Priciest neighborhood in US is now Miami as NYC home values drop

Miami’s Star Island is now the nation’s most expensive neighborhood while the number of New York City areas where buying a home would set you back at least $1 million is on the decline, according to a new survey.

The average price of a single family home on Star Island, the man-made enclave off the coast of Miami Beach that is home to celebrities including Shaquille O’Neal, Gloria Estefan, and Rosie O’Donnell, was valued at an eye-popping $40.2 million as of December, according to Zillow.

That’s a 71% increase from the average price of $23.5 million for a home on the island just three years ago, according to the study, which was earlier cited by Bloomberg News.

Ken Griffin, the hedge fund billionaire who runs Citadel, recently purchased five properties on the island for a combined $194 million — pushing Star Island to the top of Zillow’s rankings for priciest neighborhood.

Star Island is now four times as expensive as Beverly Hills Gateway in Beverly Hills, Calif. and more than twice as expensive as the second-priciest neighborhood in the country — the Port Royal section of Naples, Fla., according to Zillow.

Overall, the Miami metropolitan area has seen a whopping 160% increase in the number of million-dollar zip codes — from just 10 in Dec. 2019 to 26 as of December of last year, according to Realtor.com.

New York City, meanwhile, has seen a decline in its share of neighborhoods where the median listed price of a home is at least $1 million.

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Marble Hill, Manhattan’s northern-most neighborhood and the only part of the borough which is physically attached to the Bronx, has seen typical home prices decline from $1.81 million in 2019 to $1.24 million — a 32% drop, according to Zillow.

A home in Washington Heights which cost $1.39 million three years ago saw its value drop by 20% to $1.12 million as of this past December, the survey by Zillow found.

Home-hunters looking for a property on Manhattan’s Upper East Side would have had to pay $8.31 million three years ago. As of December, that figure dropped by 9% to $7.58 million.

Price neighborhoods in San Francisco, including Polk Gulch, Mission Dolores, Lower Haight, and South of Market, also saw double-digit percentage declines in home values over the course of the past three years, according to Zillow.

New York and San Francisco have both been plagued in recent years by a decline in the quality of life that local residents have blamed on surging crime rates, rampant homelessness, high taxation, and increasingly unaffordable cost of living.

Florida, Texas, and other Sun Belt states have been the beneficiaries of a significant gain in inflow migration in recent years thanks to overall lower cost of living, warmer weather, more lax COVID restrictions, and a friendlier business environment.

Federal government data shows that Florida recently surpassed New York State in the number of nonfarm jobs for the first time in 40 years.

Last week, Stephen Ross, the billionaire real estate developer behind the Hudson Yards project, predicted that New Yorkers will continue to move to Florida due to the relative “ease of living” in the Sunshine State.

In 2022, more New Yorkers moved to Florida than in any year in history, official statistics show.