Broadway Cuthbert Harewood has lived in Liberty City his entire life. He bought his first property in 1987 and still lives in the community with a few properties on Broadway Avenue.
Every single day, his phone rings.
“I get a minimum of 30 calls,” Harewood said.
Broadway Cuthbert Harewood poses in front of his house.
(Courtesy of Broadway Cuthbert Harewood)
Investors and house flippers are all looking to buy. Harewood said some don’t even bother checking what his properties are worth before dialing.
“They want to offer me what I paid for the house in 1990 versus what it’s worth today,” he said. “There’s no respect for Black people’s lives. It’s a constant insult, a slap in the face.”
He is not alone. Longtime homeowners describe a daily barrage of calls, texts, letters and lowball cash offers from investors who have discovered what residents always knew: this ground is valuable, and it’s only becoming more so.
Liberty City, which sits on the Biscayne Ridge at roughly 10 to 15 feet above sea level, is significantly more elevated than coastal communities rapidly losing ground to rising seas.
(WLRN)
Liberty City, one of Miami’s most historically significant Black neighborhoods, sits on the Biscayne Ridge. At roughly 10 to 15 feet above sea level, it is significantly higher than coastal communities rapidly losing ground to rising seas.
Skyrocketing prices
Elaine Black, president and CEO of the Liberty City Community Revitalization Trust, said change began accelerating after the housing market crash of the late 2000s.
“The downturn in the market caused more properties to go down in value,” she said. “A lot of people came in the community and began to buy properties, and that began the beginning of real interest in the community by outside forces.”
At the same time, Black noted that nearby redevelopment projects, including Midtown Miami, began reshaping perceptions of urban neighborhoods once overlooked by developers.
Bernard Phanord, real estate agent.
(Courtesy of Bernard Phanord)
Bernard Phanord, a real estate agent and president and CEO of the Collective Empowerment Group, put it plainly:
“Prices have absolutely skyrocketed. A vacant property may have been $50,000 or $60,000 maybe even 10 years ago, and now it may be $250,000, if not more.”
Zillow estimates home values across Liberty City now average around $430,000, though prices vary by ZIP code. In 33127 — which overlaps with Wynwood and Little Haiti — median prices climbed above $660,000 as of March 2026. The Miami Times found a new-construction four-bedroom home listed at $925,000 just blocks from Charles Hadley Park.
Phanord said investor demand is fueled by Liberty City’s proximity to Wynwood, the Design District and downtown Miami, as well as the search for comparatively affordable land.
House flipping has accelerated. Recent examples include Crusader Capital Group, a real estate investment and development firm that purchased homes for $300,000 to $360,000 and flipped them for $560,000 to $600,000. The firm did not respond to a request for an interview.
“Speculative development and fix-and-flip have always happened,” Phanord said. “They just now have more return on their dollar because now they’re able to sell it for half a million dollars.”
The redevelopment of Liberty Square public housing is also shifting the landscape. A massive public-private investment exceeding $220 million has increased neighborhood buying power, transforming the area and attracting real estate investors.
While Phanord agreed Liberty City is an emerging housing hotspot, he noted the trend extends to communities like Brownsville, Overtown, Miami Gardens, Opa-locka and parts of South Dade.
“You start seeing these areas that traditionally were considered slums and blight or deemed lower on the price point in terms of properties. The track now is almost all of these areas have properties in the half-a-million-dollar range,” he said.
Higher ground, higher stakes
What makes Liberty City attractive to outside investors isn’t only its proximity to Miami’s trendier neighborhoods. It’s the ground itself.
As Miami Beach and other low-lying areas face escalating flood risk, Liberty City’s elevation has made it a target for what researchers call climate gentrification — and residents have noticed.
“I never experienced a flood,” said Tara Bloom, who inherited her grandmother’s 1950s home. “We don’t have floods here. I can see floods in the other neighborhoods, but I don’t see floods in my area.”
