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Happy Saturday Highest & Best! Here’s a rundown of the Florida real estate week:

💰Fort Lauderdale home prices set a record

📉 …While prices are falling on Florida’s Gulf Coast

🔨 New Miami office building heads to bankruptcy auction next month

🙃 Miami developers are flipping their plans

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Let’s get to it!

Fort Lauderdale Home Prices Just Set a Record

Miami and West Palm Beach have been the post-pandemic stars of Florida real estate—seemingly grabbing all headlines, hedge funds, and high-rises.

Fort Lauderdale is quietly catching up.

📈 In the first quarter, median home prices in the city hit a new record: $775,000, up 12.3% year-over-year, per appraiser Miller Samuel and brokerage Douglas Elliman.

📦 That surge came even as listings jumped 35% and overall sales slipped—suggesting demand is climbing despite the growing supply.

🏗️ Once seen as a “laggard” in South Florida’s real estate constellation, Fort Lauderdale is now being viewed as both a new luxury home frontier AND a more affordable alternative to Miami, says Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel.

🚆 The Brightline doesn’t hurt either, making Fort Lauderdale feel like a commutable suburb for those anchored to Miami or West Palm work hubs.

“This location is re-setting as an attractive option for people who are priced out of the market to the north and the south,” Miller said in an interview.

💰 Even with the new record, Fort Lauderdale’s $775K median for a single-family home is still a bargain compared to Miami Beach ($3.7 million median), Coral Gables ($2.55 million) or Boca Raton ($995,000)

“There is a quest for greater affordability,” Miller said.

By the numbers:

📦 67,418 people left Miami-Dade County in the year through July 2024—many in search of affordability, per U.S. Census data.
🏙️ Downtown Fort Lauderdale’s population has grown 38% since 2020, and is now nearing 27,000 residents, according to the Downtown Development Authority.
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Families with kids downtown are up 83% since 2018.
💼 Downtown Fort Lauderdale jobs hit 68,000 this year, up 3,000 from 2023.
🚤 And yes, luxury projects are in the works—some starting at over $4 million and promising yacht valets and Monaco-style marinas.

“The headlights were focused on markets like Miami and Boca and the tweener market didn’t get the attention,” Miller said. “We’re starting to see that change.“

⏪ Catch up on recent Highest & Best issues:

• Pitches, Pit Stops & Penthouses, May 3, 2025

• Leasing & Leo, April 13, 2025

• Markdown Madness, April 6, 2025

• Boca’s Big Bet, March 29, 2025

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🌴 Meanwhile: Prices are Falling on Florida’s Gulf Coast

Fort Lauderdale may be riding high, but across the state, not every market is basking in the same glow.

On Florida’s Gulf Coast, the mood is more subdued, as a mix of slowing sales, surging inventory, and the lingering effects of three major hurricanes in under three years has cast some shadow over the housing market.

🏚️ In St. Petersburg, the median sales price dipped 3.8% in Q1 to $435,000. That may have something to do with the 78% surge in listings since last year, according to Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman.

🌊 Sarasota saw prices slide 4.5% to $525,000.

🌀 Lee County—home to Fort Myers and where Hurricane Ian made a direct hit in 2022—posted a 5.2% price drop to $398,000.

📉 Up north, the Jacksonville metro saw a softening too, with prices falling 2.2% in April over a year earlier, according to Redfin.

🔨 Auction Date Arrives for The Gateway at Wynwood

If buying a new Miami office building at auction was on your 2025 Bingo card, clear your calendar at the end of next month.

A U.S. Bankruptcy Court has scheduled the sale of The Gateway at Wynwood, the 14-story mixed-use tower at 2916 N. Miami Ave., for 3:00 p.m. ET on June 30.

The Gateway—delivered in 2021 with 195,000 square feet of offices, 25,000 square feet of retail, and 490 parking spots—is being sold to help cover a $111.9 million debt after owner R&B Realty Group defaulted on its loan last year.

The core issue? The building isn’t fully leased, and court filings say it would take another $10 million in tenant improvements and commissions to get there. Efforts to refinance or attract new capital didn’t pan out.

The auction includes the main Gateway property and a nearby parcel at 2830 N. Miami Ave., home to a Chase Bank branch. Both will be sold “as-is,” with existing commercial leases intact but otherwise free of liens and claims, according to filings in New York bankruptcy court.

As the debtors put it in legal papers: “The status quo is no longer acceptable.”

🔄 Why Build When You Can Flip the Blueprint?

Quite a few developers in the Miami region are flipping ready-to-build sites for a premium—skipping the shovels, dodging the risk, and going straight for the cash.

With still-high interest rates, soaring insurance costs, climbing construction tabs, and U.S. tariff whimsy, the better money might be in their land entitlements, not the projects these developers once sought to build.

Here are three attempted flips of late:

🔁 Sears-to-$100 million? Miami Heat co-owner Raanan Katz took a former Sears, added approval for 1,000 apartments, sprinkled in some tax perks and --voila! -- it’s now a $100M+ land listing.

Formerly home to a 1950s Sears, the site 8.1-acre site at 3655 SW 22nd St. comes with approvals to build 1,050 apartments, 50,000 square feet of retail and tax breaks under the state’s Live Local Act, the Real Deal reported. The project won city approval just last year.

🎨 “Wynwood Easel,” Now Framed for Sale : In Wynwood, Scott Robins and Philip Levine are asking $26 million for a surface parking lot entitled for a five-story development of up to 203 units (apartments, condos, hotel, take your pick) plus retail space and a rooftop pool. The developers assembled the site between 2012 and 2015, (buying parcels for a combined $1.6 million), and more recently locked in city approvals. Their broker told the Real Deal they had always planned to sell after getting the land entitled.

🏘️ Legacy Villas, Offloaded: Near Florida City, Legacy Residential Group and CD Group just sold a 50-acre farmland site for $31.6 million, walking away from their plan to build 309 rental townhouses. The project was fully approved, including some units dedicated to workforce housing. The buyer was Boston’s Freehold Capital Management.

That’s it for today!

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