The historic house neighborhood between the Design District and the Upper Eastside: 1920s Mediterranean Revival and Mission houses on five plats, under a protected canopy, twelve blocks from the Miami Design District. There are 15 houses for sale today. We read five years of closings, house by house, the 22 that sold twice, and Miami 21, before anything here goes on a shortlist.
The market, not the pitch
Two sets of numbers, and the gap between them is the useful part. On the left, what sellers are asking today. On the right, what buyers actually paid over the last twelve months.
Source: MLS (Miami Realtors / Bridge), single-family houses in Miami, Miami-Dade County, read on 20 September 2026. Active: 15 listings, 0 of them at or under $700,000, ranging from $995,000 to $3,500,000. Closed: 22 sales in the twelve months to that date, at a median 94.1% of the last asking price, in a median 77 days. Closed leases are excluded: 17 houses were leased through the MLS over the same twelve months.
The book on the market is priced above what has been closing, by roughly 17% on price per square foot. That is a mix effect as much as a discount: the large and the waterfront sit longer. It is also the reason we underwrite from closings, never from asking prices.
Five years of closings, read house by house
126 houses closed in Buena Vista between September 2021 and September 2026, none of them on water, none of them mobile homes. Two dozen sales a year is a thin market, so the median moves with what happened to sell; the same house selling twice does not. Both are below, with their dates.
| Year closed | Houses | Median paid | $/sf paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 (from 21 Sept) | 9 | $875,000 | $507 |
| 2022 | 25 | $900,000 | $519 |
| 2023 | 27 | $1,140,000 | $622 |
| 2024 | 23 | $1,000,000 | $639 |
| 2025 | 23 | $1,200,000 | $707 |
| 2026 (to 2 Sept) | 19 | $1,100,000 | $696 |
Source: MIAMI MLS (Matrix), every single-family closing in the Buena Vista plats (Shadowlawn, Biltmore, Brentwood, Bellaire, Alta Vista) from 21 September 2021 to 2 September 2026, exported on 20 September 2026 and read by BlueBay Brokers, year built, pool and folio included. Medians only, never averages. The appreciation figure is the median annualised change on the 9 houses that sold twice in the window with two years or more between the two closings; the 13 resales under two years were restoration flips and are shown apart, because a house bought tired and sold finished measures a business, not the market. The rent figure covers 16 single-family leases signed through the MLS in the twelve months to 20 September 2026; the yield divides twelve months of that median rent by the median house sold over the same twelve months, before property tax, insurance, upkeep and vacancy. Annual leases, not short stays.
Five plats, three price levels
One postcode, 33137, shared with Bay Point and Morningside across Biscayne Boulevard, so a postcode table would mix three neighborhoods. Grouped by plat, the way the county recorded the streets in the 1920s, the spread is real: the two plats along NE 1st and 2nd Avenues carry the premium, and the decade of the house matters as much as its street.
| Plat | What it is | Closed, 5 yrs | Median paid | $/sf |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shadowlawn | NE 46th to 50th around NE 1st Avenue; the largest 1920s houses and the corner lots | 33 | $1,230,000 | $710 |
| Biltmore | NE 42nd to 45th along NE 1st Avenue, the Buena Vista East historic district | 24 | $1,405,000 | $582 |
| Brentwood | NE 43rd to 48th east of NE 2nd Avenue, toward the FEC tracks; the two plats together | 38 | $900,000 to $945,000 | $625 to $633 |
| Bellaire | NE 48th to 50th on the north edge, 1930s and 40s bungalows | 17 | $1,000,000 | $572 |
| Alta Vista | NE 50th Terrace and 51st, the entry level and the newest rebuilds | 12 | $827,500 | $534 |
Read on 20 September 2026, from the same five-year Matrix file. By decade built: 1920s houses (42 sales) closed at a median $1,425,750 and $639/sf, 1930s (23) at $855,000, 1940s (29) at $900,000, 1950s (18) at $887,400, and the seven houses built since 2020 at $2,280,000 and $810/sf. One house in five had a pool, and those closed at $823/sf against $592/sf without. Of the 15 active houses, four are in Biltmore, five in Brentwood, three in Shadowlawn.
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Before we recommend anything
None of the 15 houses on the market mentions Airbnb in its MLS text, and that is not an accident. Buena Vista is T3 under Miami 21, and the City of Miami does not permit transient lodging in T3. What makes this page useful is what the closings and the leases say about a house you keep or rent by the year. Here is what we read, on the property you are actually considering, before it goes on a shortlist.
