# Methodology — how the Own Miami estimate & Building Score work

Own Miami publishes three proprietary measures for Miami condo buildings. Each is computed by the same formula for every building from MLS sales, live inventory and verified public records, and each page states the date its data is as of.

## own.miami Building Score

A 0–100 score and letter grade for a Miami condo building computed from six axes — value, momentum, liquidity, financial health, waterfront and age — using MLS sales, inventory and verified public records.

Scale: 0–100 with letter grade. Term: https://own.miami/methodology#building-score

## Own Miami Condo Index

A condo building’s price per square foot as a ratio to the median Miami condo building: 100 × building $/sqft ÷ market-median building $/sqft, blending live asking prices with the last 12 months of closed sales. Buildings with few sales or listings are shrunk toward their neighborhood’s median. Momentum and liquidity are published alongside; updated daily.

Scale: 100 = the market-median building, 200 = twice its $/sqft. Term: https://own.miami/methodology#condo-index

## Financeability Index

A 0–100 index of how banks are actually lending in a building over the last 24 months, read from recorded mortgages: share of sales financed by regulated lenders, the lowest down payment accepted, loan recency and FHA/VA approvals.

Scale: 0–100 (strong ≥ 75, good, limited, cash). Term: https://own.miami/methodology#financeability-index

## own.miami Developer Score

A 0–100 score and letter grade for a Miami condo developer computed from its delivered buildings — size-weighted Building Score, share of buildings with no adverse verified public record, financeability, market performance, track record and consistency — with joint-venture credits at half weight; needs at least three scored buildings.

Scale: 0–100 with letter grade. Term: https://own.miami/methodology#developer-score

## own.miami Market Index

A 0–100 reading of whether a Miami neighborhood is a buyer’s or a seller’s market right now, combining five standard signals for resale condos — months of supply, median sale-to-original-list ratio, median days on market, share of listings with a price cut and year-over-year sales momentum — on Miami-condo thresholds; published only when enough recent sales stand behind it.

Scale: 0–100 (0–19 strong buyer’s, 20–39 buyer’s, 40–60 balanced, 61–80 seller’s, 81–100 strong seller’s). Term: https://own.miami/methodology#market-index

## Every condo sale on record (from recorded deeds)

The MLS counts the sales a broker listed. It misses developer closings, where buyers who signed years earlier close directly with the developer, and resales that close without going through the MLS. Every sale, listed or not, ends with a deed recorded at the county, so we count deeds. We read every deed the Miami-Dade Clerk has indexed since 2012 and keep the ones for a condominium unit, one row per transfer.

