Miami has overtaken New York to become the second-most expensive city to live in the US, new analysis shows.
The Miami metropolitan area, home to global celebrities such as tech billionaire Jeff Bezos and star footballer Lionel Messi, has surpassed the Big Apple on cost of living for the first time on record.
The South Florida city is now second only to the San Francisco metro area in terms of overall living costs, latest data from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis show.
The increase, driven largely by a home-buying frenzy during the pandemic, will dampen the trend of cramped New York City-dwellers trading up for sunnier lifestyles.
Miami’s consumer price index has jumped 36 per cent since 2019, according to Bloomberg analysis of the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics figures released this month, while the city’s cost of living has also eclipsed New York’s for the first time.
House prices in the Miami area have risen 79 per cent compared with pre-pandemic figures, according to S&P Case-Shiller data, and Florida’s home insurance premiums are now the highest in the US following six major hurricanes in the past decade.
The average home insurance premiums in Miami stood at $8,292 (£6,200) in 2025, according to comparison website Insurify, compared with around $2,140 (£1,600) in New York, which is less vulnerable to extreme weather events.
It means the total cost of housing in Miami and its surrounding areas, including glitzy Palm Beach, now stands around 5 per cent higher than in New York and its suburbs, according to Bloomberg.
Alongside celebrities such as David Beckham, the Sunshine State has become a particular magnet for Maga influencers and bigwigs, including the president himself, after Donald Trump made his Mar-a-Lago resort his primary residence in 2019.
While this has inflated average house prices in the wider Miami area, overall costs are now so high in the state that they are pressing on those at the lower end of the wealth spectrum too.
Recent data published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition showed that Miami residents must now earn at least $97,000 to afford a two-bedroom home in the city, at around $2,440 a month in rent.
Although rent is typically higher in New York, costing around $2,700 a month according to US housing department data, wages in the city are much larger.
The median Miami-area worker earns $32.30 an hour, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, slightly below the nationwide average of $33.54 and meaning a typical salary of around $67,200. It compares with around $37.50 an hour in New York, or around $78,000 a year.
High costs may already be starting to reverse a Miami migration boom the city enjoyed in the wake of Covid. The wider state of Florida gained almost 600,000 new residents through migration in 2022, according to the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida, but that figure fell to 201,000 last year.