Robert Jones, communications director at SMILE Trust, sees the connection clearly.
“This is prime real estate,” Jones said. “As we know, scientists say that South Beach will be underwater, so a lot of people want to move more inland, and this will probably be the new beachfront area.”
Jones said outside investors are paying premium prices and sometimes offering above asking amounts just to secure properties.
“Once one house sells for a higher value, now it’s enticing for other owners to sell,” he said.
Homeowners’ POV
Naomie and Errick Pigatt purchased their four-bedroom home roughly 13 years ago through a first-time homebuyer program supported by the Liberty City Community Revitalization Trust. They paid about $130,000. Today, they estimate it is worth close to $580,000, though program restrictions limit how and to whom they can sell.
They constantly receive calls.
“They want to lowball me into selling something for cheap because they want to make a profit,” Errick said.
Steven Carroll — son of the first Black Miami-Dade commissioner, Earl J. Carroll — has lived across from Liberty Square for more than 20 years. He bought his home in 2005 for roughly $135,000 and has watched its value climb to around $400,000. One caller recently offered him just over $200,000 for his newly renovated home.
“As an investor, I get it,” Carroll said. “But my problem is when it comes to housing, this is not like a used car. This is an investment; the person who owns the house is their investment.”
“That’s the key to all of it,” Naomie said of homeownership and generational wealth. “We think about the Rockefellers, all of them — how they use assets. Generational wealth is very important, and in a lot of Black communities, a lot of people don’t have that opportunity because, especially now, it’s getting even harder.”
The central warning is that selling may feel like a windfall, but only until you try to buy again.
“If I could sell my house for $500,000, but if property values around are $675,000 overall, where am I going to afford?” Phanord asked.
Carroll said his home’s current value would still not be enough for him to comfortably buy or rent elsewhere in Miami.
“What’s keeping me here is that I can’t afford to move anywhere else,” Carroll said. “The housing cost of Miami-Dade County is over. It’s not realistic.”
Fears about displacement also loom.
“We’ve been forced from one area to the next area to the next area, and now it looks like we’re trying to be forced out again — now that they know Liberty City is 15 feet above sea level.”
Jones echoed that sentiment.
“We’re not against gentrification. We’re against not being part of the gentrification,” he said. “A lot of cultures are responsible for what makes Miami, Miami, and when you change that dynamic and when you push people out, it’s not the same anymore.”
Carroll’s concern extends beyond housing.
“This particular area was the last frontier for development,” he said. “They’ve been addressing housing by building all these tall buildings, but what about economic development? We should be able to live, work and play right here.”
Liberty City Trust
Two decades ago, Black and others at the Liberty City Community Revitalization Trust saw this moment coming. Black, who joined the organization in 2006, said they began acquiring distressed properties years ago to prevent outside investors from controlling large portions of the neighborhood.
“That was critical,” Black said of the early acquisition work. “Because otherwise, if we hadn’t gone out and started to buy the properties… that land would have gone to the highest bidder.”
The Trust now sells homes to city residents below market value — currently around $250,000 to $300,000 — with resale restrictions designed to keep the homes affordable for future buyers. It’s not a perfect system, and some residents, like the Pigatts, have found the resale restrictions frustrating as they dream of maximizing their equity. But Black sees it as the only sustainable path.
“The way we have it set up is that whenever that property is resold, it has to be sold to someone who is a low-income buyer or 80% AMI,” Black explained.
Alongside development, the organization also hosts workshops on heirs’ property, wills, estate planning and financial literacy as rising property values continue reshaping the neighborhood.
“People might find themselves in a situation where they sell their house, where they don’t have enough money for them to move and rent anywhere else in Miami,” Black said.
For those who do own property, community advocates are delivering a clear message: hold on to it if possible.
“If you can hold on to your property — for legacy, for generational wealth — just hold on,” Phanord said. “God is not making any more land.”