While Tampa, Phoenix and Las Vegas turned negative, Miami stayed green in April. The 'Sunbelt correction' isn't one story, and Miami is on the winning side of the split.
The headline about a Sunbelt slowdown hides a split, and Miami is on the right side of it. In the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller data for April 2026, Miami home prices rose 1.10% year over year and 0.52% month over month, making it the hottest Sunbelt metro, per South Florida Agent Magazine. The U.S. National Index was up 0.8% year over year.
Look across the region and the divergence is stark. Miami led, essentially at parity with San Diego at 1.1%, ahead of Charlotte at 1.0%. Then it turns red: Atlanta was down 0.1%, Phoenix down 1.6%, Las Vegas down 1.7%, and Tampa down 1.8%. Chicago led all 20 cities at plus 6.5%. For context, the 30-year mortgage was around 6.3% in April, and inflation at 3.8% outpaced home appreciation for the 11th straight month.
“The affordability pinch remains a key headwind... home price growth remains constrained, with housing largely treading water in nominal terms and falling in real terms.”— Nicholas Godec, S&P Dow Jones Indices
Read Godec's line carefully, because it keeps me honest and it should keep you honest too. Miami is green in nominal terms, but with inflation at 3.8% outpacing appreciation, homes are basically treading water in real terms. That's not a boom. It's resilience.
My read: the 'Sunbelt is correcting' narrative is too broad to be useful. Tampa, Phoenix and Vegas are correcting. Miami is holding. The difference is our demand base, international buyers, in-migration, and limited waterfront land, which doesn't behave like a metro that overbuilt during the last cycle. If you're comparing Miami to other Sunbelt markets when deciding where to buy or hold, don't average them together. They're telling opposite stories.
I keep Miami's price, inventory and days-on-market trends on one dashboard so you're deciding on data, not headlines.
Open the market dashboard →Cover photography: Creative Commons / public domain — photo credits.
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