Understand Surfside before you commit to an address
Surfside is a town of fifty-seven hundred people on the barrier island north of Miami Beach. A short grid of low-rise blocks between Collins Avenue and the Atlantic. On 24 June 2021 the Champlain Towers South building collapsed here, killing ninety-eight people, and every condominium rule in Florida that follows dates from it. 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 Surfside, 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 Surfside
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 Surfside is the right part of the county
No neighborhood guides for Surfside 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 Surfside actually involves
That is the context for any purchase in this county and it is most concentrated here. Florida's 2022 legislation now requires a milestone structural inspection at thirty years (twenty-five within three miles of the coast) and a structural integrity reserve study with mandatory full funding, and the assessments that followed have run into six figures per unit across this coast. In Surfside itself the effects have been most visible of all. If you buy a condominium anywhere in this layer, the reserve study is the document that matters.
The town contracts fire from the county and pays the 2.3965-mill district levy on top of its own 3.8830, and it runs its own library rather than joining the county district, for a total of 18.6245 and an effective rate of about 1.81%, roughly $24,200 a year on a typical home value of $1.34 million, which is the sixth-highest bill of these twenty-four. Surfside is also home to a large Orthodox Jewish community and the town's rhythm, from the eruv to the Shabbat elevators in its buildings, reflects it.
For a town of six thousand this is a compact and genuinely walkable place: a small commercial strip on Harding Avenue, a beach walk along the dune, and a residential district of single-family houses west of Collins that is quite separate from the oceanfront towers. Those two halves have behaved very differently since 2021 and continue to.
The town has spent years arguing about height and density on the ocean side, including on the Champlain site itself. What is approved next to a given building is a live question here rather than a settled one, and it is worth reading the current applications before assuming the view or the block stays as it is.
Moving to Surfside: check these before you commit
- The milestone inspection and structural integrity reserve study, and any assessment voted or pending. Nothing else on this page matters as much.
- The age of the building and whether it has completed its forty-year recertification.
- Beach renourishment and dune status in front of the property.
- What is approved or under application on the neighbouring oceanfront parcels, which is an active question here.
- Whether the address is in the single-family district west of Collins, which is a different market from the towers.
Surfside levies 3.8830 of the 18.6245 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 Surfside 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 Surfside 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