- A condo sale: the deed names a unit or a condominium, under a declaration recorded in the county’s Official Records. Deeds under a plat (townhome and house subdivisions) are left out. Condo townhouses and villas are condos in law and are counted. Commercial, office, industrial, parking and boat-slip units are not counted. Units the Property Appraiser codes as hotel condominiums count as sales in hotel-and-residence towers (a condominium declared at most ten years before the sale, such as E11EVEN Hotel & Residences) and not in older condo-hotels, where they are hotel rooms. We use the Appraiser’s land-use code (the unit’s, else the condominium’s usual code), or the condominium’s name when there is no code.
- One sale per transfer: several deeds for the same unit on the same day at the same price (co-owners, corrections) count once, and a deed recorded again for the same sale (the same unit at a price within 2% within 120 days, when the Property Appraiser shows a single sale, or within 30 days when it has no record yet) is folded into it. Transfers under $1,000 (family, trust and quitclaim deeds) and from $1,000 to $49,999 (timeshare weeks, parking spaces, partial interests) are not sales.
- New construction: the first sale of a unit in a condominium declared within the last six years (declarations are recorded at pre-sale, so towers close four to five years later), a first sale within a year of the building’s completion, or a first sale the MLS marks as new construction. It is not a first sale when the Property Appraiser’s history shows an earlier sale of the same unit (this also catches units resold before our deed records begin in 2012); a developer closing on the building’s parent folio and a later resale on the unit’s own folio count as the same unit. A building the Property Appraiser shows finished more than five years before the sale, or ten or more years before its condominium declaration (a conversion of an older building), is not new construction. Ten or more first sales in one condominium on one day, in a building finished two or more years earlier or at mostly identical prices, are a bulk sale and counted apart.
- Resale on the MLS: the deed matches a countywide MLS closing of a condominium, condo townhouse or villa: the same unit (folio) at a price within 2%, recorded from 30 days before to 120 days after the closing; the same building at a price within 1% with a matching unit number, recorded from 10 days before to 60 days after; or the same building, the exact price and the same unit number up to 120 days after. Each MLS closing matches one deed at most. A resale with no matching closing did not close through the MLS (the MLS history has no withdrawn or expired listings, so we cannot say whether it was ever listed). The split starts in December 2019: the countywide MLS closing history begins in mid-October 2019 and deeds are recorded weeks after closing, so December is the first month every deed can be matched; the MLS new-construction flag is used from 2024, when the MLS fills it in. Comparisons with the MLS count the MLS closings that are legal condos (every MLS closing matched to a condo deed, whatever its MLS type, plus MLS condominium closings with no deed found) over 12 months or a full year, because deeds are counted by recording month and MLS closings by closing month.
- The Property Appraiser reviews every deed. When it marks a deed as not a sale at all (a quitclaim, corrective or tax deed, a life estate, a partial interest, a transfer between related companies, a trade, a transfer to a charity, or a package sale outside a buyout), that transfer is taken out of the total, on or off the MLS. Bank-owned, government, estate, distressed and other sales the Appraiser keeps out of its ratio study are still sales and stay in the total; the Data Room notes how many. The Appraiser posts weeks to months after recording, so the most recent months can still lose a few transfers; when two months stand at different stages of that review, year-over-year changes compare both before it.
- Building buyouts and bulk sales are shown apart and never in the total. A burst in an older building (declared at least 10 years earlier): at least 15 sales within 45 days, five times its usual quarter, clustered on a few days or at repeated prices; or, in a small building, at least 60% of its units (8 or more) sold within 120 days with no more than 20% through the MLS. The whole burst is set apart, with its same-day batches and repeated prices up to 12 months before it. When most of the burst is one day at one or two prices (or few distinct prices while the building keeps trading), it is a bulk sale: one buyer taking a block of units. Otherwise it is a buyout: a developer or investor buying out the owners, usually to terminate the condominium. Condo-hotel rooms among them are marked. We publish counts only, never a dollar total.

Counts are by recording month, usually one to three weeks after closing (one deed in ten is recorded more than six weeks later), so single months swing; 12-month and full-year totals do not. A deed for several units counts once. Cooperative apartments have no deed and are not counted. Figures are countywide; our tracked buildings cover a minority of the county’s condos, so we do not split deed counts by neighborhood. Anyone checking these counts against Florida’s sales files: DOR use code 004 also includes fee-simple townhouses (appraiser code 0410), so the comparable filter is the appraiser’s residential condominium code 0407. Sources: Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court official records, Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser, MIAMI REALTORS® MLS.

Checked against the state: in October 2026 we matched our counts, deed by deed (by Official Records book and page), with the Florida Department of Revenue’s final Sales Data Files for Miami-Dade. For 2017 to 2024, 99.5% or more of the condo sales we count each year are in the state’s files. The state’s condominium land-use code also covers villas and townhouses built on platted lots, which have no condominium declaration; we leave those out, so the state’s condo totals are higher than ours.

## Condo months of supply since 2013 (estimate)

The long-run months-of-supply chart on the Data Room is an Own.Miami estimate. Our countywide MLS history begins in October 2019 and keeps no past inventory, so the historical figures are derived from the monthly MIAMI REALTORS® / Florida REALTORS® Miami-Dade reports for townhouses and condos (active listings and closed sales), adjusted to condos only. The month’s live months-of-supply figure elsewhere on the page comes from the MLS feed directly and is not this estimate.

