Miami is a buyer’s market. The Grove did not get the memo.
Every January, the industry publishes its predictions. Every July, the market publishes its verdict. We are now far enough into 2026 to read the verdict on Coconut Grove, and it is worth reading closely, because the Grove spent the first half of the year doing almost the opposite of the city around it.
The numbers, plainly
Across Miami’s luxury condo market as a whole, the first quarter told a buyer’s market story. Sales rose a healthy 15 percent, but the median price per square foot slipped about 4 percent to $1,040, and the city closed the quarter sitting on 19 months of inventory. Sellers are competing, buyers are choosing, and price is doing the negotiating.
Now look at the Grove. Together with Coral Gables, it posted the strongest quarter of any submarket in the city: sales up 44.6 percent year over year, prices up 9.2 percent to $949 per square foot while nearly everywhere else declined, homes selling in a median of 63 days against 93 citywide, and just 11 months of inventory, the only corner of Miami’s luxury market anywhere near balance. Over the winter season, Grove condo sale prices ran about $1,226 per square foot, up nearly 10 percent from the year before.
One neighborhood does not outrun its own city by accident. The Grove is doing it for a reason, and the reason is the thing I keep writing about: scarcity you can stand on. A short waterfront spine, a handful of design-led buildings, and no meaningful way to add more of either.
What the buildings themselves are saying
Market statistics blur. Buildings clarify. So here is the first half of 2026, told through the three addresses I use to explain the Grove to anyone who asks.
Vita at Grove Isle finished, and the market showed up. CMC Group delivered Vita at the turn of the year and closings began in January with the building roughly 85 percent sold. A duplex penthouse closed at $20.1 million in the first weeks of the year, and the last handful of residences were asking from about $6.5 million to north of $10 million. A brand-new private island building selling through its inventory as it delivers, in a citywide buyer’s market, is not a small data point.
Park Grove kept proving the resale case. The Rem Koolhaas towers remain the Grove’s reference resale, the address that set the neighborhood’s high-water mark at more than $3,300 per square foot for the best high-floor bayfront lines. Inventory there stays thin because owners hold, which is exactly the behavior you want from a building you own. When Park Grove resales do surface, they price against the new construction next door, not against the past.
Four Seasons set the new ceiling. The Four Seasons Private Residences, 70 homes on South Bayshore delivering in 2028, spent the first half of the year reserving at pricing that starts in the mid single-digit millions and climbs well past $12 million. A flagship does not just sell its own homes. It resets what buyers believe the neighborhood is worth, and every well-kept bayfront residence in the Grove benefits from that arithmetic.
What this means for the fall
If you own in the Grove, the second half of 2026 favors the disciplined seller. The neighborhood has the fastest market in luxury Miami and the least competition among sellers, but buyers everywhere are anchored to evidence. Price on the trend, present the home like the asset it is, and the Grove’s numbers say you will meet your buyer quickly. Price on the headline and even this neighborhood will let you sit.
If you are a buyer, understand what you are looking at. The rest of Miami is offering you leverage. The Grove is offering you scarcity, and it is charging for it. The opportunity here is not a discount. It is position: a resale in a great building, on the water side, bought while the new flagships pull the ceiling higher above it.
If you own in Coconut Grove and want to know what the first half of the year did to your number, or you are weighing a purchase before the fall season opens, reach me at barbaragretsch.com. I will give you the real number, and the honest story behind it.
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Barbara Gretsch is a REALTOR® with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices EWM Realty, serving Miami and South Florida’s $1M+ residential market, including Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, The Roads, Brickell, Key Biscayne, and Miami Beach. barbaragretsch.com