South Florida Highrise Condo Owners Pay Some Of Most Expensive Fees In North America
In this issue of the Miami Condo Market Intelligence Report™, we compare the cost of highrise condo living in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale - Palm Beach areas to 15 other markets in North America.
Volume 2025, Issue 43 (Subscribe here)
As a policy, portions of this report’s language and grammar may have been assisted by AI. All data, editing and fact-checking is always completed by a professional analyst.
For this week’s Miami Condo Market Intelligence Report™ newsletter, we analyze the newly published “Benchmark 2025 Highrise Edition” report from FirstService Residential to compare South Florida highrise condo association fees with 15 other markets around North America.
The analysis comes at a time when South Florida condo association boards are finalizing their 2026 operating budgets, and buyers are preparing to visit for the upcoming 2025-26 Winter Buying Season that begins in November.
An analysis of the report’s data of 17 markets across the United States and Canada reveals that the markets of Miami as well as the combined market of Fort Lauderdale - Palm Beach are amongst the most expensive in North America for highrise condo living.
The report ranks Miami as the second most expensive market - with an average monthly maintenance fee of $1.15 per square foot - behind only the New York condo market that has an average maintenance fee of $1.55 per square foot monthly.
It is worth noting, the Benchmark 2025 report includes a market called New York Co-Ops. While similar to condos, co-op ownership differs and this form of ownership is no longer common in South Florida. As a result, the New York Co-Op figure - a monthly maintenance fee of $2.00 per square foot - is ignored in this analysis.
The newly included market of Fort Lauderdale - Palm Beach ranks third at $1.02 per square foot monthly.
The Tampa - St. Petersburg market on Florida’s west coast ranks a distant eighth with an average monthly maintenance fee of $0.86 per square foot.
For a point of reference, the Tampa - St. Petersburg market is near the median monthly maintenance fee documented in the 86-page Benchmark 2025 report published on Sept. 29, 2025.
Given our focus on the South Florida condo market, this two-part series provides insightful information about the costs of living in a highrise tower in 17 markets throughout the United States and Canada.
The first part of this series - published in the Miami Condo Market Intelligence Report™ newsletter on Oct. 20, 2025 - focused on the three Florida markets of Miami, Fort Lauderdale - Palm Beach and Tampa - St. Petersburg tracked by FirstService Residential.
In this second report, we compares and contrasts the South Florida region to other markets ranging from Los Angeles to New York, and Atlanta to Vancouver.
“Benchmark analyzes operating costs and budgets from high-rise communities we manage across North America’s largest urban markets,” according to an introduction in the report from FirstService Residential CEO David Diestel. “FirstService Residential serves more than 9,100 residential communities in the United States and Canada, representing two million units with $10 billion in operating budgets. Our extensive footprint uniquely positions us to provide this valuable industry data.”
This is the second consecutive year that the “Benchmark Highrise Edition” report has been published. To read our analysis of the 2024 report, please visit:
https://peterzalewski.substack.com/p/miami-condo-fees-among-highest-in
Before diving into a comparison of Miami and Fort Lauderdale - Palm Beach to the other 15 markets in the 2025 Benchmark report, it is important to note a few things.
First, the Benchmark 2025 report issued a disclosure that basically states the findings are based on the company’s clients.
“The data presented contains budget averages from a sample of properties managed by FirstService Residential and does not represent industry standards or ideal ratios,” according to the report. “Every building association is unique, and this guide is not exhaustive but may be used as a tool to assist boards in their evaluations and in communication with their residents.
“Our goal is to provide boards with additional tools to assist them with their fiduciary responsibilities while elevating service as they drive positive change in their communities.”
Second, the 2025 report was expanded this year to include the market of Fort Lauderdale - Palm Beach, which was not an entry provided in the 2024 edition.
It is assumed the Fort Lauderdale - Palm Beach market refers to Broward and Palm Beach counties, but we are unsure as the report provided no explanation.
Remember, the tricounty South Florida region is comprised of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach where there are some 13,000 condo associations with nearly 610,000 units at the last count.
It makes sense that the 2025 Benchmark report added the Fort Lauderdale - Palm Beach market. After all, the South Florida region is a key market in the condo industry worldwide.
We have often said that South Florida is to condo development what Silicon Valley is to technology.
Joining the Fort Lauderdale - Palm Beach market on the Benchmark 2025 report’s list was the Texas market of Austin - Houston - San Antonio that was also added this year.
Third, the Benchmark 2024 report looked at Miami-Dade County based on the number of units in the projects. In the Benchmark 2024 report, condo statistics were provided for projects with more than and less than 300 units.
In the Benchmark 2025 report, the condo projects in Miami - no longer called Miami-Dade County for the report’s purposes - combines all of the projects regardless of unit count.
As part of this, the Benchmark 2025 report states that the sample size for the Miami market is comprised of 167 highrises managed by FirstService Residential compared to the Benchmark 2024 report that had a sample size of 122 buildings with more than seven stories.