- Condo listings: the report’s active listings times the condo share of MLS condominium, townhouse and villa listings (from our MLS feed; before June 2026 that share is moved month by month in line with Redfin’s public Miami-Dade condo and townhouse inventory split; Redfin publishes no split before June 2014, so January 2013 to May 2014 keep the mid-2014 share).
- Condo sales: the report’s closed sales times the condominium share of the MLS countywide closings that month (from November 2019; earlier, Redfin’s public condo share of sales, calibrated to the MLS feed).
- Months of supply: condo listings divided by the average monthly condo sales of the trailing 12 months, the current month included (the MIAMI REALTORS® convention). Both halves stay on the report’s scale, so the ratio does not depend on how the report and the MLS feed count listings. August 2026: 13.6 months, the same as the live MLS figure.

It counts MLS-listed inventory only: developer units sold off-plan that never reach the MLS are not in it, so it understates what is available in new towers. Figures are countywide and do not compare with the neighborhood figures elsewhere on the Data Room, which cover only the neighborhoods we track. A month MIAMI REALTORS® later revises is updated here. Sources: MIAMI REALTORS® / Florida REALTORS® monthly Miami-Dade townhouse and condo reports, the MIAMI REALTORS® MLS, Redfin Data Center.

## Who owns Miami-Dade condos (Florida tax rolls)

The ownership chart on the Data Room reads the Florida Department of Revenue’s final Name-Address-Legal rolls for Miami-Dade, roll years 2017 to 2025, which we received from the state in October 2026. Each roll lists every parcel as of January 1; we keep one row per condo unit (the state’s land-use code 004).

- Owner’s primary residence: the unit carries a homestead exemption on the roll, which the owner can claim only for a permanent Florida residence.
- Company or trust: the owner’s name contains LLC, INC, CORP, LTD, TRUST or a similar word.
- Where the tax bill goes: the unit’s own address, another Florida address, another US state or territory, or abroad. The state file leaves most owner ZIP codes blank, so we do not split Miami-Dade from the rest of Florida.
- Owner names and mailing addresses are read only to sort each unit into these groups. They are never stored or published, and only countywide shares are shown.

A bill mailed abroad is a floor for foreign ownership, not the foreign share: many foreign owners have their bills sent to a manager or lawyer in Miami. The state’s condo land-use code also covers some villas and townhouses on platted lots with no condominium declaration, which our deed series leaves out.

## Condo and house prices from public records

The prices table on the Data Room sets condo resales from our recorded-deed series beside single-family house sales from the Florida Department of Revenue’s final Sales Data Files for Miami-Dade (roll years 2017 to 2025).

- Houses: sales of single-family homes (the state’s land-use code 001) that the state marks as qualified, arm’s-length sales (code 01), one parcel per deed (deeds that sold several parcels are left out), at $10,000 or more. Price per square foot uses the living area on the roll for that year, between 300 and 15,000 square feet.
- Each roll lists the sales of the year before plus part of its own year, and the newest one covers its own year only part of the way (the 2025 roll runs through August 2025). House figures therefore stop at the last full year the state file covers.
- Condos: resales from our deed series (closed through the MLS or not) whose unit has a folio, priced on the unit’s living area in the newest state roll, between 300 and 15,000 square feet. A median is published only with at least 100 sales in the year; the current year is marked to date.

These are recorded prices, not appraisals or asking prices. The state’s condo land-use code includes villas and townhouses on platted lots, which our condo series leaves out, so state condo counts run higher than ours.

_Based in part on information from the Southeast Florida Multiple Listing Service (SEFMLS) or from MIAMI Association of REALTORS® for the period October 14, 2019 through November 1, 2026._

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Source: Own.Miami — https://own.miami
Canonical page: https://own.miami/methodology
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