Episode 2 · Property Types & Supply Dynamics
Bay Harbor Islands Housing: Sizes, Ages, Ownership
Bay Harbor Islands is a town of condominium buildings with a smaller set of detached houses on large, even lots. This guide shows what is built there: the mix of building types, how big and how old the houses are, how long owners keep them, and why two alike houses can carry very different assessed values.
💡 Key Insights & Takeaways
- Condominium and cooperative units are 85.2% of the residential parcels, and detached houses are 9.3%, as of 10 October 2026.
- The median house has 3,446 square feet of living area on a 10,312 square foot lot, and 74.3% of houses have three or more bathrooms.
- Land makes up 87.5% of the median house's just value, the county's full-value estimate, which is an estimate and not a sale price.
- The median house was built in 1957, and 69.8% of houses show a later effective year, which points to a renovation.
- The median house has been held 10.1 years, and 30.0% have been held 20 years or more, in ownership records that end on 30 January 2026.
On 10 October 2026, the median house in Bay Harbor Islands with a homestead exemption was assessed at $1,126,404, and the median house without one at $2,862,897. The houses are alike. The tax cap makes the gap, not the house. These are assessed values, not sale prices.
At a glance (as of 10 October 2026; assessed values are the county's estimate under the tax cap, not sale prices)
| Measure | Value | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Residential parcels | 2,778 | 10 October 2026 |
| Condominium or cooperative share of parcels | 85.2% | 10 October 2026 |
| Median house, living area | 3,446 square feet | 10 October 2026 |
| Median house, year built | 1957 | 10 October 2026 |
| Median house, years held | 10.1 years | ownership records to 30 January 2026 |
What kinds of homes are in Bay Harbor Islands?
Most of the town is condominium and cooperative units, and detached houses are a small share. Of the 2,778 residential parcels, 2,368 are condominium or cooperative units. That is a count of parcels, not of homes or households, and 108 of the 2,368 are cooperative parcels.
Table 1. Residential parcels in Bay Harbor Islands by type, n = 2,778, as of 10 October 2026.
| Type | Parcels | Share of parcels |
|---|---|---|
| Condominium or cooperative | 2,368 | 85.2% |
| Detached single-family house | 258 | 9.3% |
| Multi-family building | 56 | 2.0% |
| Vacant-class record | 54 | 1.9% |
| Townhouse and dock record | 42 | 1.5% |
The 54 vacant-class records are not 54 empty lots. Most are condominium records with no value or shared common areas, and 21 are vacant lots that carry a lot size and a value. The rest of this guide describes the 258 detached houses unless it says otherwise, because they are the one type with a size, a lot and an age that can be compared.
How big are the houses and the lots?
The median house has 3,446 square feet of living area on a lot of 10,312 square feet, across 258 houses as of 10 October 2026. The median condominium unit has 1,202 square feet of living area, across 2,363 units. The lots hardly vary, so the size of the building is what sets one house apart from the next.
Table 2. Detached houses in Bay Harbor Islands: size and layout, n = 258 unless noted, as of 10 October 2026.
| Measure | Median or share |
|---|---|
| Living area, median | 3,446 square feet |
| Lot, median | 10,312 square feet |
| Floor area as a share of lot area, median | 0.31 |
| Bedrooms, median (n = 257) | 4.0 |
| Bathrooms, median (n = 257) | 3.0 |
| Houses with three or more bathrooms (n = 257) | 74.3% |
| One-story houses | 59.3% |
| Houses with two or more stories | 40.7% |
| Houses on the single-family general zoning code | 98.8% |
A floor area ratio of 0.31 means the house covers about 31% of the lot's area in floor space. Nearly every house sits under the same single-family zoning code, so the rules on the lot are the same for almost all of them.
How old are the houses, and how many have been renovated?
The median house was built in 1957, and only 4.3% were built before 1950, across 258 houses as of 10 October 2026. A further 26.0% were built in 2000 or later. The town's houses are mostly mid-century in age, with a newer layer on top.
