Buyers of luxury homes in Miami are demanding costlier designs and flipping their properties more than they did a decade ago, according to panelists who spoke Wednesday at The Real Deal Miami Real Estate Forum 2025.
“Doing architecture in Miami allows us to do those outdoor spaces that, in other parts of the country, you wouldn’t be able to do,” said panelist Ralph Choeff, founding partner of Miami-based Choeff Levy Fischman Architecture + Design. But now, luxury home buyers want more.
“Clients today are more demanding,” Choeff said. “They want the all-in-one house that they never have to leave for any reason. So, in their house, if you can get a bowling alley, you get a bowling alley. If you can get a shooting range, you get a shooting range … The client of the ‘90s and the client of the 2000s is not the same client in ’25.”
Design is commanding greater attention as more buyers seek primary residences in Miami, not just second homes, said panelist Pascal Nicolai, a Miami-based spec developer of luxury homes. “The best house is the one you want to stay inside and live in forever,” he said. “We try to make spec houses very personal …. The idea is, when you go into the house, you feel the vibe.”
However, as residential property values escalate, some buyers are selling custom-designed luxury homes soon after buying them, said panelist Max Strang, founder and managing partner of Miami-based Strang Design.
“We’ll be working with an owner, an end user, for several years, designing, permitting, building. They move in, the Realtors swarm them, and they end up selling their forever house,” Strang said.
“Probably four or five of our clients thought they were going to be living in their house, and they love it, but sometimes the money talks,” he said. “We’re seeing that a lot because of the increase in property values.”
The panelists agreed that some buyers demand luxury home designs that are more expensive than they can afford.
“If we sense that there is an impossible matchup of budget and program, you have to have those decisions [made] upfront, so we’re not wasting everybody’s time and everybody’s money,” Strang said.
Yet many wealthy buyers are willing to pay more than architects expect to get the home and location they want, Choeff said, citing his work on a Miami Beach mansion for former soccer star David Beckham, president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF.
“The buyers of today will spend a lot more money than you think they will,” he said. “Certain residences are put up at a certain price, and you say, ‘I don’t know if we’ll get this price, but we’ll settle for this price.’ But they get it. And an example is, Beckham spent $72.3 million on a house we designed on North Bay Road.”
Past trends in residential architecture in Miami have included a preference for Art Deco and Mediterranean designs, and new trends are emerging, the panelists said.
“It was probably the very late ‘90s and early 2000s when Modernism started to creep back in and was accepted and desired. A lot of that can get bastardized right now,” Strang said.
“I don’t think we’re going straight back to the Mediterranean Revival,” he said. “There are going to be more traditional influences coming in. But the challenge for us is to make it design forward.”
