On Tuesday night, as returns came in and Zohran Mamdani secured his victory to become New York City\u2019s next mayor, the reaction was swift in a place 1,300 miles south: Miami.<\/p>\n
Not from New Yorkers looking to flee \u2014 at least not yet \u2014 but from Florida locals, who began moving to secure homes before the wave they fear is coming.<\/p>\n
By Wednesday morning, waterfront homes that might normally linger through Thanksgiving were instead moving into contract at a fast clip.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s housing market saw an unusual burst of activity in the days surrounding Zohran Mamdani\u2019s win in the New York City mayoral election, but the rush wasn\u2019t from New Yorkers \u2014 it was from locals moving quickly to buy before wealthier Northeasterners enter the market. Keith \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n
Condos that had sat through the summer heat suddenly found themselves with multiple offers.<\/p>\n
The buyers were not hedge fund partners fresh off a flight from Teterboro. They were Miami, Boca, and Palm Beach residents who believed they had one window left before wealthy New Yorkers arrived in force.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are definitely seeing interest from New York City intensify because of the election,\u201d Dina Goldentayer, a luxury broker with Douglas Elliman in Miami, told The Post. \u201cThe area codes 917 and 212 are popping up now almost as much as they did at the height of the COVID pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the phones lighting up didn\u2019t cause the surge. The fear of them did.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019m really seeing, what has happened the last few weeks, is that the local buyers have been so fearful that the New Yorkers are going to start coming in and buying everything up, that it\u2019s been the local buyers that have put everything, all the homes, under contract,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re scared of wealthy New Yorkers coming up and taking up the good product.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goldentayer says the urgency is unusually seasonal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t remember ever being this busy before Thanksgiving. Usually our season starts after Art Basel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of New York\u2019s wealthy are going to wait to see how things shake out once Mamdani is in office before making any permanent moves, experts say. marchello74 \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n
In the last 48 hours, properties that had been quietly available for weeks flipped to pending as locals raced to close deals earlier than planned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s usually like a two-week negotiation period, a two-week inspection period. But with the election that just took place, that\u2019s what I believe has really fueled the market specifically this week,\u201d she said. \u201cThe uptick started three to four weeks ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
The phenomenon isn\u2019t isolated to Miami\u2019s coastlines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I speak to my counterparts in the other marketplaces like Boca Raton and Palm Beach, they are experiencing the same,\u201d Goldentayer said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Orlando and Winter Park, the same psychological shift is underway \u2014 just with different price points.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a local buyer over the last couple days have that exact conversation of what will happen now that New York City has elected this new mayor. It is a concern,\u201d Bryan Hyser, of the Agency\u2019s Orlando office, told\u00a0The Post. \u201cThey are asking if this is the right time to buy before things get crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miami and Palm Beach agents say local buyers accelerated purchases out of concern that New York residents unsettled by Mamdani\u2019s platform might begin seeking Florida homes, particularly high-end waterfront properties. Solarisys \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n
What was once a rational delay \u2014 waiting out high interest rates \u2014 now looks like a gamble.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery buyer says the same thing: I want to sit and wait until interest rates get better. But if rates are going to take longer and we\u2019re going to see a large influx of buyers coming from out of state, it\u2019s probably smart to buy today,\u201d Hyser said.<\/p>\n
He described a Winter Park deal where the buyer referenced both Mamdani\u2019s platform and future property tax changes as reasons to lock something in sooner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of uncertainty in New York and what the mayor is going to end up putting into policy,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople want to buy before the chaos.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the very high end of the market \u2014 waterfront estates in Miami Beach, oceanfront in Palm Beach and new luxury towers along the Intracoastal \u2014 wealthy New Yorkers are not panicking. They are planning.<\/p>\n
Brokers in Orlando reported similar conversations among cautious local buyers weighing timing before possible competition rises. Kevin Ruck \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n
Daniel de la Vega, president of One Sotheby\u2019s International Realty, said the potential migration is real but slow-moving.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were curious because [Mamdani ran] on such drastic policies. A lot of people are questioning whether he\u2019s actually going to be able to implement them,\u201d he said. \u201cI firmly believe that we will see it trickle in over the next four years.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the ultra-luxury segment has already been active.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the luxury market, we have sold so much in the $20 million plus range in the last two months. And it\u2019s been over $200 million in real estate sold,\u201d de la Vega said.<\/p>\n
The buyers are explicit about their reasoning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say \u2018We\u2019re not ready to move today, but we think we\u2019ll be ready to move in 18 months.\u2019 And if not, it\u2019s going to be a great investment for us at the very least,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, wealthy New Yorkers are expressing interest and touring properties, but they are largely purchasing second homes as a strategic hedge rather than relocating immediately. Volodymyr \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n
In New York, however, there has been no corresponding sell-off.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the regular New Yorkers, and I\u2019m talking about the millionaires, which are still extremely affluent, but they\u2019re entrenched in school systems, they\u2019re entrenched in careers \u2014 I don\u2019t think people can just pick up and leave that quickly,\u201d Ruthie Assouline of Douglas Elliman said.<\/p>\n
She said two groups are emerging: Those who were already considering relocating and may now accelerate their timelines, and those who plan to stay unless conditions meaningfully deteriorate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have plenty of people that were on the edge for a variety of reasons, that now they\u2019re probably pushed out the door after this election,\u201d she said. \u201cBut you also have a huge amount of people that are diehard New Yorkers. They\u2019re going to fight and stay in that city till the end of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assouline said New Yorkers who called after the election were not looking to sell. They wanted options.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDid we get several calls yesterday from our New Yorkers saying we\u2019re flying in next week? We want to have another option. Yeah. But they didn\u2019t say we need to sell New York. They just said \u2026 we want that optionality,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In New York, brokers say the real test will come six months into Mamdani\u2019s term, with no sign yet of a sell-off or flight. Derek French\/UPI\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
She expects the real shift \u2014 if it comes \u2014 to occur once Mamdani governs, not campaigns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just got elected. It\u2019s been a day. It\u2019s a week by week situation. So you\u2019re monitoring the data and we\u2019ll see how it\u2019s going to unfold,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Market data supports that view. Manhattan inventory has not meaningfully changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically inventory between the end of September and the end of October rose .002%,\u201d said appraiser Jonathan Miller. \u201cLike there was no real change.\u201d<\/p>\n
That stability is shaping broker guidance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s going to take six months to see how things really shake out,\u201d Douglas Elliman\u2019s Keyan Sanai told The Post. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are not just going to pack and go, but whoever is packing and going is because they don\u2019t see themselves raising their kids in the city,\u201d Ethan Assouline of Douglas Elliman said. \u201cI think everybody is watching and monitoring and coming in January, within the first few months, [Mamdani] may piss off a lot of people who will just start moving for the next school year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday night, as returns came in and Zohran Mamdani secured his victory to become New York City\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11504,18290,28,30,29,9047,803,12811,17315,1375,123,24681,14592,25118,139,9097,480,804,25119,8527,25120,25121,17601],"class_list":["post-36360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-exclusive","tag-fear","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-homeowners","tag-luxury-real-estate","tag-manhattan","tag-markets","tag-mayor","tag-miami","tag-moving","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc-mayoral-election","tag-orlando","tag-palm-beach","tag-real-estate","tag-residential-real-estate","tag-tax-reforms","tag-taxes","tag-wealth","tag-wealthy","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}