The City of Miami zoning code, Miami 21, was adopted by Ordinance 13114 on 22 October 2009 and took effect in 2010, before the 1 June 2011 cut-off in Florida Statute 509.032(7)(b). The city therefore keeps the right to prohibit vacation rentals. In the T3 transect the only use by right is residential, defined as permanent housing; lodging, the transient use of furnished rooms for less than 30 days, is not permitted.
In City of Miami v. Airbnb (Third District Court of Appeal, 5 December 2018) the court lifted the injunction that had stopped the city from enforcing the T3 rule. The city’s Short-Term Rental / Lodging procedure says it plainly: single-family and duplex structures in T3 and T4-R transect zones are ineligible.
Buena Vista is T3-L and T3-O street by street, with T4 and T5 only along the NE 2nd Avenue frontage. The transect of a given lot is read on the City of Miami GIS, and we note where we read it and on what date. A house on a T4-L or T5 lot is a different reading, with a certificate of use, a business tax receipt and a state licence, and it is rare here. Read on 20 September 2026.
Biltmore and part of Shadowlawn sit in the Buena Vista East Historic District: exterior work goes through the city’s historic preservation board, which is what keeps the 1920s facades and the restoration premium. Street trees are protected city-wide. Both are costs on a renovation and value on a resale.
What this means for an investor: Buena Vista is bought for the house and the block, held or restored, and rented by the year in between. The 16 annual leases in the file at a median $6,825 are the income line, and they are unfurnished leases to families who want the Design District on foot. Nothing here is a projection of what a house will earn.
Sources: Miami 21 Code, City of Miami, Ordinance 13114 of 22 October 2009, Article 4; City of Miami, Short-Term Rental / Lodging Procedures (miami.gov), read on 20 September 2026; City of Miami v. Airbnb Inc., No. 3D17-1213, 260 So.3d 478 (Fla. 3d DCA 2018); Florida Statutes 509.032(7)(b), 2025 text. A verification carries the source, the date and the reader, and it expires after twelve months, because codes change. Nothing on this page certifies the use of any address.
Same city, other streets
Three neighborhoods of houses within a few minutes, each with its own price and, outside the City of Miami, its own rental rule. The question that decides between them is answered on its own page.
Asked before every shortlist
No. Buena Vista sits in the T3 transect of Miami 21, the City of Miami zoning code adopted by Ordinance 13114 on 22 October 2009 and in force since 2010, which predates the 1 June 2011 cut-off in Florida Statute 509.032(7)(b): the city keeps the right to prohibit, and in T3 the only use by right is residential, defined as permanent housing; transient lodging is not permitted. The Third District Court of Appeal confirmed it in City of Miami v. Airbnb (5 December 2018), and the city’s own procedures say single-family and duplex structures in T3 and T4-R are ineligible. Leases of 30 days and more are unaffected. The transect of a given lot is read on the city GIS. Read on 20 September 2026.
Fifteen are for sale on 20 September 2026, at a median asking price of $1,599,000 and $789 per square foot, from $995,000 to $3,500,000. Over the previous twelve months 22 sold, at a median $1,200,000 and $675 per square foot, in a median 77 days and at 94.1% of the last asking price.
Measured on the same house selling twice: 22 houses sold twice between September 2021 and September 2026. Nine were held two years or more and resold at a median 8.0% a year (median hold 2.7 years, one at a loss); the other 13 were restoration flips under two years at a median 61% gross, which is a business, not a market return. The median price paid went from $875,000 in late 2021 to $1,200,000 over the last twelve months.
Sixteen single-family houses were leased through the MLS in the twelve months to 20 September 2026, at a median $6,825 a month and $4.13 per square foot, on unfurnished annual leases. Against the median house sold in the same period that is a 6.8% gross yield before property tax, insurance, upkeep and vacancy.
No. Five plats make the neighborhood, and over five years of closings they trade at different levels: Shadowlawn at $710 per square foot and Biltmore at $582 along NE 1st and 2nd Avenues, Bellaire at $572, Brentwood at $625 to $633 and Alta Vista at $534. The decade matters as much: 1920s houses closed at a median $1,425,750, the 1930s to 1950s at $855,000 to $900,000, and the seven new builds at $2,280,000.
One email a week: what closed, what is new, one measured opinion. No listings dump.
The 12-month report · 24h
The closings of the last twelve months by plat and by decade, the rents signed, the 22 resale pairs, and the zoning read with its source: the report behind the numbers on this page, plus a shortlist if you tell us the budget and what the house has to do.
What you get: the 12-month report on Buena Vista · a shortlist from the MLS and off-market · the parcel-level transect read, with its source and its date.
Send us the address. We come back with the closed comparables on its own plat, the rents signed nearby, whether it has sold before and at what, and the transect of the lot.