The Unlikely Florida City Real Estate Experts Are Calling the Next Waterfront Hot Spot

You better watch your back, Miami, because there’s a new real estate market in the neighborhood, and it’s hotter than hot.

Despite its lackluster past, The Wall Street Journal is billing Hallandale Beach as South Florida’s next oceanfront real estate hot spot. Historically, Miami’s less-glamourous neighbor to the north has been plagued by local political scandals, and its reputation for seedy establishments earned it the nickname “Hound-ale Beach.”

But a lack of available real estate in Miami has left developers hungry for opportunity—something Hallandale Beach has in spades.

Its location halfway between Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale means easy access to both airports. And as WSJ points out, “it’s next door to the Aventura shopping mall, just over a bridge from Miami’s design district and it backs up to some of the deepest, widest canals in the area.”

And buyers are noticing.

“It’s going through a transformation like I’ve never seen before,” Scott Patterson, senior vice president of EWM Realty International, told WSJ.

In December alone, the median sold price for homes above $1 million was 42% higher than December 2017.

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Despite the recent flurry of activity, real estate pros told the paper that waterfront Hallandale Beach properties still sell at about a third of what a similar property would in Miami.

For Hallandale Beach resident Larry Grillo, a 59-year-old dentist who bought his 4,500-square-foot house on a canal for $1.6 million in 2004, that’s part of the appeal “It’s a sleepy little place, off the mainstream,” he told WSJ. “People don’t know about it.”