	9.8
Hollywood	Broward	$250	$2.90/mo	$391	$2.66/mo	233 days	99 days	-3.8%	13.7
Pompano Beach	Broward	$238	$2.38/mo	$373	$2.60/mo	90 days	102 days	0%	10.2
Plantation	Broward	$226	$2.16/mo	$335	$2.29/mo	52 days	78 days	-4.9%	7.3
Davie	Broward	$222	$2.11/mo	$396	$2.21/mo	65 days	57 days	-6.9%	6.7
Coral Springs	Broward	$221	$2.11/mo	$318	$2.12/mo	53 days	74 days	0%	11.2
West Palm Beach	Palm Beach	$205	$2.27/mo	$334	$2.29/mo	72 days	93 days	+0.7%	8.1
Hobe Sound	Martin	$202	$1.97/mo	$310	$2.44/mo	92 days	72 days	-9.7%	3.4
Oakland Park	Broward	$201	$2.17/mo	$396	$2.45/mo	55 days	102 days	-2.7%	9.5
Palm City	Martin	$200	$5.25/mo	$302	$2.04/mo	81 days	64 days	+12.4%	4.5
Stuart	Martin	$196	$2.41/mo	$314	$2.09/mo	218 days	101 days	-3.9%	7.6
Deerfield Beach	Broward	$194	$2.42/mo	$315	$2.25/mo	58 days	109 days	+2.4%	8.4
Boynton Beach	Palm Beach	$193	$2.26/mo	$284	$2.17/mo	81 days	87 days	+1.8%	7.3
Fort Pierce	St. Lucie	$192	$2.09/mo	$201	$1.67/mo	75 days	79 days	+3.4%	7.5
Pembroke Pines	Broward	$190	$2.09/mo	$341	$2.21/mo	76 days	90 days	-2.4%	8.0
Port St. Lucie	St. Lucie	$188	$1.90/mo	$223	$1.63/mo	66 days	73 days	+1.9%	4.6
Delray Beach	Palm Beach	$183	$2.22/mo	$400	$2.99/mo	85 days	85 days	+4.5%	7.0
Lighthouse Point	Broward	$183	$2.41/mo	$652	$2.94/mo	78 days	85 days	+36.2%	4.4
Lake Worth Beach	Palm Beach	$168	$2.48/mo	$394	$2.69/mo	64 days	57 days	+4.6%	4.4
Sebastian	Indian River	$151	$2.08/mo	$232	$1.62/mo	53 days	70 days	-11.2%	3.5
Vero Beach	Indian River	$144	$1.81/mo	$232	$1.80/mo	67 days	76 days	+3.2%	5.5

Source: BeachesMLS via the Spark API, computed September 22, 2026. Medians, not averages. No yield is derived: see below. Not an appraisal.

Why There Is No Rental Yield Column

The table an investor expects here ranks cities by gross rental yield, a year of median rent over the median sold price. We built exactly that, measured it against the live feed, and did not publish it, because in South Florida the two medians describe different homes. The condos that sell in a city like Delray Beach are largely the older, lease-restricted, fifty-five-plus buildings inland; the condos that rent are newer and closer to the water. Dividing one by the other produced double-digit yields for markets whose real gross returns sit far below that, and doing the same arithmetic per square foot fails identically, because the mismatch is in what kind of home each population is rather than how large it is. Every column here is one population measured on its own.

How to Read Price and Rent Per Square Foot

Per square foot is the only honest way to compare a market with a bigger average home against one with a smaller one. Read the two columns together: a city where the sale figure is high and the rent figure is not has buyers paying for something other than income, usually the water, the school zone or the scarcity of land, and a city where they move together is one where tenants are setting the price. Palm Beach leads the sale column, which tells you where capital is concentrated, not where a rent cheque goes furthest. Neither column is a return: what an owner keeps depends on the taxes, which reassess to market value when a property changes hands, on wind and flood insurance, on association dues and assessments, and on how long the home sits empty between tenants.

