Understand Miami Gardens before you commit to an address
Miami Gardens is 116,000 people in the north-west of the county, incorporated in 2003 and the largest majority-Black city in Florida. It contains Hard Rock Stadium and the Miami Open tennis complex, and it is one of the youngest municipalities in this layer despite being one of the largest. Figures are the same two indexes measured the same way in all 24 municipalities here, on Florida's rules including the homestead exemption.
The cost of living in Miami Gardens, and what a home costs
Two calculators on Florida's own rules: monthly compounding and the month private mortgage insurance stops, and the closing costs this state actually charges.
Rent or buy in Miami Gardens
Whether buying here beats renting, and the year it turns over. Association fees and reserves move faster than price here, and both are figures you can edit.
Mortgage calculator
Monthly compounding, the 30-year fixed loan, the private mortgage insurance a low down payment triggers, and Florida's documentary stamp and intangible taxes on the loan itself.
Then work out whether Miami Gardens is the right part of the county
No neighborhood guides for Miami Gardens yet. What is here instead is the county on one comparable footing.
All 24 municipalities in Miami-Dade
Every municipality side by side on home value, millage, the rate a homesteaded buyer pays, and which five run their own fire departments.
Compare the countyBoca Raton and the Palm Beach coast
The same state, the same exemptions and the same two Zillow indexes in the same month, and, counter to what almost everyone assumes, a higher average insurance premium than Miami-Dade's.
Compare the two coastsMiami, neighborhood by neighborhood
One of the two municipalities here with sourced guides rather than a single row of figures. What each part of the city costs and is like to live in, dated and cited.
Explore MiamiHialeah, area by area
The other municipality here with a hub of its own: the same row of figures as this table, the city in five areas drawn from its own master plan, and neighborhood guides in a city that runs its own fire department and library.
Explore HialeahWhat buying in Miami Gardens actually involves
The city levies 6.9363 mills, contracts fire from the county and adds 0.4331 of voted debt service, totalling 22.3921 for an effective rate of about 2.04%, roughly $9,700 a year on a typical home value of $475,214. A young city that incorporated out of unincorporated county land inherited an infrastructure backlog rather than a built one, and the rate reflects a capital program still catching up.
The housing is largely post-war single-family, and Miami Gardens has among the county's higher shares of owner-occupancy for a city of its income profile. Two things worth weighing: the stadium's event traffic affects specific neighborhoods on a schedule you can look up, and the city sits inland with flood risk driven by rainfall and drainage rather than storm surge, which is a different and in some ways more manageable problem than the coast's.
Two private universities and a large stadium sit inside the city, which gives it an institutional base that is unusual in this part of the county. It also means the traffic pattern is event-driven rather than purely commuter, so the calendar matters as much as the hour on streets near the stadium.
The housing is largely post-war single-family on a grid, with a high owner-occupancy rate and a stock that is now old enough that roofs, windows and electrical systems are the standing questions. In Florida the roof age is the item that decides whether a policy is written at all, which makes it the first line of any renovation budget here.
Moving to Miami Gardens: check these before you commit
- Stadium event traffic on the specific street, which is predictable and worth checking against the calendar.
- Drainage and rainfall flooding history, which inland Miami-Dade has more of than its elevation suggests.
- The insurance quote and the roof's age, which decide it on this stock.
- The roof's age and whether an insurer will write the property at all before negotiating on anything else.
- The proximity of the address to the stadium and university traffic patterns.
Miami Gardens levies 6.9363 of the 22.3921 mills charged here. The rest is Miami-Dade County, the school district and the countywide districts, including the 2.3965-mill Fire Rescue district levy: none of which the municipality sets.
Sourced, dated, and separated from the guesswork
Every Miami Gardens figure below is cited, stamped with the period it describes, and editable, because a number for the whole city rarely describes your purchase. Appreciation and investment returns are assumptions rather than facts, and they are labelled that way. Read the methodology for how the line is drawn.
- Prices, rents and tax rates: published statistics and the official schedules.
- Nothing here is a lender quote, a pre-approval or financial advice.
Where the Miami Gardens figures come from
- Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), all homes, mid-tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted: city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value for the 35th to 65th percentile of each municipality's market, computed on one method across all twenty-four, The same series and month the Charlotte, Orlando and Palm Beach pages use, so all four American layers can be read against each other, Year-over-year change to June 2026
- Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes, smoothed: city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: Asking rents across the whole rental stock for the twenty-two municipalities Zillow indexes
- Table 1: Comparison of Taxes Levied, county and municipal governments, fiscal years 2024-25 and 2025-26: Miami-Dade · Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight · retrieved Supports: The adopted 2025-26 millage rate for Miami-Dade County and every municipality in it, The county's own components: countywide 4.5740, Fire/Rescue 2.3965, Library 0.2812 and the Unincorporated Municipal Service Area at 1.9090, Municipal rates from Sunny Isles Beach's 1.7000 to Biscayne Park's 9.3000
- 2025 millage rates and taxing authorities, Miami-Dade County · Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: A published combined rate for unincorporated Miami-Dade of 16.9317 mills, Its components: school district 6.4990, countywide 5.7361, regional water districts 0.3911, Fire Rescue 2.3965 and UMSA 1.9090, which this layer's stack reproduces exactly, Millage code 0100, the City of Miami, at 19.9878 mills for 2025: 7.1080 of city operating levy and 0.2536 of city debt service on the countywide 12.6262, Opa-locka's municipal operating levy of 8.9797, and a 2025 total of 24.0024 for millage code 0800, A city debt service column, which nine of the twenty-four municipalities here carry: Miami 0.2536, Miami Beach 0.2779, North Bay Village 1.1666, Golden Beach 0.6000, Miami Shores 0.1331, North Miami Beach 0.2000, Miami Gardens 0.4331, Doral 0.4810 and Homestead 0.2446, A blank library district column for Hialeah, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Homestead, Miami Shores, Bal Harbour and Surfside, which are outside the county library district, A blank Fire Rescue column for Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Hialeah and Key Biscayne, which is the five this layer flags
- Documentary stamp tax · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: A Miami-Dade deed rate of 60 cents per $100 rather than the 70 cents charged in every other county, A Miami-Dade surtax of 45 cents per $100, not due on a document transferring only a single-family dwelling, 35 cents per $100 on a promissory note, statewide
- Documentary stamp tax · Florida Department of Revenue · retrieved Supports: 70 cents per $100 on a deed, in every county except Miami-Dade, which charges 60 cents plus a 45-cent surtax, 35 cents per $100 on a promissory note or other written obligation to pay money