A favorable tax environment, company expansions, the trend of working remotely and, yes, the climate are drawing more residents from California, Chicago and states across the northeast.

Here are five tools and tips to makes the search easier:

▪ Set a realistic budget: Real estate experts recommend that buyers spend a maximum of three-and-a-half times their annual income on a home purchase. A household that earns a total of $100,000, for example, could spend up to $350,000 on a condo or house.

▪ Look beyond the center: Miami-Dade’s median home prices are hovering at a record high of $470,000. Buyers looking for bargains have found them in Homestead, where the median sales price of $300,000 buys 1,926 square feet, according to Realtors.com.

▪ Go north: Broward’s median sales price is lower than Miami’s both for houses ($433,000) and condos ($200,000), Hallandale offers the best deals for condo buyers with a median sales price of $190,000 in 2020.

▪ Millennials, check out South Miami: Millennial first-time home buyers — those between the ages of 25 to 40 — made South Miami hot in 2020. With a 139% year-over-year increase in sales, the community had the largest uptick in closings for homes priced over $750,000. Still, the city isn’t exactly cheap; the average sales price was $1.4 million.

Here you can read the full article.

(source: miamiherald.com)