Days to Lease and Days to Sell

These two columns are the ones that decide whether a plan survives contact with the market. Days to lease is how long the average active rental has been advertised, and it sets the vacancy you should budget for between tenants. Days to sell is the average for homes that closed in the previous ninety days, and it sets how long an exit takes once you decide to take one. A market that leases quickly and sells slowly rewards holding; one that sells quickly and leases slowly rewards trading. Both figures move with the season here, so read them against the time of year rather than as a constant.

Months of Inventory

Months of inventory is how long the homes currently for sale would take to clear at the pace of the last ninety days. It is the plainest measure of who holds the advantage: a low figure means buyers are competing with each other, and a high one means sellers are. It is also the figure most worth watching over time rather than reading once, which is why every city page carries the same number live and the monthly editions keep a permanent record of it.

Using These Figures

South Florida Investor Market Index figures may be quoted or reproduced with attribution to South Florida Investor Market Index, BreakThru Realty, and a link to this page. The underlying figures are published as JSON beside the table so they can be checked rather than taken on trust. If you need a cut we do not publish here — a neighbourhood, a single building, a bedroom count, or a yield computed properly on paired sale and rental stock within one building — ask and we will run it.

How These Figures Are Produced

Source: BeachesMLS via the Spark API, computed September 22, 2026.
Coverage: 44 cities across Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties.
Sale per square foot: the median price per square foot of closings in the previous ninety days, split into single-family homes and condos or townhomes.
Rent per square foot: the median monthly rent per square foot of active residential leases, split into houses and townhomes, and condos and apartments.
Days to lease: the average days on market of active rentals. Days to sell: the average for homes closed in the previous ninety days.
Months of inventory: active listings divided by the monthly pace of closings over the previous ninety days.
Excluded: seasonal, weekly and one-time lease quotes; barns, boat slips, parking and storage; and rents outside $300 to $100,000 a month.
No yield or capitalization rate is published, for the reason given on this page. Not an appraisal and not investment advice.

Download these figures (JSON) · Market data methodology · BreakThru Realty Research

Investor Market Index: Questions

Which South Florida city is cheapest to buy into per square foot?: Of the 44 cities in this table, Vero Beach has the lowest condo sale price per square foot, at $144, against $1.81 a month in rent per square foot. Palm Beach is the dearest, at $1,079. Figures computed from BeachesMLS on September 22, 2026.
What is a typical rental yield in South Florida?: We deliberately do not publish a citywide yield, because the homes that sell and the homes that rent in the same city are often different stock: inland, lease-restricted, fifty-five-plus condos dominate many cities' sales while newer coastal units dominate their rentals, and dividing one median by the other produces a figure far above anything an owner actually collects. A yield only means something for a specific property, once its taxes at the reassessed value, its insurance, its association dues and a realistic vacancy are taken off the rent. Ask us for that analysis on any listing and we will run it.
Why is price per square foot better than median price for comparing cities?: Because a median price mixes size with value. A city of large houses and a city of small condos can have the same median and nothing else in common. Per square foot strips the size out and leaves the thing you are actually comparing, which is what the market charges for space. It is still not a like-for-like comparison of quality, age, view or condition, which is why the page reports condos and houses in separate columns rather than one blended number.
Where do these figures come from?: Every figure is computed from BeachesMLS listing, sale and lease data through the Spark API and is never typed by hand. Sale figures are the medians of closings in the previous ninety days; rent figures are the medians of the rentals listed on the day of the run; days to lease is the average time active rentals have been advertised. The full method is on the market data methodology page, and this edition's figures are published as JSON beside the table.
How current is this table?: These figures were computed on September 22, 2026. The table is frozen when it is built so that every city is measured at one moment and the cities can honestly be compared with each other. For today's figures for one city, open that city's housing market report or its rental page.
Can I use these figures?: Yes, with attribution to South Florida Investor Market Index, BreakThru Realty and a link to this page. The JSON behind the table is published so the numbers can be checked.