What if you bought Miami condo in 2000?
Real estate · House. The hindsight answer, year by year, against the only benchmark that matters.
Could you have picked it? Play4.2× · S&P 500 same money: $4,626
$1,000 in Miami condo at the start of 2000 would be worth about $4,200 today. A plain S&P 500 index fund over the same years would have made more — the boring option won.
The story
Miami condos are where American property booms go to become theatrical. In the early 2000s, speculators bought apartments in unbuilt towers with small deposits, aiming to flip the contracts before completion. Prices more than doubled in a few years, cranes filled the skyline, and much of the buying was speculation rather than housing. When the bubble burst after 2006, Miami was among the hardest-hit US markets: condo prices fell by more than half, many new towers stood largely empty, and foreclosures piled up.
Recovery came partly from abroad, as Latin American buyers, often paying cash, snapped up discounted units in the early 2010s. The pandemic brought another wave of demand from people and companies moving to Florida from colder, higher-tax states. Then the June 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, which killed 98 people, prompted Florida to require structural inspections and fully funded repair reserves for older buildings. Soaring association fees, special assessments and insurance costs subsequently cooled demand for older condos even as new luxury towers sold well.
The lesson: Small deposits on unbuilt property magnify both directions; leverage is how a housing boom turns into a speculative one and a correction into a crash.
$1,000 invested at the start of each year
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $100 | $4,200 | $4,626 | 4.2× |
| 2003 | $130 | $3,231 | $7,727 | 3.2× |
| 2005 | $220 | $1,909 | $5,763 | 1.9× |
| 2007 | $290 | $1,448 | $4,789 | 1.4× |
| 2008 | $250 | $1,680 | $4,626 | 1.7× |
| 2010 | $140 | $3,000 | $6,071 | 3.0× |
| 2012 | $130 | $3,231 | $5,312 | 3.2× |
| 2015 | $200 | $2,100 | $3,301 | 2.1× |
| 2018 | $250 | $1,680 | $2,519 | 1.7× |
| 2020 | $270 | $1,556 | $2,092 | 1.6× |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
Best entry point in our set: 2000, turning $1,000 into $4,200. The S&P 500 from that same year: $4,626.
Now try it without hindsight. The wheel decides the year and the asset class, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick, and we simulate to today. Miami condo is one of 258 positions on the wheel — including the ones that went to zero.
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