Renovation shows up in the county's effective year built, which is the year the county treats the house as having been last improved. It is a record of improvement, not a permit history. By that measure, 69.8% of houses carry an effective year later than the year they were built. Among those houses the median gap is 20 years, and the median effective year for all houses is 1982, against a median build year of 1957.
How long do owners keep their homes, and who owns them?
The median house has been held 10.1 years, and 30.0% of houses have been held 20 years or more, across 257 houses. The median condominium parcel has been held 6.4 years. The ownership records end with a transfer dated 30 January 2026, which is 8.3 months before 10 October 2026, so every hold time here is understated by about that gap.
Table 3. Ownership of Bay Harbor Islands detached houses and condominium parcels, as of 10 October 2026 (hold times from ownership records to 30 January 2026).
| Measure | Houses | Condominium parcels |
|---|---|---|
| Median years held | 10.1 years | 6.4 years |
| Held 20 years or more | 30.0% | Not reported |
| Held 30 years or more | 12.8% | Not reported |
| Owned by a trust or a company | 27.5% | 36.3% |
| Homestead exemption on the parcel | 77.1% | 37.6% |
Of the houses, 14.7% are owned in a trust and 12.8% by a corporation or limited liability company. A trust is an estate-planning tool that long-time owner-occupants often use, so it is not counted as an outside buyer. The corporate or company share is the nearer measure of ownership by a business.
The homestead exemption is the closest thing to an occupancy count that the county's records give. It is a floor under owner occupancy, because a house without the exemption may still be lived in by its owner. Of the 258 houses, 77.1% carry the exemption, and 37.6% of condominium parcels do.
Why do two alike Bay Harbor Islands houses carry such different assessed values?
The tax cap does it. Florida's Save Our Homes cap limits the yearly rise in a homesteaded house's assessed value to 3% or the change in consumer prices, whichever is lower, and the benefit generally resets when the house changes hands. So a house held for years is assessed well under its full-value estimate, called just value, while a house with no exemption is assessed close to it.
Table 4. Detached houses by homestead exemption, as of 10 October 2026. Assessed value is the county's estimate under the cap, not market value or what a house would sell for.
| Measure | With the exemption (n = 199) | Without it (n = 59) |
|---|---|---|
| Median assessed value | $1,126,404 | $2,862,897 |
| Assessed value as a share of just value, median | 28.2% | 83.7% |
For all 258 houses, the median assessed value is $1,364,949, and the median gap between just value and assessed value is $2,083,956. Comparing assessed values between two houses bought in different years mostly shows the year of purchase, not which house is worth more.
Land is the larger part of the value. At the median, land is 87.5% of a house's just value, and land is worth more than the building on 96.1% of houses. Land value is exactly $250 per square foot of lot on 58.1% of houses, so the difference in assessed value between houses is almost all in the building. The median assessed value per living square foot is $415. That is the assessed amount divided by living area, and it is not a price per square foot.
For the 166 houses with a qualified recorded sale, the median house is assessed at 1.12 times its last recorded sale amount, and 15.1% are assessed at 2 times that amount or more. The recorded amount is an old purchase price from qualified sales only, not a market value. This guide gives no tax bill, because the county's data used here carries none.
How many houses are low-built, and how much land is vacant?
A screen for low-built lots flags 12.0% of the 258 houses as strong candidates and 17.1% as moderate candidates, as of 10 October 2026. The screen looks for a high land share of value, a low building value, a small floor area against the lot, no sign of renovation and an older build year. Read it as a measure of how little is built on the lot. It does not predict that any house will be rebuilt.
Vacant land is scarce. Only 21 parcels are vacant lots that carry a lot size and a value, and 57.1% of those 21 are held by an entity. A trust counts as an entity here, and a trust is an estate-planning choice and not by itself a sign of a business buyer.
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