Understand Miami Lakes before you commit to an address
Miami Lakes is thirty-three thousand people in the north-west of the county, planned from 1962 on the Graham family's dairy farm. A deliberate new town of curving streets around twenty-three man-made lakes, with a town center, a business park and a golf course, incorporated only in 2000. 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 Lakes, 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 Lakes
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 Lakes is the right part of the county
No neighborhood guides for Miami Lakes 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 Lakes actually involves
The town levies 2.1577 mills, among the lowest of these twenty-four, and even with the county Fire Rescue levy its total of 17.1804 gives an effective rate of about 1.61%, roughly $10,500 a year on a typical home value of $654,573. The business park and the commercial town center carry a meaningful share of the base, which is what a planned town that zoned for its own employment gets to enjoy.
The plan is the product: consistent architecture, lakes with public frontage, a walkable town center that actually functions, and a housing stock mostly from the 1960s to the 1990s. Lakefront is the premium and the lakes are man-made, so seawall and bank condition are worth checking. The town is inland and west, which is the better half of the county for insurance and the worse half for commuting.
The town has a substantial business park of its own alongside the residential plan, which is why a town of thirty thousand can carry the millage it does. It also means a meaningful share of residents work within the town, and the congested drive east is not everyone's daily experience of living here.
Because the town was planned and built in phases, the age of the housing follows the phase rather than the neighborhood name. The 1960s and 1970s sections have mature landscaping and dated systems, the later sections are newer and more tightly governed by associations, and the two carry different maintenance and fee profiles.
Moving to Miami Lakes: check these before you commit
- Lake frontage and the condition of the bank or seawall, since the lakes are excavated rather than natural.
- Homeowners association rules, which cover much of the town and vary between the older and newer sections.
- The commute east, which from here is I-75 or the Palmetto and is slow at peak.
- Which phase of the town the house is in, since the age of the systems follows the build phase.
Miami Lakes levies 2.1577 of the 17.1804 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 Lakes 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 Lakes 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